玉江漕ぐ葦刈り小舟さし分けて
誰を誰とか我は定めん
誰を誰とか我は定めん
- Roma-ji
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Tamae kogu ashikari obune sashiwakete tare o tare to ka ware wa sadamen
- English Translation
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Rowing at Tamae,
a reed-cutter's little boat
poles its way through reeds—
which of them from which, then,
should I choose to settle on
- Meaning
- Like a reed-cutter's little boat poling its way through the thick reeds of Tamae, how could I tell one from another and settle on just one?
- Commentary
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Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems IV 1251
Headnote: "When a friend teasingly wrote to a woman who knew many men, 'You seem to have made up your mind these days—how reassuring.'"
The poet asks how, like a reed-cutter's boat poling through the reeds of Tamae, she could tell one from another and settle on one. Likening her many suitors to dense reeds, she wittily brushes off her friend's teasing by saying she cannot possibly choose.
According to the headnote, a friend jokingly wrote to a woman who had many admirers that she seemed to have settled on one at last, how reassuring, and she composed this in reply.
The poet is anonymous and the name is not known.
The first line, "Tamae kogu," means "rowing at Tamae," an inlet famed in poetry for its reeds.
The second line, "ashikari obune," means "a little boat for cutting reeds," the thick reeds standing for her many suitors.
The third line, "sashiwakete," means "poling through and parting them," and these lines form a preface leading into what follows.
The fourth line, "tare o tare to ka," means "which from which," with "ka" a rhetorical binding particle.
The last line, "ware wa sadamen," means "could I settle? I could not," closing the "ka" with the attributive "sadamen." It answers "omoisadametaru," made up her mind, in the headnote.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Gosen Wakashu
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Waga yado ni aiyadori shite sumu kawazu yoru ni nareba ya mono wa kanashiki
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Michinoku no Obuchi no koma mo nogau ni wa are koso masare natsuku mono ka wa