Ashihiki no yama mo chikaki o hototogisu tsuki tatsu made ni nani ka kinakanu

あしひきの山も近きを霍公鳥
月立つまでに何か来鳴かぬ

Roma-ji: Ashihiki no yama mo chikaki o hototogisu tsuki tatsu made ni nani ka kinakanu
English Translation: Though the mountains
with their foot-dragging slopes are near,
hototogisu,
until the new month has come
why do you not come and sing
Meaning: The mountains are so near, hototogisu—why haven't you come to sing, even now that the new month has begun?
Commentary: Book Seventeen 3983

Headnote: "It is already some days into the fourth month since summer began, and still I have not heard the hototogisu call; so I composed two poems of complaint"
Though the mountains are near, why does the hototogisu not come and sing even as the new month begins?—a poem of impatient waiting framed as complaint. This is one of two poems Yakamochi composed in Etchū on the twenty-ninth day of the third month of 747, complaining that, though days had passed since the beginning of summer, he had yet to hear the hototogisu. According to the left note, the bird is sure to come and sing on the first day of summer, but Etchū is a land with few orange trees, and so he put his feelings into verse. It expresses the frustration of having to wait in Etchū for a song heard as a matter of course 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 hototogisu is certain to come and sing on the first day of summer. Moreover, oranges are rare in the climate of Etchū. Therefore Ōtomo no Sukune Yakamochi, stirred in his heart, composed these poems (twenty-ninth day of the third month)."

First line, "ashihiki no": a pillow word for mountains.
Second line, "yama mo chikaki o": o is adversative—"though the mountains are near." At Kuni, in 3911, he sang that "living by the mountains" there was no day the bird did not sing; in Etchū it does not sing though the mountains are near, a contrasting situation.
Third line, "hototogisu": set as if calling to the bird awaited.
Fourth line, "tsuki tatsu made ni": "until the month has turned," that is, until the fourth month.
Fifth line, "nani ka kinakanu": ka is interrogative, bound to nu, the attributive of the negative zu—"why do you not come and sing?", asked with resentment. In 3988 of this book he sings of joy at last hearing its distant call.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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