天地の神に幣置き斎ひつつ
いませ我が背な我れをし思はば
いませ我が背な我れをし思はば
- Roma-ji
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Ametsushi no kami ni nusa oki iwaitsutsu imase waga sena are o shi mowaba
- English Translation
-
To heaven's and earth's
gods I lay my offerings
and keep myself pure;
stay safe, oh my husband dear,
if you think of me at all
- Meaning
- Laying offerings before the gods of heaven and earth, keep yourself pure and stay safe, my husband, if you care for me at all.
- Commentary
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Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4426
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."
Laying offerings before the gods of heaven and earth and keeping pure, stay safe, my husband, if you care for me: a wife's wish for her departing husband's safety. The left note says it is the second of the eight guard poems of former years that Iware no Morokimi copied and sent to Yakamochi. In the words "if you think of me, stay safe," lies a wife's urgent wish for her husband's well-being. Ametsushi for ametsuchi is a dialect form.
The author's name has not come down. It is thought to be by a wife sending off her husband as a guard.
The first line, "ametsushi no," joins the gods of heaven and earth, the same form as the first line of a Shimōsa guard's poem.
The second line, "kami ni nusa oki," means "laying offerings before the gods."
The third line, "iwaitsutsu," "keeping oneself pure in prayer," is the practice for praying for a safe journey.
The fourth line, "imase waga sena," uses imasu, honorific for "to be": stay safe, my husband. The poem pauses here.
The closing line, "are o shi mowaba," with the intensifier shi, adds by inversion: if you think of me.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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Sakimori ni yuku wa ta ga se to tou hito o miru ga tomoshisa monomoi mo sezu
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Iwa no imoro wa o shinufurashi mayusui ni yusuishi himo no tokuraku moeba