u['e] ni,
Amanokawa-ji no
Nazumit['e] zo koshi.

[_Though I (being a Star-god) can pass freely to and fro,
through the great sky,--yet to cross over the River of Heaven,
for your sake, was weary work indeed!_]

Yachihoko no
Kami no mi-yo yori
Tomoshi-zuma;--
Hito-shiri ni keri
Tsugit['e]shi omo[:e]ba.

[_From the august Age of the
God-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears_,[13] _she had been my spouse in
secret_[14] _only; yet now, because of my constant longing for
her, our relation has become known to men._]

[Footnote 13: Yachihoko-no-Kami, who has many other names, is
the Great God of Izumo, and is commonly known by his appellation
Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, or the "Deity-Master-of-the Great-Land." He
is locally worshiped also as the god of marriage,--for which reason,
perhaps, the poet thus refers to him.]

[Footnote 14: Or, "my seldom-visited spouse." The word _tsuma_
(_zuma_), in ancient Japanese, signified either wife or husband; and
this poem might be rendered so as to express either the wife's or the
husband's thoughts.]

Am['e] tsuchi to
Wakar['e]shi toki yo
Onoga tsuma;
Shika zo t['e] ni aru
Aki matsu ar['e] wa.

[_From the time when heaven and earth were parted, she has
been my own wife;--yet, to be with her, I must always wait
till autumn._[15]]

[Footnote 15: By the ancient calendar, the seventh day of the seventh
month would fall in the autumn season.]

Waga k[=o]ru
Niho no omo wa
Koyo[:i] mo ka
Ama-no-kawara ni
Ishi-makura makan.

[_With my beloved, of the ruddy-tinted cheeks_,[16] _this
night indeed will I descend into the bed of the River of
Heaven, to sleep on a pillow of stone._]

[Footnote 16: The literal meaning is "_b['e]ni_-tinted face,"--that
is to say, a face of which the cheeks and lips have been tinted with
_b['e]ni_, a kind of rouge.]

Amanogawa.
Mikomori-gusa no
Aki-kaz['e] ni
Nabikafu mir['e]ba,
Toki kitarurashi.

[_When I see the water-grasses of the River of Heaven bend
in the autumn wind (I think to myself): "The time (for our
meeting) seems to have come."_]

Waga s['e]ko ni
Ura-koi or['e]ba,
Amanogawa
Yo-fun['e] kogi-toyomu
Kaji no 'to kikoyu.

[_When I feel in my heart a sudden longing for my
husband_,[17] _then on the River of Heaven the sound of the
rowing of the night-boat is heard, and the plash of the oar