父母に知らせぬ子ゆゑ三宅道の
夏野の草をなづみ来るかも
夏野の草をなづみ来るかも
- Roma-ji
-
Chichihaha ni shirasenu ko yue miyakeji no natsuno no kusa o nazumi keru kamo
- English Translation
-
For a girl unknown
to my father and mother
along Miyake road,
through the summer meadow grass
hard and halting have I come
- Meaning
- For the sake of a girl my father and mother know nothing of, I have struggled through the summer grasses of the Miyake road.
- Commentary
-
Book Thirteen Love Poems 3296
Headnote: "Envoy"
This is the envoy to the chōka (3295). Visiting the secret beloved whom he keeps from his parents, he has made his way along the Miyake road, tangled in the summer grass. The chōka takes the form of a dialogue: a parent asks the son, who wades waist-deep through the summer grass of the Miyake plain, for what girl he goes; the son answers that the lovely girl with mulberry-fiber cords in her black hair and a boxwood comb set in it is his wife. The envoy closes with the son telling of the hardship of the way.
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, “chichihaha ni,” means “to my father and mother,” taking up the parent who asked in the chōka.
The second line, “shirasenu ko yue,” means “for a girl I have not told them of,” with “yue” giving the reason and revealing a secret love.
The third line, “Miyakeji no,” is the road to the Miyake plain, around present-day Miyake and Tawaramoto in Shiki District, Nara.
The fourth line, “natsuno no kusa o,” means “the grass growing thick in the summer fields,” taking up the chōka’s “wading waist-deep through summer grass.”
In the closing line, “keru” (written “to come”) means “have come.” “Nazumu” means to struggle along, and with “kamo” he looks back on his laborious visits.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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