Tomoshibi no kage ni kagayou utsusemi no imo ga emaishi omokage ni miyu

燈火の影にかがよふうつせみの
妹が笑まひし面影に見ゆ

Roma-ji: Tomoshibi no kage ni kagayou utsusemi no imo ga emaishi omokage ni miyu
English Translation: In the lamplight's glow
shimmering in the light there,
the living, breathing
smile of my beloved girl
in my mind's eye I can see
Meaning: The smile of my beloved, alive and real, shimmering in the glow of the lamplight, appears before me as an image in my mind.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2642

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
The smile of his living, breathing beloved, shimmering in the lamplight, still rises before him as an image: so the poem says. Overlaying the flickering light of the lamp with the smile of the beloved, it paints the memory of a night together beautifully and vividly.
This poem speaks through the lamp. The contrast of light and shadow, a smile rising out of the dark night in the lamplight, is striking, and the poem is highly regarded as one that captures the beloved's figure visually. Poems on the image of a beloved, such as poem 2634 in this book, are numerous in Book Eleven, but this one depicts the image concretely together with the lamplight.
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, "tomoshibi no": "of the lamp," the lamp that lights a room at night.
Second line, "kage ni kagayou": "shimmering in its light." "Kage" here means light, and "kagayou" means to sparkle and flicker.
Third line, "utsusemi no": "living, of this world." "Utsusemi" means one living in this world, indicating the beloved in the flesh rather than in a dream or vision.
Fourth line, "imo ga emaishi": "my beloved's smile." "Emai" means a smile, and "shi" is an emphatic particle.
Fifth line, "omokage ni miyu": "I see as an image," the figure of the absent beloved rising vividly in the mind, the poem closing with the verb "miyu."
Source: Manyoshu
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