難波津に御船下ろ据ゑ八十楫貫き
今は漕ぎぬと妹に告げこそ
今は漕ぎぬと妹に告げこそ
- Roma-ji
-
Naniwatsu ni mifune orosue yasoka nuki ima wa koginu to imo ni tsugekoso
- English Translation
-
At Naniwa's port
we launch the great ship and set
eighty oars in place;
"Now he has rowed out," I pray
someone tell my wife for me
- Meaning
- At Naniwa harbor we have launched the ship and fitted it with many oars. Someone, please tell my wife that now I have rowed away.
- Commentary
-
Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4363
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."
We have launched the ship at Naniwa and fitted many oars; please tell my wife I have now rowed away: the poem wishes word of his departure to reach his wife. According to the left note, Okinaga no Kunishima, senior clerk and escort officer of Hitachi Province, presented seventeen poems on the fourteenth day of the second month, and the clumsy ones were left out. This is the first, and with the next poem it forms a pair by the same author.
The author, Wakatoneribe no Hirotari, was a guard from Ubaraki District in Hitachi; nothing more is known of him.
The first line, "Naniwatsu ni," names the harbor from which the guards sailed.
The second line, "mifune orosue," hypermetric, means launching and setting the ship in the water; orosu here is a dialect form of oroshi.
The third line, "yasoka nuki," "fitting eighty oars," shows the departure of a great ship.
The fourth line, "ima wa koginu to," "that now he has rowed out," is the message he wants delivered.
The closing line, "imo ni tsugekoso," uses the wishing particle koso: please tell my wife. Another Hitachi poem ends "imo ni tsugikoso" with the same wish.
- Author
- Wakatoneribe no Hirotari
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Unahara no yutakeki mitsutsu ashi ga chiru Naniwa ni toshi wa henubeku omōyu
- Next Poem
-
Sakimuri ni tatamu sawaki ni ie no imu ga narubeki koto o iwazu kinu kamo