Onozuma o hito no sato ni oki ōhoshiku mitsutsu zo kinuru kono michi no aida

己妻を人の里に置きおほほしく
見つつぞ来ぬるこの道の間

Roma-ji: Onozuma o hito no sato ni oki ōhoshiku mitsutsu zo kinuru kono michi no aida
English Translation: My own wife I left
in another village there,
and with a heavy heart
kept looking back the whole way,
all along this weary road.
Meaning: Leaving my own wife in another's village, I came with a heavy heart, looking back again and again along the whole of this road.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Azuma Poems 3571

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems of the Frontier Guards"
Having left his wife in another village, a frontier guard has come down the road with a clouded, anxious heart, looking back again and again. The worry of leaving his wife among strangers is expressed as a heavy heart that lasts the whole way.
It is the last of the frontier guards' poems. Leaving one's wife in another's village is read as concern for a wife living apart from her husband.
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, "onozuma o": "Onozuma" means one's own wife, "ono" meaning oneself.
Second line, "hito no sato ni oki": "Leaving her in another's village"; the line is hypermetric.
Third line, "ōhoshiku": "Ōhoshiku" describes a heart clouded and uneasy.
Fourth line, "mitsutsu zo kinuru": "Zo" is a binding particle answered by the attributive "nuru."
Final line, "kono michi no aida": "All along this road"; the line is hypermetric with eight syllables, and the inversion gives the length of the road at the end.
Source: Manyoshu
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