Masukagami te ni torimochite asana asana miredomo kimi ni aku toki zo naki - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

真澄鏡手に取り持ちて朝な朝な
見れども君に飽く時ぞなき

Roma-ji: Masukagami te ni torimochite asana asana miredomo kimi ni aku toki zo naki
English Translation: As a polished mirror
taken up into the hand
morning after morning,
though I gaze at you always,
there is no time I tire.
Meaning: Like a clear mirror I take up in my hands morning after morning, I look at you always, and yet there is never a moment when I tire of you.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 857

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem says that, as one takes up a clear mirror and gazes into it morning after morning, I look at you always and yet never tire of you. Likening the beloved to the mirror one takes up without fail each morning, it sings of a deep love that never wearies no matter how often one looks.
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 final line "aku koto mo nashi."

First line, "masukagami," means "a clear and spotless mirror." Poems 915 and 916 in this book also sing of "masukagami," so that mirror poems answer one another within the book.
Second line, "te ni torimochite," means "taking it in hand."
Third line, "asana asana," means "morning after morning," the repeated word expressing recurrence. From the first line to here forms a preface leading to "miru," to look.
Fourth line, "miredomo kimi ni," means "though I look, at you," with "domo" adversative. It joins looking into the mirror with looking at the beloved.
Final line, "aku toki zo naki," means "there is no time I tire," concluding in "naki," the attributive of the adjective "nashi," in answer to the binding particle "zo."
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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