Hatsuakikaze suzushiki yūbe tokamu to zo himo wa musubishi imo ni awamu tame

初秋風涼しき夕解かむとぞ
紐は結びし妹に逢はむため

Roma-ji: Hatsuakikaze suzushiki yūbe tokamu to zo himo wa musubishi imo ni awamu tame
English Translation: When the first autumn
wind blows cool across the dusk,
then to untie it
I tied my sash long ago:
all to meet my love again
Meaning: I tied this sash so that I might untie it on an evening when the first autumn wind blows cool, all so that I could meet my wife.
Commentary: Book Twenty Miscellaneous Poems 4306

Headnote: "Poems on the Tanabata festival, eight poems."
I tied this sash so that I might untie it on a cool evening when the first autumn wind blows, all to meet my wife: the poem sings, from the Herdsman's side, of waiting for the once-a-year meeting. The left note says it is the first of eight poems Yakamochi composed alone, gazing up at the River of Heaven. Drawing on the custom of lovers tying each other's sashes at parting and untying them at reunion, it entrusts the length of the year's waiting to the sash.
The author, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, son of Ōtomo no Tabito, is the poet thought to have been closely involved in compiling the Man'yōshū. At this time he was Junior Assistant Minister of Military Affairs.

The first line, "hatsuakikaze," is hypermetric and names the first autumn wind that signals the season of the seventh night of the seventh month.
The second line, "suzushiki yūbe," gives evening, the hour of meeting, adding the freshness of autumn's arrival.
The third line, "tokamu to zo," uses the emphatic zo, resolved by the attributive shi in the fourth line, stressing that the sash was tied precisely to be untied.
The fourth line, "himo wa musubishi," answers zo with shi, the attributive of the past ki. The poem pauses here.
The closing line, "imo ni awamu tame," is inverted, revealing afterward that the time of untying is the time of meeting his wife. It echoes a later poem of the set that sings of "untying the sash."
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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