Hanekazura ima suru imo ga urawakami emimi ikarimi tsukeshi himo toku

はねかづら今する妹がうら若み
笑みみ怒りみ付けし紐解く

Roma-ji: Hanekazura ima suru imo ga urawakami emimi ikarimi tsukeshi himo toku
English Translation: With the feather wreath
my girl now wears for the first time,
she is still so young
that smiling and then cross
she unties the cord she had tied
Meaning: My girl, who has only now begun to wear the feather wreath, is still so young that, now smiling, now cross, she unties the cord she had fastened.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2627

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
A girl who has only just put on the hanekazura, still young and fresh, unties the cord of her robe while smiling one moment and pouting the next. The paired phrase "emimi ikarimi" vividly captures the bashfulness and hesitation of a young girl opening her heart to her lover for the first time.
Speaking through the familiar cord of a robe, the poem expresses, from the man's point of view, the charm of a young beloved. The phrase "hanekazura ima suru imo" also appears in poem 705 of Book Four, and seems to have been a way of describing a girl just come of age.
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, "hanekazura": "the feather wreath," thought to be a hair ornament worn by girls on coming of age, though its exact form is not known.
Second line, "ima suru imo ga": "my girl who now wears it," a girl just putting on the wreath and on the threshold of womanhood.
Third line, "urawakami": "since she is so young." "Urawakami" adds the suffix "mi" to the stem of the adjective "urawakashi" to express a reason.
Fourth line, "emimi ikarimi": "now smiling, now cross." Repeating the suffix "mi" after the continuative forms of verbs shows two actions alternating, conveying a girl's gestures mixed with shyness and coquetry.
Fifth line, "tsukeshi himo toku": "she unties the cord she had tied." "Shi" is the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki"; she loosens the cord of her robe, yielding to the man.
Source: Manyoshu
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