Nakanaka ni kimi ni koizu wa nawa no ura no ama ni ara mashi o tamamo karu karu

なかなかに君に恋ひずは縄の浦の
海人にあらましを玉藻刈る刈る

Roma-ji: Nakanaka ni kimi ni koizu wa nawa no ura no ama ni ara mashi o tamamo karu karu
English Translation: Rather than suffer so,
halfway in love with you, I
would at Nawa Bay
have been a fisher instead,
cutting, cutting jewel-weed
Meaning: Rather than half love you and suffer for it, I wish I had been a fisher of Nawa Bay, cutting and cutting the jewel-like seaweed.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2743

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
The speaker laments that, rather than suffering a half-hearted love, it would have been better to be a fisher cutting seaweed at Nawa Bay. Longing for a fisher's life untouched by love shows how deep the pain of love runs.
This poem is the variant recorded in the left note to poem 2743 under the words "a certain book has this poem." It replaces Hira Bay with Nawa Bay, reads the fourth line as "ama ni ara mashi o" and the last line as "tamamo karu karu," but the conceit is the same. Nawa Bay is thought to be the sea near Naba in present-day Aioi, Hyogo, setting the poem on the Harima coast rather than at Hira on Lake Biwa.
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, "nakanaka ni": "halfway, to no good end." Answering "mashi o" in the fourth line, it introduces a lament for what would have been better. It is the same as in the main version.
Second line, "kimi ni koizu wa": "rather than loving you." "Zu wa" is the negative "zu" with the particle "wa," exactly as in the main version.
Third line, "nawa no ura no": thought to refer to the sea at Naba in Harima. Only the place name differs from "hira no ura no" in the main version, and this is the chief variation.
Fourth line, "ama ni ara mashi o": "would that I had been a fisher." It spells out "ama nara mashi o" of the main version, giving a line one syllable too long. "Mashi" expresses a counterfactual wish.
Fifth line, "tamamo karu karu": "cutting and cutting the jewel-weed." The doubled verb expresses repeated action and works just like "tamamo karitsutsu" in the main version.
Source: Manyoshu
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