Ta ga tame ni ika ni uteba ka karakoromo chitabi yachitabi koe no uramuru - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

誰がためにいかに打てばか唐衣
千度八千度声の恨むる

Roma-ji: Ta ga tame ni ika ni uteba ka karakoromo chitabi yachitabi koe no uramuru
English Translation: For whom can it be,
and how does she beat it so,
the robe of Cathay,
a thousand, eight thousand times,
that its voice rings with reproach?
Meaning: For whom, and how, does she beat the robe, that the block's voice rings with reproach a thousand, eight thousand times?
Commentary: Book Five Autumn Poems II 341

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the topic 'Fulling Cloth' when a hundred-poem sequence was presented in the reign of Emperor Horikawa"
Composed on the topic of fulling cloth for the Horikawa Hyakushu. For whom, and how, can she be beating it, the poet asks, that the sound of the block on the robe rings out a thousand and eight thousand times as if in resentment? In the endlessly repeated sound he hears the heart of a worker resenting one who does not return.
The author, "Fujiwara no Mototoshi," was the son of Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Toshiie. A leading figure of the poetry world of the cloistered-rule period alongside Minamoto no Toshiyori, he was the teacher of Fujiwara no Shunzei. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
Among Bai Juyi's lines taken into the Wakan Rōeishū is one that sings of the fulling block sounding a thousand and ten thousand times without end through the long autumn night, and this poem's "chitabi yachitabi" carries that mood into waka.

First line, "ta ga tame ni": "for whom," asking after the one the worker thinks of.
Second line, "ika ni uteba ka": the interrogative "ka" closes with the attributive "uramuru" in the last line, "how can she be beating it?"
Third line, "karakoromo": an elegant word for a garment, the same third line as 339, two poems before.
Fourth line, "chitabi yachitabi": "a thousand times, eight thousand times," the sound of the block repeated beyond counting.
Fifth line, "koe no uramuru": "uramu" is to resent, closing the "ka" of the second line in the attributive. The sound of the block is heard as a voice filled with reproach.
Author: Fujiwara no Mototoshi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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