あしひきの山桜戸を開け置きて
我が待つ君を誰れか留むる
我が待つ君を誰れか留むる
- Roma-ji
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Ashihiki no yamazakurato o akeokite waga matsu kimi o tare ka todomuru
- English Translation
-
Leaving open wide
the door of mountain cherry
of the foot-weary hills,
I wait for you, but who is it
that holds you back from coming
- Meaning
- I have left the door of mountain-cherry wood standing open and wait for you. Who is it that keeps you from coming?
- Commentary
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Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2617
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
She has left the door of mountain-cherry wood open so that her lover can come straight in, yet who could be keeping him back? This is a love poem of lament. It is taken as the poem of a woman awaiting a man's visit, and her impatience at his failure to come is tinged with a suspicion that some other woman may be detaining him.
Where the preceding poem, 2616, is that of a man who could not enter for fear of the door's noise, this is the poem of a woman who waits with the door open, and the two pair through the image of the door. The next poem, 2618, is a man's poem telling how he hurried to meet his beloved but the night grew late, so the arrangement reads almost as an answer to the waiting woman's 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, "ashihiki no": a pillow word attached to "yama," mountain, here to the "yama" of "yamazakurato" in the second line.
Second line, "yamazakurato o": "the door of mountain-cherry wood." It is a door made of mountain-cherry timber, and the name of the cherry lends the door a touch of brightness.
Third line, "akeokite": "leaving it open." Being ready for her lover to enter whenever he comes shows the heart of one who waits.
Fourth line, "waga matsu kimi o": "you, for whom I wait." The line plainly states the feelings of the one who waits.
Fifth line, "tare ka todomuru": "who is holding you back?" The particle "ka" is answered by "todomuru," the attributive form of the verb "todomu," in a kakari-musubi construction, voicing in a question her resentment and suspicion toward whoever detains him.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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Okuyama no maki no itado o oto hayami imo ga atari no shimo no ue ni nenu
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Tsukuyo yomi imo ni awamu to tadachi kara ware wa kitsuredo yo zo fukenikeru