Naniwabito ashibi taku ya wa susutaredo ono ga tsuma koso tokomezura nare - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

難波人葦火焚く屋は煤たれど
おのが妻こそ常めづらなれ

Roma-ji: Naniwabito ashibi taku ya wa susutaredo ono ga tsuma koso tokomezura nare
English Translation: The people of Naniwa
burn reeds, and their houses stand
grimed with soot, and yet
it is my own wife who stays
ever fresh and dear to me.
Meaning: The houses where the people of Naniwa burn reeds are black with soot, but my own wife is always fresh and dear to me.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 887

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem says that though the houses where the people of Naniwa burn reeds are blackened with soot, one's own wife is ever fresh and dear. Contrasting the sooty house with unchanging affection, it sings a simple love for a wife of many years.
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 final lines "susu shite aredo" and "tokomezurashiki."

First line, "Naniwabito," means "the people of Naniwa." Following the preceding sequence on the land of Tsu, it is a poem of Naniwa.
Second line, "ashibi taku ya wa," means "the houses where they burn reeds." Naniwa was famed for its reeds, which served as fuel. Following "maroya" in the preceding poem, 886, it sings of a house. It shares the reed imagery of "ashiwake obune" in 853 of this book.
Third line, "susutaredo," means "though they are sooty," with "do" adversative.
Fourth line, "ono ga tsuma koso," means "my own wife, indeed," emphasized by the binding particle "koso."
Final line, "tokomezura nare," means "is ever fresh and dear," concluding in "mezura nare," the realis of the adjectival verb "mezura nari," in answer to "koso." It contrasts the sooty house of the third line with the wife who stays ever new.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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