我が母の袖もち撫でて我がからに
泣きし心を忘らえのかも
泣きし心を忘らえのかも
- Roma-ji
-
Waga haha no sode mochi nadete waga kara ni nakishi kokoro o wasurae no kamo
- English Translation
-
My mother, with her
sleeve she stroked me tenderly
and on my account
she wept; that heart of hers
I find I cannot forget
- Meaning
- My mother stroked me with her sleeve and wept for my sake, and that heart of hers I can never forget.
- Commentary
-
Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4356
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."
My mother stroked me with her sleeve and wept for me, and that heart I cannot forget: the poem recalls his mother at parting. It is the tenth poem from Kazusa. A Suruga guard's poem also tells of parents stroking his head, and both find a parent's love in the gesture of stroking.
The author, Mononobe no Otora, is recorded as a regular guard from Yamanobe District in Kazusa; nothing more is known of him.
The first line, "waga haha no," names his mother, the one remembered.
The second line, "sode mochi nadete," "stroking with her sleeve," pictures her tender gesture.
The third line, "waga kara ni," means "for my sake."
The fourth line, "nakishi kokoro o," "the heart that wept," takes in his mother's grief.
The closing line, "wasurae no kamo," "I cannot forget," ends in the exclamatory kamo. Like "wasure senu kamo" two poems before, it closes on what cannot be forgotten.
- Author
- Mononobe no Otora
- Source
- Manyoshu
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