Tada ni kozu koyu koseji kara iwase fumi nazumi zo waga koshi koite sube nami

直に来ずこゆ巨勢道から岩せ踏み
なづみぞ我が来し恋ひてすべなみ

Roma-ji: Tada ni kozu koyu koseji kara iwase fumi nazumi zo waga koshi koite sube nami
English Translation: Not the straight way here,
but from here by Kose road,
treading rocky shoals,
hard and halting I have come—
longing, and no help for it
Meaning: Not coming straight, but taking the Kose road from here, treading the rocky shallows, I have struggled my way to you—for I longed for you and could do nothing else.
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems 3257

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Envoy"
This poem follows the preceding envoy. Not taking the short way but going round by the Kose road, struggling over rocky shoals, the speaker came because longing left no choice. The left note says that a certain text makes this poem the envoy to a chōka that sings “you who went off saying you would gather abalone pearls washed up on the shore of Ki—when will you come?”; it is given in detail below, but following an old text it is also entered here. Poem 3320 of this book is nearly identical, and its chōka (3318) is a wife’s song of waiting for a husband gone to Kii.
The poet is unknown. Book Thirteen is built mainly of anonymous chōka and their envoys, and many of its poems preserve the air of old songs and ritual verse.

The first line, “tada ni kozu,” means “not coming straight,” indicating a roundabout route. In 3320 it reads “tada ni yukazu.”
In the second line, “koyu” means “from here,” and “kara” marks the route: “from here by way of the Kose road.” Kose lay around present-day Furuse in Gose, Nara, on the way to Kii.
The third line, “iwase fumi,” means “treading the rocky shallows,” making the hardship of the road concrete.
In the fourth line, “nazumu” means to struggle or labor along. Answering the particle “zo,” the line closes with “shi,” the attributive of the past auxiliary “ki,” in kakari-musubi.
In the closing line, “sube nami” adds “mi” to the stem of “sube nashi” (helpless): “because I longed and could do nothing,” the reason added by inversion.
Source: Manyoshu
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