Iezuto ni kai zo hirieru hamanami wa iya shikushiku ni takaku yosuredo

家づとに貝ぞ拾へる浜波は
いやしくしくに高く寄すれど

Roma-ji: Iezuto ni kai zo hirieru hamanami wa iya shikushiku ni takaku yosuredo
English Translation: As a gift for home
I have gathered up seashells,
though the beach's waves
ever more and more again
come rolling in tall and high
Meaning: I have gathered shells as a gift for home, though the waves on the beach keep rolling in higher and higher.
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4411

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem with tanka setting forth the feelings of the frontier guards at parting."
I have gathered shells as a gift for home, though the waves roll in higher and higher: the third envoy, singing of a guard's wish to send his family a gift even at some risk. The left note dates it to the twenty-third day of the second month, by Ōtomo no Yakamochi. After lamenting that there is no way to send a gift, it pictures the guard picking up shells all the same. Earlier Yakamochi had composed a poem resenting that driftwood, not shells, washed up on the beach, so the idea of shells as a gift returns here.
The author, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, son of Ōtomo no Tabito, was at this time Junior Assistant Minister of Military Affairs.

The first line, "iezuto ni," "as a gift for home," takes up iezuto from the preceding poem.
The second line, "kai zo hirieru," resolved by zo with the attributive ru, stresses: shells are what I gathered. The poem pauses here.
The third line, "hamanami wa," means "the waves of the beach."
The fourth line, "iya shikushiku ni," "ever more, one after another," expresses the ceaseless waves.
The closing line, "takaku yosuredo," "though they come in high," adds by inversion the danger he disregards.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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