Tarachine no haha ga kau ko no mayogomori ibuseku mo aru ka imo ni awazu shite

たらちねの母が飼ふ蚕の繭隠り
いぶせくもあるか妹に逢はずして

Roma-ji: Tarachine no haha ga kau ko no mayogomori ibuseku mo aru ka imo ni awazu shite
English Translation: Like the silkworm kept
by her milk-rich mother,
shut within its cocoon,
how gloomy I am, how oppressed,
not meeting my darling girl
Meaning: Like the silkworm her mother tends, shut up in its cocoon, how gloomy and stifled I feel, not meeting my beloved.
Commentary: Book Twelve Expressing Thoughts through Things 2991

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Thoughts through Things"
Using the silkworm kept by a mother, shut in its cocoon, as an introduction, a man sings of the gloom of not meeting his beloved. The image is also thought to overlay a daughter kept at home under her mother's watch. The original script of line four is famous as a playful rebus.
The poet is unknown. Book Twelve, titled the second part of "Love Poems Exchanged Old and New," gathers love poems by people whose names have not come down to us, arranged by category.

Line one, "tarachine no," is a pillow word for "haha," mother.
Line two, "haha ga kau ko no," means "the silkworm her mother raises."
Line three, "mayogomori," means "shut in its cocoon," and the lines up to here form an introduction leading, through enclosed gloom, to "ibuseku."
Line four, "ibuseku mo aru ka," means "how gloomy it is." In the original script this line is written with characters meaning "horse's cry, bee's hum, barnacle, spider, wild deer," using the neigh of a horse for "i" and the buzz of a bee for "bu," a playful rebus that is well known.
Line five, "imo ni awazu shite," means "not meeting my beloved," inverted with line four.
Author: Unknown
Source: Manyoshu
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