Haka no ue no konoe nabikeri kikishi goto chinu otoko ni shi yori ni kerashi mo

墓の上の木の枝靡けり聞きしごと
茅渟壮士にし寄りにけらしも

Roma-ji: Haka no ue no konoe nabikeri kikishi goto chinu otoko ni shi yori ni kerashi mo
English Translation: Over the grave mound
the branches of the tree bend low;
just as I had heard,
to the youth of Chinu, then,
her heart must have been inclined.
Meaning: The branches of the tree over the grave bend one way; just as I had heard, her heart must have leaned toward the youth of Chinu.
Commentary: Book Nine Elegies 1811

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem on seeing the grave of the Maiden of Unai, with tanka"; envoy
Seeing the branches over the maiden's grave bending toward the grave of the youth of Chinu, the speaker concludes that, as the story says, her heart must have leaned toward him. In the bending branches he reads a heart unchanged even after death.
This is the second envoy to the long poem 1809 in this book and the last poem of Book Nine. In the long poem, the youth of Chinu dreams of the maiden's death and follows her at once; here the tradition that her heart was his is confirmed by the look of the tree on her grave.
The author, Takahashi no Mushimaro, was a poet of the early Nara period who is thought to have served under Fujiwara no Umakai when Umakai was governor of Hitachi. He excelled at long poems on local legends and the landscape of the eastern provinces. This poem is taken from the Mushimaro Collection, which is thought to consist mainly of his own works.

The first line, "over the grave mound," refers to the maiden's grave.
The second line, "the branches of the tree bend low," is followed by a pause.
The third line, "just as I had heard," refers to the tradition.
The fourth line, "to the youth of Chinu, then," uses the emphatic shi; Chinu was a coastal area of Izumi.
The final line, "her heart must have been inclined," combines the perfective ni, the evidential kerashi and the exclamatory mo. It ends in the same form, ni kerashi mo, as the first poem of the book, 1664, "must have gone to sleep," so that the opening and closing poems answer each other: the first infers the deer's shared sleep from its silence, the last infers the maiden's heart from the bending branches.
Author: Takahashi no Mushimaro (from the Mushimaro Collection)
Source: Manyoshu
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