Musubioku Fushimi no sato no kusamakura tokede yaminuru tabi ni mo aru kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

結び置くふしみの里の草枕
解けでやみぬる旅にもあるかな

Roma-ji: Musubioku Fushimi no sato no kusamakura tokede yaminuru tabi ni mo aru kana
English Translation: The grass pillow tied
at Fushimi, Lying-Down,
has never come loose:
a journey that has come to end
with no knot ever undone
Meaning: The grass pillow I tied at Fushimi, the village of lying down, never came loose; it was a journey that ended with nothing ever undone between us.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 710

Headnote: "Love without fulfillment, though lying together"
Composed on the topic "Love without fulfillment, though lying together," that is, a love in which the two lie side by side without binding their vows. The grass pillow tied at Fushimi village, he says, was a journey that ended without its knot ever undone. With "Fushimi" carrying "fushi," "to lie down," he gives to the traveler's grass pillow a night of lying together that never opened into intimacy.
The author, "Fujiwara no Akinaka Ason," was the son of Fujiwara no Sukenaka. Active in the poetry circle of Emperor Horikawa, he was one of the poets of the Horikawa Hundred-Poem Sequences.
Poem 753 of this book is composed on the same topic, and 743 also sings of "the village of Fushimi."

First line, "musubioku": "tied and left," of tying the grass pillow. It pairs with "toke," "to come loose," in the fourth line.
Second line, "Fushimi no sato no": "Fushimi" pivots between the place in Yamashiro and "fushi mi," lying down, evoking lying together. It is the same as the fourth line of 743 of this book.
Third line, "kusamakura": the grass pillow of a traveler's makeshift sleep, a related word to "tabi," "journey," in the last line.
Fourth line, "tokede yaminuru": "de" is a negative conjunctive particle and "nuru" the attributive of the perfective "nu," "ended without coming undone." The knot of the pillow that never loosens overlaps with hearts and bodies that never opened to each other.
Fifth line, "tabi ni mo aru kana": "kana" is exclamatory, "such a journey it was!" A single night's meeting is likened to a journey.
Author: Fujiwara no Akinaka
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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