沼二つ通は鳥が巣我が心
二行くなもとなよ思はりそね
二行くなもとなよ思はりそね
- Roma-ji
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Numa futatsu kayowa tori ga su a ga kokoro futayukunamo to na yo mowarisone
- English Translation
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Between two marshes
goes the bird that keeps its nest—
this heart of mine
goes two ways, you think, divided?
Never think of me that way.
- Meaning
- Like a bird that nests going back and forth between two marshes—never think, please, that my heart goes two ways.
- Commentary
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Book Fourteen Azuma Poems 3526
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Sōmon (Love Exchanges)"
Never think that his heart goes back and forth between two people like a bird between two marshes, the singer pleads. To a lover who suspects him of infidelity, he swears a single heart.
It is one of the love exchanges, as poems of waterfowl continue. It contains obscure words, and readings vary.
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, "numa futatsu": "Two marshes," a figure for two women.
Second line, "kayowa tori ga su": "Kayowa" is an eastern form of "kayou": the nest of a bird that goes between the marshes. The first two lines form a preface.
Third line, "a ga kokoro": "My heart."
Fourth line, "futayukunamo to": "Namo" is an eastern form of "ramu": that it must go two ways.
Final line, "na yo mowarisone": "Na ... sone" pleads against: never think so.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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Mikukuno ni kamo no hahonosu koro ga ue ni kotooro haete imada nenau mo
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