Akagoma o yamano ni hagashi torikanite Tama no yokoyama kashi yu ka yaramu

赤駒を山野にはがし捕りかにて
多摩の横山徒歩ゆか遣らむ

Roma-ji: Akagoma o yamano ni hagashi torikanite Tama no yokoyama kashi yu ka yaramu
English Translation: The chestnut horse
let loose in the hills and fields
I could not catch;
over Tama's long ridges
must I send you off on foot?
Meaning: I had let our red horse loose in the hills and fields and could not catch it; must I send my husband on foot over the long hills of Tama?
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4417

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."
I could not catch the red horse grazing loose in the hills; must I send you on foot over the long hills of Tama? The poem sings of a wife's concern for her departing husband. It is the fifth poem from Musashi. Through the concrete regret of failing to have a horse ready, it conveys the wife's tender worry over the hardships of his road. Hagashi for hanashi and kashi for kachi, "on foot," are dialect forms.
The author, Ujibe no Kurome, was the wife of Kurahashibe no Aramushi, a regular guard from Toshima District in Musashi; nothing more is known of her.

The first line, "akagoma o," "the red horse," is the horse meant for her husband's journey.
The second line, "yamano ni hagashi," means "turned loose in the hills and fields."
The third line, "torikanite," "unable to catch it," means it could not be ready in time for the departure.
The fourth line, "Tama no yokoyama," names the hills lying along the south bank of the Tama River in Musashi, on her husband's road.
The closing line, "kashi yu ka yaramu," uses the interrogative ka, lamenting: must I send him on foot?
Author: Ujibe no Kurome
Source: Manyoshu
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