Uchihanai hana o zo hitsuru tsurugitachi mi ni sou imo shi omoikerashi mo

うち鼻ひ鼻をぞひつる剣大刀
身に添ふ妹し思ひけらしも

Roma-ji: Uchihanai hana o zo hitsuru tsurugitachi mi ni sou imo shi omoikerashi mo
English Translation: I sneezed suddenly,
yes, a sneeze has come to me:
like a sword and blade
my love who lies close at my side
must be thinking now of me
Meaning: I sneezed, yes, a sneeze has come. My beloved, who lies close beside me like a sword at one's side, must be thinking of me.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2637

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
The speaker rejoices that a sneeze must mean the beloved, who always lies close at his side, is thinking of him. Drawing on the old folk belief that a sneeze is a sign that someone is thinking of you, or a portent of meeting your lover, he tries to sense the heart of his faraway beloved.
Following the two preceding poems, it includes "tsurugitachi." While those poems lament the pain of love, this one takes a bright tone, learning of the beloved's feeling from a sneeze, and so treats another side of love through the same sword.
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, "uchihanai": "sneezing." "Uchi" is a prefix, and "hanai" is a verb meaning to sneeze.
Second line, "hana o zo hitsuru": "a sneeze I have sneezed," repeating the first line to emphasize the sneeze. The particle "zo" is answered by "tsuru," the attributive form of the perfective "tsu," in a kakari-musubi construction; the poem breaks here.
Third line, "tsurugitachi": a pillow word attached to "mi ni sou" (close to the body), since a sword is worn close at one's side.
Fourth line, "mi ni sou imo shi": "my beloved who lies close to me," the lover who shares his bed, strengthened by the emphatic particle "shi."
Fifth line, "omoikerashi mo": "must be thinking of me." "Kerashi," a contraction of the past "keri" and the conjectural "rashi," with the exclamatory particle "mo," expresses an inference drawn from evidence.
Source: Manyoshu
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