Na ga yué ni,
Amanokawa-ji no
Nazumité 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
Tsugitéshi omoëba.

[_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.]