Awazu tomo ware wa uramiji kono makura ware to omoite makite sanemase

逢はずとも我れは恨みじこの枕
我れと思ひてまきてさ寝ませ

Roma-ji: Awazu tomo ware wa uramiji kono makura ware to omoite makite sanemase
English Translation: Though we do not meet,
I shall never bear you spite:
take this pillow here,
think of it as being me,
and lay your head on it to sleep
Meaning: Even if we do not meet, I will not resent you. Think of this pillow as me, and lay your head on it as you sleep.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2629

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Even if they cannot meet, she will bear no grudge, and asks her lover to think of this pillow as herself and sleep with it: a woman's poem addressed to her beloved. Without reproaching him for the loneliness of their separation, she entrusts a pillow to him in her place, revealing a modest and deeply affectionate heart.
This poem speaks through the pillow, an object of the bedchamber, and from here love poems on pillows continue with the wooden pillow of the next poem and the arm-pillow of the one after. The device of offering the pillow as a stand-in for herself carries her longing to share his bed.
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, "awazu tomo": "even if we do not meet." The particle "tomo" expresses a concessive hypothesis, supposing that they cannot meet.
Second line, "ware wa uramiji": "I shall not resent you." The negative volitional auxiliary "ji" shows her resolve not to blame him, and the poem breaks here.
Third line, "kono makura": "this pillow," the demonstrative "kono" pointing to the pillow at hand that she entrusts to him.
Fourth line, "ware to omoite": "thinking it is me," the wish that he regard the pillow as her stand-in.
Fifth line, "makite sanemase": "lay your head on it and sleep." "Maku" means to use as a pillow or to sleep together, the "sa" of "sanu" is a prefix, and "mase" is the imperative of the honorific auxiliary "masu."
Source: Manyoshu
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