Sakurao no ō no shitakusa tsuyu shi areba akashite iyuke haha wa shiru tomo

桜麻の麻生の下草露しあれば
明かしてい行け母は知るとも

Roma-ji: Sakurao no ō no shitakusa tsuyu shi areba akashite iyuke haha wa shiru tomo
English Translation: In the cherry-hemp
field the grasses underneath
are laden with dew,
so stay here until the dawn,
though my mother come to know
Meaning: The grass beneath the cherry-hemp is wet with dew, so stay until daybreak before you go, even if my mother finds out.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2687

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
The dew lies on the grass beneath the hemp and will wet him on the way, so stay till dawn before you go, even if my mother finds out: so a woman holds her lover back. Using the dew as her pretext, she shows a bold love that does not fear her mother's watchfulness.
In this sequence on dew, the preceding poem set dew on the sleeve of a waiting woman, while here it is the dew that will soak the man on his way home. The Man'yoshu has many poems that fear a mother learning of a love affair; what sets this one apart is its declaration, "though my mother come to know."
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather the love poems of people whose names have not come down to us.

First line, "sakurao no": a word for a kind of hemp, leading into "hemp field"; it is said to be a flowering hemp, or hemp tinged with the color of cherry blossoms.
Second line, "ō no shitakusa": "the undergrowth of the hemp field." Ō is a field of hemp, calling to mind the path the man will take home.
Third line, "tsuyu shi areba": "since there is dew." "Shi" is emphatic, and "areba," the realis form with "ba," gives a definite reason for holding him back.
Fourth line, "akashite iyuke": "spend the night through and then go." "I" is a prefix to the verb, and the line ends in the imperative, with a pause here.
Fifth line, "haha wa shiru tomo": "even if my mother should know." "Tomo" marks a concessive supposition; added after the command by inversion, it impresses upon us the woman's resolve.
Source: Manyoshu
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