Wagimoko ni au yoshi o nami suruga naru fuji no takane no moetsutsu ka aramu

我妹子に逢ふよしをなみ駿河なる
富士の高嶺の燃えつつかあらむ

Roma-ji: Wagimoko ni au yoshi o nami suruga naru fuji no takane no moetsutsu ka aramu
English Translation: To my dearest love
there is no way I can go,
so like Suruga's
lofty peak of Mount Fuji
must I go on burning still
Meaning: With no way to meet my dearest love, must I go on burning, like the lofty peak of Fuji in Suruga?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2695

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Having no way to meet his beloved, a man wonders whether he must keep burning with love as the lofty peak of Fuji in Suruga keeps burning. The grand image, laying an undying love over the smoking form of Mount Fuji, is striking.
From this poem, poems on Mount Fuji continue, and poem 2697 also speaks of "the lofty peak of Fuji, burning." Fuji was then known as a fire-spouting mountain, and the long poem on Mount Fuji in Book Three, poem 319, also sings of fires quenched by snow and falling snow quenched by fire.
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, "wagimoko ni": "to my dearest love." Wagimoko is a man's affectionate word for his beloved.
Second line, "au yoshi o nami": "since there is no way to meet." "Yoshi" means a means or way, and "o nami," "since there is no," is the so-called mi construction.
Third line, "suruga naru": "in Suruga." "Naru" indicates location; from here to the fourth line is a preface leading to "burning" in the last line.
Fourth line, "fuji no takane no": "of the lofty peak of Fuji." "No" means "like," making the smoking peak of Fuji a figure for the fire of love.
Fifth line, "moetsutsu ka aramu": "must I go on burning?" The particle "ka" and the attributive of the conjectural "mu" form a kakari-musubi, ending as if he were questioning himself about a love with nowhere to go.
Source: Manyoshu
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