Otomego ga sode furu yama no mizugaki no hisashiki yo yori omoisometeki - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

少女子が袖ふる山の瑞垣の
久しき世より思ひ初めてき

Roma-ji: Otomego ga sode furu yama no mizugaki no hisashiki yo yori omoisometeki
English Translation: Maidens wave their sleeves
on Furu Mountain, where stands
the sacred fence;
since an age as old as that
I have loved you, from the first.
Meaning: Like the sacred fence of the shrine on Furu Mountain, where maidens wave their sleeves, so old is the age since which I began to love you.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Miscellaneous Love Poems 1210

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet says that, as old as the sacred fence on Furu Mountain where maidens wave their sleeves, so long ago did he begin to love. Calling up the fence of the ancient Furu shrine, long devoted to the gods, he conveys the length of the years he has loved and the depth of that love.
This book gathers miscellaneous love poems, poems connected with love apart from the books of the love section. It holds many exchanges with headnotes, poems working in legends and place names, and poems built on comparison and wordplay. Where this opening poem sings of a love begun long ago, the closing poem, 1273, ends the book at the year's end, lamenting that even the year is hateful while waiting for one who parted, so the book opens with the beginning of love and closes with the resentment of waiting.
The author, written as "Kakinomoto no Hitomaro," is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. A court poet who served in the reigns of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu, he is revered as the Saint of Poetry. He is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
A similar poem appears in Book Four of the Man'yōshū, with the fourth line "hisashiki toki yu" and the final line "omoiki ware wa."

First line, "otomego ga," means "the maidens," running on into "sode furu" in the second line.
Second line, "sode furu yama no," is a pivot word: "furu" means to "wave" sleeves and Furu, a place in Yamato. Furu Mountain is where the Isonokami Shrine stands.
Third line, "mizugaki no," means "of the sacred fence" around a shrine, here the fence of the Isonokami shrine. Up to here the lines form a preface leading to "hisashiki" in the fourth line, drawing out long age from an ancient shrine fence.
Fourth line, "hisashiki yo yori," means "from an age long past," layering the age of the fence over the long years of love. It answers the fourth line of the closing poem, 1273, "toshi sae semete," in singing of the years that pass in love.
Final line, "omoisometeki," means "I began to love," with "te" the continuative form of the perfective auxiliary "tsu" and "ki" the past auxiliary.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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