Sakimori ni tachishi asake no kanatode ni tabanare oshimi nakishi kora wa mo

防人に立ちし朝開の金戸出に
たばなれ惜しみ泣きし子らはも

Roma-ji: Sakimori ni tachishi asake no kanatode ni tabanare oshimi nakishi kora wa mo
English Translation: As a frontier guard
I set out at break of dawn,
and at the gate,
grieving that our hands must part,
she wept—my dear one, ah me.
Meaning: At dawn, when I left the gate to serve as a frontier guard, she wept, grieving to let go of my hand—my dear wife, how is she now?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Azuma Poems 3569

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems of the Frontier Guards"
On the road, a frontier guard remembers his wife who, at the gate at dawn when he set out, wept and was loath to let go of his hand. The concrete scene of a morning parting is drawn with deep pathos.
It is one of the frontier guards' poems. Frontier guards were soldiers sent from the east to defend Tsukushi and other places, and Book Twenty contains many of their poems.
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, "sakimori ni": "As a frontier guard," setting out the theme of these poems.
Second line, "tachishi asake no": "Asake" means dawn; the line is hypermetric.
Third line, "kanatode ni": "Kanatode" is going out of the gate, the departure; like "kanato" in 3530, it refers to the gate.
Fourth line, "tabanare oshimi": "Tabanare" is letting go of hands, and "oshimi" means grieving over it.
Final line, "nakishi kora wa mo": "Wa mo" is exclamatory, thinking of the wife who wept; it ends in the same pattern as "ie no kora wa mo" in 3532 and 3534.
Source: Manyoshu
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