Michinoku no adatara mayumi hajiki okite serashimekinaba tsura hakame kamo

陸奥の安達太良真弓はじき置きて
反らしめきなば弦はかめかも

Roma-ji: Michinoku no adatara mayumi hajiki okite serashimekinaba tsura hakame kamo
English Translation: In Michinoku,
the bow of Adatara—
with its string undone,
if left to bend back too long,
could you string it once again?
Meaning: If you take the string off a bow of Adatara in Michinoku and leave it bent back, could you ever string it again?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Azuma Poems 3437

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Allegorical Poems"
If one leaves an Adatara bow unstrung and bent back, it can no longer be strung; so too the heart of a lover left alone will not return—so a woman is thought to warn. It is a figure natural to local people who knew the nature of bows well.
The left note reads "The poem above is from Mutsu Province." The Adatara bow, made of spindle wood from Mount Adatara in Mutsu, was famed as a fine bow.
The poet is unknown. The Azuma uta are thought to have been sung among the people of the eastern provinces, and they are marked by plain, open-hearted expression mixed with local dialect.

First line, "michinoku no": Mutsu Province; after 3427, the name of Mutsu is sung again.
Second line, "adatara mayumi": "Mayumi" is a bow of spindle wood; Adatara also appears in 3428.
Third line, "hajiki okite": "Having taken off the string," a hypermetric line.
Fourth line, "serashimekinaba": "Serashime" is leaving the bow bent back, and "kinaba" means if it comes to that.
Final line, "tsura hakame kamo": "Hakame kamo" means "could you string it?" ending rhetorically.
Source: Manyoshu
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