Mezurashiki kimi o mimu to koso hidarite no yumi toru kata no mayone kakitsure

めづらしき君を見むとこそ左手の
弓取る方の眉根掻きつれ

Roma-ji: Mezurashiki kimi o mimu to koso hidarite no yumi toru kata no mayone kakitsure
English Translation: Hoping I might see
you, so rarely seen, my love,
it is for that I
scratched the brow on my left side,
the side where the bow is held
Meaning: It was in hope of seeing you, so seldom seen, that I scratched my eyebrow on the left side, the side where one holds the bow.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2575

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
The speaker scratched the eyebrow on the left, the side that holds the bow, in hope of seeing a beloved rarely met. Drawing on the folk belief of the time that an itching eyebrow foretold a meeting with one's love, it entrusts the longing for a meeting to the small gesture of scratching the brow.
It belongs to the category "Expressing One's Feelings Directly." Poems that treat a scratched eyebrow as a sign of meeting a lover also appear as poems 2408 and 2614 of this book, a motif that recurs in the love poems of Book Eleven of the Man'yoshu.
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, "mezurashiki": "rare and dear." It carries affection for a beloved who is seldom met.
Second line, "kimi o mimu to koso": "it is in hope of seeing you." The line has an extra syllable, and the particle "koso" corresponds to the realis form "tsure" at the end.
Third line, "hidarite no": "of the left hand." The fourth line adds that it is the hand that holds the bow.
Fourth line, "yumi toru kata no": "the side that holds the bow." Since the bow is held in the left hand, the left side is described in this way.
Fifth line, "mayone kakitsure": "I scratched my eyebrow." "Tsure" is the realis form of the perfective auxiliary "tsu," closing in agreement with "koso" in the second line.
Source: Manyoshu
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