Kurokami no shirakami made to musubiteshi kokoro hitotsu o ima tokame yamo

黒髪の白髪までと結びてし
心ひとつを今解かめやも

Roma-ji: Kurokami no shirakami made to musubiteshi kokoro hitotsu o ima tokame yamo
English Translation: Till my raven hair
has turned to white, we pledged,
and so we bound them,
these two hearts become as one:
would I now undo the knot?
Meaning: Till our black hair turns white, we vowed, and bound our hearts as one. Would I now untie that bond? Never.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2602

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
A woman declares her unchanging feelings: having bound her heart in a vow to stay together until black hair turns white, would she now undo it? She seems to be answering his suspicion that her heart has changed, insisting on the firmness of a heart pledged for life.
Pairing "bind" and "untie," the poem treats the heart as a cord to be knotted or loosened. Turning from the joy of an unexpected reunion in the preceding poem, this one speaks of a vow that looks ahead across long years, and like poem 2598 of this book it is a woman's poem that firmly denies any change of heart through a rhetorical question.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather love poems by people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "kurokami no": "black hair." It signifies the hair of youth and is set against the "white hair" that follows.
Second line, "shirakami made to": "until white hair," quoting a vow to stay together into old age.
Third line, "musubiteshi": "that we bound." "Teshi" is the perfective "tsu" with the past "ki," expressing a firm promise made in the past.
Fourth line, "kokoro hitotsu o": "this single heart." It shows a devoted heart that does not shift to another.
Fifth line, "ima tokame yamo": "would I now untie it? Never." "Me yamo" is rhetorical, and "untie" here answers "bind" in the third line as associated words.
Source: Manyoshu
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