Surikoromo keri to ime ni mitsu utsutsu ni wa izure no hito no koto ka shigekemu

摺り衣着りと夢に見つうつつには
いづれの人の言か繁けむ

Roma-ji: Surikoromo keri to ime ni mitsu utsutsu ni wa izure no hito no koto ka shigekemu
English Translation: In a printed robe
I was clad, so in a dream
I saw; in waking life,
with which person, I wonder,
will the rumors gather thick
Meaning: I saw in a dream that I was wearing a printed robe. In waking life, with whom, I wonder, will the rumors gather thick?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2621

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Having dreamed of wearing a printed robe, the speaker wonders with whom rumors will now arise in waking life: this is a love poem. Taking the dream as an omen of reality, it seems to divine the course of a love not yet settled, with a mixture of hope and unease.
The headnote continues from the preceding poem, "Expressing Feelings through Things," and this poem considers the rumors of love through a printed robe. A printed robe was patterned by rubbing on the juice of plants, and since it caught the eye, there is a view that dreaming of wearing one was thought to foretell rumors. The contrast of dream and reality shows how seriously the people of the Man'yoshu regarded dreams. Following the unstitched robe of the preceding poem, 2620, it is one of the poems on robes.
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, "surikoromo": "a printed robe," dyed by rubbing patterns on with the juice of plants. It is the object through which the poem speaks.
Second line, "keri to ime ni mitsu": "I saw in a dream that I was wearing it." "Keri" is "kiru" (to wear) with the stative auxiliary "ri," and "tsu" is an auxiliary of completion; the poem breaks after this second line.
Third line, "utsutsu ni wa": "in waking life." Set against the "dream" of the second line, it raises the question of what the dream will mean in reality.
Fourth line, "izure no hito no": "of which person." It says that the partner in the rumors is not yet known, expressing the uncertain course of love.
Fifth line, "koto ka shigekemu": "will the rumors gather thick?" "Koto" means people's talk. The interrogative particle "ka" is answered by the conjectural "mu" in its attributive form, a kakari-musubi construction.
Source: Manyoshu
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