Mubatama no imo ga kurokami koyoi mo ya waga naki toko ni nabikiidenuran - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

むばたまの妹が黒髪今宵もや
我がなき床になびき出でぬらん

Roma-ji: Mubatama no imo ga kurokami koyoi mo ya waga naki toko ni nabikiidenuran
English Translation: The jet-black hair of
my beloved, as the night,
again tonight too
on the bed where I am not
is it spreading loose and wide?
Meaning: Is the black hair of my beloved spreading loose again tonight across the bed where I am not beside her?
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 802

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem imagines whether the black hair of the beloved wife is spread out again tonight over a bed where he is absent, as she sleeps alone. Picturing the alluring sight of black hair spread across the bed they once shared, it worries over the wife sleeping alone while they cannot meet.
A similar poem is included in Book Eleven of the Man'yōshū.

First line, "mubatama no," is a pillow word modifying "kuro," black.
Second line, "imo ga kurokami," means "my wife's black hair."
Third line, "koyoi mo ya," means "again tonight," with "ya" an interrogative binding particle. Like "koyoi mo mata ya" in the opening poem, 777, it voices the lament of "tonight again."
Fourth line, "waga naki toko ni," means "on the bed where I am not." Where the opening poem, 777, sings of the one waiting and sleeping alone, this poem imagines the waiting wife sleeping alone from the side of the one who visits, reversing the viewpoint.
Final line, "nabikiidenuran," means "is it spreading out," concluding in the attributive form of the present conjectural "ran" in answer to "ya."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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