Asanegami ware wa kezuraji utsukushiki hito no tamakura furete shi mono o - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

朝寝髪我は梳らじうつくしき
人の手枕触れてしものを

Roma-ji: Asanegami ware wa kezuraji utsukushiki hito no tamakura furete shi mono o
English Translation: My morning hair, tossed
from sleep, I will not comb it,
for it has lain close
upon the arm of my love,
touched there as upon a pillow.
Meaning: I will not comb my hair, still tangled from the night, for it has touched the arm of the one I love, laid beneath my head as a pillow.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 849

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poem says: I will not comb my morning hair, tangled from sleep, for it touched the arm of the one I love as a pillow. It entrusts to the familiar image of sleep-tossed hair a woman's earnest wish to keep upon her the lingering trace of a night spent with her lover.
This is the opening poem of the fourth book of love poems. The closing poem, 924, is also attributed to Hitomaro, so that his poems frame the book at both ends. Where the opening sings of the afterglow of a morning after a night together, the close ends with a love so fierce it would even cross the sacred fence of the gods, the two answering each other in the depth of love.
The author, "Hitomaro", is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, a court poet of the Asuka period revered as the sage of poetry and the foremost poet of the Man'yōshū, and one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets. Many Man'yōshū poems are included in the Shūishū under Hitomaro's name.
A similar poem appears in Book Eleven of the Man'yōshū, with the third and fourth lines reading "uruwashiki kimi ga tamakura."

First line, "asanegami," means "my morning hair, tangled from sleep." Opening with a noun, it vividly presents the figure on the morning after a night together.
Second line, "ware wa kezuraji," means "I will not comb it," with "ji" a negative intention. The poem breaks here.
Third line, "utsukushiki," means "dear," describing the lover with affection.
Fourth line, "hito no tamakura," means "the arm of my beloved as a pillow." Where the closing poem, 924, sings of the fierceness of crossing the gods' sacred fence, here the joy of love is placed in the small touch of an arm offered as a pillow.
Final line, "furete shi mono o," means "since it has touched it," with "shi" the attributive of the past auxiliary "ki" and "mono o" giving the reason. In inverted order it states the reason for the resolve in the second line.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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