Wagimoko ni koite subenami shirotae no sode kaeshishi wa ime ni mieki ya

我妹子に恋ひてすべなみ白栲の
袖返ししは夢に見えきや

Roma-ji: Wagimoko ni koite subenami shirotae no sode kaeshishi wa ime ni mieki ya
English Translation: Loving my darling
with no way to ease my heart,
my sleeves, mulberry-white,
I turned back before I slept:
did I appear in your dreams?
Meaning: Helpless with love for you, I turned back my sleeves as I lay down to sleep; did I appear to you in your dreams?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2812

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Questions and Answers"
Unable to do anything with his longing, a man turned back his sleeves as he slept and now asks the woman whether he appeared in her dreams. The poem draws on the belief of the time that sleeping with one's sleeves turned back would bring a meeting with one's beloved in dreams.
This is a question-and-answer poem, paired with the next by the left note "the two poems above." In the next poem the woman replies that it must have been the dream of the night he turned back his sleeves, and that it was truly as though she had met him. The next poem takes up "sode kaeshi" as "sode kaesu," and question and answer are joined through a dream.
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": "for my darling." "Wagimoko" is a man's affectionate word for his love, showing that this is a man's poem.
Second line, "koite subenami": "helpless with love." "Subenami" is the stem of the adjective "subenashi" with the suffix "mi," expressing a reason.
Third line, "shirotae no": from the sense of white mulberry cloth, a pillow word attached to "sode," sleeves.
Fourth line, "sode kaeshishi wa": "my turning back my sleeves." It rests on the belief that sleeping with sleeves turned back brings a meeting with one's lover in dreams. "Shi" is the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki," singled out by the particle "wa."
Fifth line, "ime ni mieki ya": "did I appear in your dreams?" "Ime" is the ancient reading of "dream," "ki" is the past auxiliary, and "ya" marks a question, asking whether he appeared in her dreams.
Source: Manyoshu
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