Kaze fukanu ura ni nami tachi naki na o mo ware wa oeru ka au to wa nashi ni

風吹かぬ浦に波立ちなき名をも
我れは負へるか逢ふとはなしに

Roma-ji: Kaze fukanu ura ni nami tachi naki na o mo ware wa oeru ka au to wa nashi ni
English Translation: In a windless bay
the waves still rise up and swell:
a name with no ground
is what I am made to bear,
though we have never even met
Meaning: As waves rise in a bay where no wind blows, I have come to bear a baseless name, though we have never met.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2726

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
Just as waves rise in a bay though no wind blows, the speaker has been saddled with a groundless rumor of love without ever having met the person. The comparison of waves rising without cause to rumors with no basis is easy to grasp.
As a poem expressing feelings through things, it speaks through waves in a bay to voice the unfairness of rumor. The preceding poem told of a love kept from showing; this one laments that a love never shown has nonetheless spread as gossip, so a hidden love and the rumors that expose it are set side by side.
The original text notes a variant for the last line, "onna to omoite," "thinking of her as a woman." Here the main text, "au to wa nashi ni," is followed.
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, "kaze fukanu": "where no wind blows." "Nu" is the attributive form of the negative "zu," modifying the following "ura," "bay."
Second line, "ura ni nami tachi": "waves rise in the bay." The lines up to here form a preface, leading from waves that rise without cause to the "baseless name" that follows.
Third line, "naki na o mo": "even a baseless name." "Naki na" is a rumor of love one has done nothing to deserve, with the particle "mo" added.
Fourth line, "ware wa oeru ka": "I have come to bear it." "Ru" is the attributive form of the continuative auxiliary "ri," and "ka" is an exclamatory particle; the poem breaks here.
Fifth line, "au to wa nashi ni": "though we have never met." Inverted with the fourth line, it insists at the end that the rumor has no substance.
Source: Manyoshu
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