Oto nomi o kikite ya koimu masokagami tadame ni aite koimaku mo itaku

音のみを聞きてや恋ひむまそ鏡
直目に逢ひて恋ひまくもいたく

Roma-ji: Oto nomi o kikite ya koimu masokagami tadame ni aite koimaku mo itaku
English Translation: Shall I only hear
rumors of you and still long?
Like a clear mirror,
meeting you with my own eyes,
longing would be deeper still
Meaning: Must I go on loving you only by hearing rumors of you? If I met you face to face, my longing would surely grow far deeper.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2810

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Questions and Answers"
Must the speaker go on loving only by hearing rumors, unable to meet the other person, when meeting face to face would make the longing all the deeper? This poem sings of love for someone not yet met. It shows the frustration of a love that grows on rumor alone and finds no fulfillment.
This is a question-and-answer poem, paired with the next by the left note "the two poems above." To this lament the next poem replies that it must have been to hear these words that the speaker saw even a bright moonlit night as darkness. Both this poem and the next set the pillow word "masokagami" in their third lines, so question and answer are bound by the same word.
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, "oto nomi o": "only rumors." "Oto" means reputation or rumor, and "nomi" limits it to that alone.
Second line, "kikite ya koimu": "shall I love, only hearing?" The particle "ya" is answered by the conjectural "mu" in its attributive form, a kakari-musubi construction, and a pause falls after the second line.
Third line, "masokagami": a clear, bright mirror; because a mirror is something one looks into directly, it serves as a pillow word attached to "tadame." The same "masokagami" appears in the third line of the next poem.
Fourth line, "tadame ni aite": "meeting with my own eyes." "Tadame" means seeing directly with one's own eyes, set against "oto," rumor, in the first line.
Fifth line, "koimaku mo itaku": "the longing would be intense." "Koimaku" is "kou" with the nominalized form of the conjectural "mu," meaning the love that would come. Breaking off on the continuative "itaku" leaves a lingering resonance.
Source: Manyoshu
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