Katsuragi ya ware ya wa Kume no hashitsukuri akeyuku hodo wa mono o koso omoe - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

葛城や我やは久米の橋作り
明けゆくほどはものをこそ思へ

Roma-ji: Katsuragi ya ware ya wa Kume no hashitsukuri akeyuku hodo wa mono o koso omoe
English Translation: Katsuragi's god:
am I he, then, who built
the bridge at Kume,
that as the dawn comes on
I am so lost in brooding?
Meaning: Am I, then, the god of Katsuragi who built the bridge at Kume? As the night gives way to dawn, how deeply I brood.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 719

The poem asks whether the poet is the god of Katsuragi who built the bridge at Kume, so deeply does he brood as the night gives way to dawn. It draws on the legend that when the ascetic En no Gyōja ordered a stone bridge built between Mount Katsuragi and Kinpusen in Yoshino, the god Hitokotonushi of Katsuragi, ashamed of his ugly face, worked only by night, so that the bridge was never finished. Likening himself, who must end the lovers' meeting at daybreak, to the god who feared the dawn, the poet expresses the gloom of the hour before morning.

First line, "Katsuragi ya," means "Katsuragi" in Yamato, with "ya" an exclamatory interjectory particle.
Second line, "ware ya wa Kume no," means "am I, of Kume," with "ya wa" rhetorical, giving "I am surely not the one who builds the Kume bridge."
Third line, "hashitsukuri," means "the bridge builder," referring to the legend that the god Hitokotonushi of Katsuragi built the stone bridge only by night. The poem breaks after this third line.
Fourth line, "akeyuku hodo wa," means "as the night gives way to dawn," sharing the grief at dawn with the third line of 717, "akeyukaba."
Final line, "mono o koso omoe," means "how I brood," with the binding particle "koso" resolved by the perfective form "omoe."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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