Asazuki no himuka tsugekushi furinuredo nani shika kimi ga miredo akazaramu

朝月の日向黄楊櫛古りぬれど
何しか君が見れど飽かざらむ

Roma-ji: Asazuki no himuka tsugekushi furinuredo nani shika kimi ga miredo akazaramu
English Translation: Like the morning moon
facing the sun, Himuka's
boxwood comb grows old,
yet why is it that you, my love,
I can see and never tire?
Meaning: Though things have grown old, like a boxwood comb from Himuka, named for facing the sun as the morning moon does, why is it that I never tire of looking at you?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2500

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Through a boxwood comb from Himuka, long in use, the speaker wonders why, though so many years have passed, the speaker never tires of looking at the beloved, voicing an unchanging love as if puzzled by it. It reveals an affection that still feels love afresh for a long-familiar partner after many years.
It speaks through a boxwood comb, an item from a woman's daily life. Like poem 2488 in this book it takes the questioning form "nani shika," and poem 2503 sings of a boxwood pillow. It leads into a sequence on personal belongings, the mirror, the bedside and the pillow, in the poems that follow.
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, "asazuki no": a pillow word attached to "Himuka" in the second line, thought to arise because the morning moon appears to face the sun.
Second line, "himuka tsugekushi": "a boxwood comb of Himuka," a comb made of boxwood from the province of Himuka, famed for this product. The opening through this line forms a preface that, since a comb grows worn with use, leads into "furinuredo" in the third line.
Third line, "furinuredo": "though it has grown old." The aging of the comb is overlaid with the many years the two have shared.
Fourth line, "nani shika kimi ga": "why is it that you." The "ka" in "nani shika" is an interrogative binding particle, linked to "mu" in the fifth line.
Fifth line, "miredo akazaramu": "I never tire of seeing you." The conjectural "mu" in its attributive form answers the "ka" of the fourth line, expressing unchanging love in the form of wonder.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection
Source: Manyoshu
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