Ōroka ni ware shi omowaba kaku bakari kataki mikado o makarideme ya mo

おほろかに我れし思はばかくばかり
難き御門を罷り出めやも

Roma-ji: Ōroka ni ware shi omowaba kaku bakari kataki mikado o makarideme ya mo
English Translation: If my love for you
were but a shallow passing thought,
would I, to this length,
make my way past palace gates
so very hard to get through?
Meaning: If my love for you were only a shallow thing, would I have slipped out through the palace gates, so hard to pass, just to come to you?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2568

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
If the speaker's feeling were only casual, would he have left through palace gates so difficult to pass? The poem presses upon the beloved the depth of that love. The very act of slipping away from court service through closely guarded gates is offered as proof of devotion.
It belongs to the category "Expressing One's Feelings Directly" and drives home the strength of feeling through a rhetorical question. It suggests the love of an official serving at court, and is distinctive among the love poems of Book Eleven of the Man'yoshu for hinting at the speaker's position.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather the love poems of people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "ōroka ni": "carelessly, in a passing way." Placed at the opening, it presents the content of the supposition that follows.
Second line, "ware shi omowaba": "if I were to think of you." "Shi" is an emphatic particle, and "omowaba" is the irrealis form with "ba," making a hypothetical condition.
Third line, "kaku bakari": "to this extent." It modifies "kataki" in the fourth line and stresses how hard it is to pass the gates.
Fourth line, "kataki mikado o": "the gates so hard to pass." It refers to the strict guard at the palace gates and shows the trouble taken to leave through them.
Fifth line, "makarideme ya mo": "would I have withdrawn and come out? Surely not." "Me ya mo" combines the realis form of the auxiliary "mu" with the rhetorical "ya" and the exclamatory "mo," forming a strong rhetorical question.
Source: Manyoshu
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