Muratama no kuru ni kugi sashi katametoshi imo ga kokoro wa ayoku name kamo

群玉の枢にくぎさし堅めとし
妹が心は動くなめかも

Roma-ji: Muratama no kuru ni kugi sashi katametoshi imo ga kokoro wa ayoku name kamo
English Translation: Like a pivot fixed
with a peg driven through it,
firm and fast we swore;
could the heart of my dear wife
ever waver now, I wonder?
Meaning: As firmly as a door pivot fixed with a peg, we bound our vows; could my wife's heart ever waver?
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4390

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."
As firmly as a door pivot fixed with a peg we bound our vows; could my wife's heart ever waver? The poem sings of trust in his wife's fidelity. It is the seventh poem from Shimōsa. Drawing on a homely object, the fastening of a door, it expresses how firm the couple's promise is. Ayoku for ugoku is a dialect form.
The author, Osakabe no Shikamaro, was a guard from Sashima District in Shimōsa; nothing more is known of him.

The first line, "muratama no," is taken as a pillow word for kuru.
The second line, "kuru ni kugi sashi," names the kuru, the pivot on which a door turns, fixed fast with a peg.
The third line, "katametoshi," "having sworn firmly," takes up the image of fastening the door.
The fourth line, "imo ga kokoro wa," means "my wife's heart."
The closing line, "ayoku name kamo," uses namekamo as a rhetorical question: could it ever waver? Surely not.
Author: Osakabe no Shikamaro
Source: Manyoshu
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