Tarachine no haha ga te hanare kaku bakari subenaki koto wa imada senaku ni

たらちねの母が手離れかくばかり
すべなきことはいまだせなくに

Roma-ji: Tarachine no haha ga te hanare kaku bakari subenaki koto wa imada senaku ni
English Translation: Since I left the hands
of my mother, milk-bestowing,
never even once
have I known such helplessness
as this I now come to feel
Meaning: Since I left my mother's hands, I have never yet known anything so utterly beyond my power to bear.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2368

Headnote: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
Since growing up and leaving the shelter of a mother's hands, the speaker has never felt anything so hopeless: this poem lays bare the pain of love. It sets the protected days under a mother's care against the turmoil of love now, and states plainly the helplessness of a love felt for the first time.
The headnote "Expressing One's Feelings Directly" names a category of poems that state the heart's thoughts openly without speaking through objects, and this poem stands at the head of the tanka in Book Eleven of the Man'yoshu. Fittingly for a book of love poems, it captures the threshold between life before love and life after it.
The author is unknown; according to the left note, the poem comes from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection. That collection is thought to contain both Hitomaro's own poems and poems by others that he recorded. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jito and Emperor Monmu, and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "tarachine no": a pillow word attached to "mother." By calling up the mother, it evokes the sheltered days of childhood.
Second line, "haha ga te hanare": leaving the mother's hands, that is, growing into adulthood. It marks the arrival of the age at which one comes to know love.
Third line, "kaku bakari": "to this extent," pointing to the sheer magnitude of the pain of love being felt now.
Fourth line, "subenaki koto wa": "something beyond all remedy." The particle "wa" singles out this feeling from all others.
Fifth line, "imada senaku ni": "though I have never yet done so." "Naku ni" is the nominalized form of the negative auxiliary "zu" followed by "ni," closing the poem with a note of deep feeling.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection
Source: Manyoshu
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