Inishie no shinoda otoko no tsumadoishi unai otome no okutsuki zo kore

古への信太壮士の妻問ひし
菟原娘子の奥城ぞこれ

Roma-ji: Inishie no shinoda otoko no tsumadoishi unai otome no okutsuki zo kore
English Translation: In the days of old
the youth of Shinoda wooed
her to be his wife;
the maiden of Unai's
grave, this is it here before me.
Meaning: This is the grave of the Maiden of Unai, whom the youth of Shinoda courted long ago.
Commentary: Book Nine Elegies 1802

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem composed on passing the grave of the Maiden of Ashinoya, with tanka"; envoy
Standing before the grave of the legendary maiden, the speaker is moved to think: this is the grave of the Maiden of Unai, courted long ago by the youth of Shinoda. His wonder at seeing with his own eyes the setting of a tale long handed down comes through.
This is the envoy to the long poem 1801 in this book. The long poem says that seeing the grave of the Maiden of Unai at Ashinoya, courted in rivalry by brave men of old and built by the roadside to be told of and remembered forever, where passersby stop to lament and weep and pass on the tale, the speaker too is saddened. In the legend of the Maiden of Unai, a girl of Unai District in Settsu (around present-day Ashiya and eastern Kobe, Hyōgo) was courted by two men, the youth of Chinu and the youth of Unai, and in her distress took her own life; her grave was built in the middle with the two men's graves on either side. The youth of Shinoda was a man of Shinoda in Izumi (around present-day Izumi, Osaka), the same person as the youth of Chinu.
The author, Tanabe no Sakimaro, was a poet of the mid-Nara period, a clerk in the Office of Sake Brewing who served Tachibana no Moroe. This poem is taken from the Sakimaro Collection, and it is widely held to be his own work.

The first line, "in the days of old," sets the legend in the past.
The second line, "the youth of Shinoda wooed," names one of the two men who courted the maiden.
The third line, "her to be his wife," renders tsumadou, "to court for a wife."
The fourth line, "the maiden of Unai's," names the legendary girl.
The final line, "grave, this is it here before me," uses zo and ends on the noun kore in an inverted form. Like the third line of 1810, it sings of the maiden's grave.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro (from the Sakimaro Collection)
Source: Manyoshu
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