Asamashi ya nado kakitayuru moshiogusa sa koso wa ama no susabi naritomo - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あさましやなどかき絶ゆる藻塩草
さこそは海人のすさびなりとも

Roma-ji: Asamashi ya nado kakitayuru moshiogusa sa koso wa ama no susabi naritomo
English Translation: How shocking it is:
why have you stopped your writing,
like gathered seaweed,
even if it was no more
than a fisher's idle pastime
Meaning: How shocking! Why have you stopped writing to me? Even if it was only an idle pastime, like a fisherman raking salt-seaweed.
Commentary: Book Seven Love Poems I 372

The poem reproaches the other for having stopped writing, even if the affair was only a passing whim, like a fisher raking salt-seaweed. Onto the fisher's work of raking seaweed it lays the writing of letters.
Some manuscripts give the headnote 'Sent by a woman to one who, being hindered, had long failed to visit her.' It would then be a poem sent by a woman to a man who had not come for a long time.
The first line of poem 396 in this book is also 'asamashi ya'. 'Kakitaete' in poem 404 in this book likewise sings of letters breaking off.

First line, 'asamashi ya', means how shocking, and the poem breaks after the first line. It is the same as the first line of poem 396 in this book.
Second line, 'nado kakitayuru', is a pivot word in which kaki means both kaki, writing letters, and kaki, raking seaweed, left in kana. Taking up the interrogative nado, it closes in the attributive. It is the same word as the first line 'kakitaete' of poem 404 in this book.
Third line, 'moshiogusa', is the seaweed raked together to burn for salt, also a poetic word for letters.
Fourth line, 'sa koso wa ama no', means however much it is a fisher's, answering tomo in the final line.
Final line, 'susabi naritomo', means even if it was a pastime, using the concessive supposition tomo. Like 'fude no susabi' in the next poem, 373, it sings of susabi.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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