Oroka ni zo ware wa omoishi ofu no ura no ariso no meguri miredo akazukeri

おろかにぞ我れは思ひし乎布の浦の
荒礒の廻り見れど飽かずけり

Roma-ji: Oroka ni zo ware wa omoishi ofu no ura no ariso no meguri miredo akazukeri
English Translation: Lightly, I confess,
I once thought of this place—
yet the Bay of Ofu,
all around its rugged shore,
I look and never tire.
Meaning: I confess I used to think little of it; yet the rugged shores around Ofu Bay I can look at and never tire.
Commentary: Book Eighteen 4049

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems in which each expressed his feelings while sightseeing on reaching the lagoon."
The poet admits he had thought lightly of the place when he knew it only by report, but the rocky shores of Ofu Bay are something he never tires of seeing. Contrasting his feelings before coming with the wonder of actually seeing it, he praises the beauty of the lagoon of Fuse once more.
Tanabe no Sakimaro was a clerk in the Office of Sake Brewing who came to Etchū as the messenger of the Minister of the Left, Tachibana no Moroe. He was a poet of the late Man'yō period, skilled at long poems in praise of the court.

First line, "oroka ni zo": "oroka" means careless or casual. The emphatic particle "zo" forms a kakari-musubi construction with "shi" in the second line.
Second line, "ware wa omoishi": "shi" is the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki," completing the construction with "zo." It shows the poet's earlier feeling, and the poem pauses after the second line.
Third line, "Ofu no ura no": taking up "Ofu no saki" in Yakamochi's 4037, it names that bay.
Fourth line, "ariso no meguri": the area around a rough, rocky shore.
Last line, "miredo akazukeri": it repeats the sense of "miredomo akazu" in 4046. Of Ofu Bay, which Yakamochi had said the day before "is not a bay of which one could tire," the guest now answers that he looks and never tires.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
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