Yamakawa no sokie o tōmi hashiki yoshi imo o aimizu kaku ya nagekamu

山川のそきへを遠みはしきよし
妹を相見ずかくや嘆かむ

Roma-ji: Yamakawa no sokie o tōmi hashiki yoshi imo o aimizu kaku ya nagekamu
English Translation: Since mountains and rivers
set the far bounds so remote,
my beloved wife,
without ever seeing you,
must I go on grieving so
Meaning: With mountains and rivers stretching so far between us, must I go on grieving like this, never seeing my dear wife?
Commentary: Book Seventeen 3964

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Envoy to a poem, with tanka, composed when I suddenly fell gravely ill and came near to the road to the Yellow Springs, setting forth my sorrow in song"
Separated by far mountains and rivers, must he go on grieving without seeing his dear wife?—a poem of longing for his wife from his sickbed. This is an envoy to the chōka Yakamochi composed on the twentieth day of the second month of 747, lying gravely ill in the governor's residence in Etchū, expressing a grief so deep that he thought of death. The chōka laments that, having come down to Etchū by the sovereign's command and before much time had passed, he fell ill, thinking of his mother, his wife and his young children in the capital with no means to see them. Amid an illness so grave he thought of death, he voices the sorrow of being unable to meet his wife far off in the capital.
The poet, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was the son of the Major Counselor Ōtomo no Tabito. Appointed Governor of Etchū in 746, he spent five years there, later serving as Junior Counselor and Governor of Inaba before rising to Middle Counselor. He is thought to have played a central role in compiling the Man'yōshū.
The left note reads, "The above was composed in grief while lying ill at the governor's residence in the province of Etchū, on the twentieth day of the second month, spring, of the nineteenth year of Tenpyō."

First line, "yamakawa no": "of mountains and rivers," what lies between the capital and Etchū.
Second line, "sokie o tōmi": sokie is the distant edge, and tōmi a mi-construction, "because it is far."
Third line, "hashiki yoshi": "dear, beloved," a word attached to imo ("wife").
Fourth line, "imo o aimizu": "without meeting my wife."
Fifth line, "kaku ya nagekamu": ya is interrogative, bound to the attributive mu—"must I grieve so?", closing on a lament with no end in sight.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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