馬屋なる縄立つ駒の後るがへ
妹が言ひしを置きて悲しも
妹が言ひしを置きて悲しも
- Roma-ji
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Umaya naru nawa tatsu koma no okuru gae imo ga iishi o okite kanashi mo
- English Translation
-
Like the colt that strains
at the halter in the stall,
"Shall I stay behind?"
so my wife cried out to me,
yet I left her, oh the grief
- Meaning
- Like a colt in the stable straining to break its halter, my wife cried, "Shall I be left behind?" Yet I left her, and how it grieves me.
- Commentary
-
Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4429
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."
Like a colt straining at its halter in the stall, my wife cried, "Shall I be left behind?" yet I left her, and it grieves me: the poem sings of the moment of parting. The left note says it is the fifth of the eight guard poems of former years that Iware no Morokimi copied and sent to Yakamochi. The violence of a colt trying to break its rope is laid over the strength of a wife who clings, wishing to follow.
The author's name has not come down. It is thought to be by a guard himself.
The first line, "umaya naru," "in the stable," shows a familiar scene at home.
The second line, "nawa tatsu koma no," thought to mean "the colt that would break its rope"; the first two lines form a preface leading to okuru gae.
The third line, "okuru gae," "shall I be left behind?" uses gae, an eastern particle of rhetorical question.
The fourth line, "imo ga iishi o," "though my wife said so," uses the concessive o.
The closing line, "okite kanashi mo," "leaving her, I grieve," ends in the exclamatory mo.
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
-
Waga sena o Tsukushi wa yarite utsukushimi ehi wa tokanana aya ni kamo nemu
- Next Poem
-
Arashio no iosa tabasami mukaitachi kanaru mashizumi idete to aga kuru