Okitsumo o kakusō nami no ioenami chie shikushiku ni koiwataru kamo

沖つ裳を隠さふ波の五百重波
千重しくしくに恋ひわたるかも

Roma-ji: Okitsumo o kakusō nami no ioenami chie shikushiku ni koiwataru kamo
English Translation: As the waves that hide
the weed growing far offshore
in five hundred folds,
thick and thousandfold, so I
go on longing without end
Meaning: Like the waves in five hundred folds that keep hiding the seaweed offshore, so I go on longing for you, a thousandfold, again and again.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2437

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Like waves rolling in fold upon fold, covering the seaweed offshore, the speaker's love goes on piling up without pause. The ceaseless longing is entrusted to the layering of waves that surge in one after another.
"Shikushiku ni" appears also in this book's poem 2427, "like the rippling waves in the shallows of the Uji River," so that river waves and sea waves alike sing of a love that piles up and presses in. This poem multiplies its numbers from "five hundred folds" to "a thousand folds" to show the depth of longing. The original script has "offshore seaweed," and the "mo" of the first line means seaweed in the sea.
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, "okitsumo o": "the seaweed offshore." "Tsu" is an old particle equivalent to "no"; the text writes mo with the character for "skirt," but it means seaweed in the sea.
Second line, "kakusō nami no": "of the waves that keep hiding." "Kakusau" is "kakusu," to hide, with the continuative "fu," depicting waves that cover the seaweed without cease.
Third line, "ioenami": "waves in five hundred folds." The lines up to here form a preface that leads, through the image of piling waves, to "a thousandfold, again and again."
Fourth line, "chie shikushiku ni": "a thousandfold, again and again." Raising the number from the "five hundred" of the third line, it shows longing that keeps on piling up.
Fifth line, "koiwataru kamo": "how I go on longing." "Wataru" adds the sense of continuing over time, and the exclamatory "kamo" closes the poem.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection
Source: Manyoshu
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