Masurao no yuki torioite idete ikeba wakare o oshimi nagekikemu tsuma

大夫の靫取り負ひて出でて行けば
別れを惜しみ嘆きけむ妻

Roma-ji: Masurao no yuki torioite idete ikeba wakare o oshimi nagekikemu tsuma
English Translation: When the stalwart men
took their quivers on their backs
and went out the door,
how they must have grieved, the wives,
loath to say their last farewells
Meaning: When the brave men took up their quivers and went off, how their wives must have grieved, unwilling to part.
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4332

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems of the frontier guards sent in rotation to the provinces of Tsukushi in the second month of Tenpyō Shōhō 7, year of the wood sheep," followed by "A poem with tanka composed afterward, pained at the grief of the frontier guards' partings."
When the brave men took up their quivers and went, how their wives must have grieved at parting: the poem imagines the sorrow of the guards' families. According to the headnote, it is the first envoy to a long poem (4331 in this book) composed afterward out of pain at the guards' grief at parting. The left note attributes it to Ōtomo no Yakamochi, Junior Assistant Minister of Military Affairs, on the eighth day of the second month. As junior assistant minister, Yakamochi was inspecting the guards at Naniwa, and he composed this on reading the poems they presented.
The author, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, son of Ōtomo no Tabito, was at this time Junior Assistant Minister of Military Affairs.

The first line, "masurao no," "stalwart men," honors the men departing as guards.
The second line, "yuki torioite," names the yuki, a quiver carried on the back, showing their departure as soldiers.
The third line, "idete ikeba," states a fact: "when they went out from home."
The fourth line, "wakare o oshimi," describes the wives unwilling to part.
The closing line, "nagekikemu tsuma," with kemu, conjecture about the past, ends on a noun: the wives who must have grieved. Where the guards' own poems thought of mothers and wives, this one imagines from the side of the wives left behind.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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