Shiratama o tsutsumite yaraba ayamegusa hanatachibana ni ae mo nuku gane

白玉を包みて遣らばあやめぐさ
花橘にあへも貫くがね

Roma-ji: Shiratama o tsutsumite yaraba ayamegusa hanatachibana ni ae mo nuku gane
English Translation: If I wrap white pearls
and send them off to her, then
with the sweet flag
and the tachibana blossoms
she will thread them all as one.
Meaning: If I wrap up pearls and send them, she will surely thread them together with the sweet flag and the tachibana blossoms.
Commentary: Book Eighteen 4102

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem wishing for pearls to send to my home in the capital [with short poems]."
The poet says that if he wraps pearls and sends them, his wife will thread them together with irises and tachibana blossoms. Attached to a long poem wishing to send pearls to his wife at home in the capital, it imagines her delight in adding pearls to the ornaments of the fifth-month festival.
Ōtomo no Yakamochi was the son of Ōtomo no Tabito, and from 746 he served as governor of Etchū. He is believed to have played a central role in compiling the Man'yōshū, and this book has the character of a poetic diary of his years in Etchū.
According to the left note, the long poem and its four short poems were composed on the fourteenth of the fifth month of 749, as the mood took him.

First line, "shiratama o": "shiratama" means pearls, taking up the "abalone pearls" of the long poem.
Second line, "tsutsumite yaraba": the irrealis plus "ba" forms a hypothetical condition, "if I wrap and send them," taking up the long poem's final line "tsutsumite yaramu."
Third line, "ayamegusa": the sweet flag used at the festival of the fifth day of the fifth month, made into hair ornaments and medicine balls.
Fourth line, "hanatachibana ni": tachibana blossoms, which along with the iris served as ornaments for the festival.
Last line, "ae mo nuku gane": "au" means to combine, and "gane" means "so that" or "since she will." It speaks of threading the pearls together with iris and tachibana.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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