GSS 670

Text

大友黒主

白浪の　よするいそまを　こぐ舟の　かぢとりあへぬ　こひもする哉

The white waves / crashing around the rocks / the rowing boat / unable to control the oar, so uncontrollable / is my love for you.

Textual Variants

• よするいそまを] よするいそまに（堀・雲・坊・安）、さはぐいりえに（荒・片）
• とりあへぬ] とりあへず（雲）

Other Sources

• 万葉集３９６１. 白浪乃(シラナミノ) 余須流伊蘇末乎(ヨスルイソマヲ) 榜船乃(コグフネノ) 可治登流間奈久(カヂトルマナク) 於母保要之伎美(オモホエシキミ). The poem is one of two attributed to 大伴家持, at a party for one of his relatives 大友池主 (perhaps the similarity in the names led to the misattribution to 黒主). According to a side note, Ikenushi was heading back to a provincial post. Snow began to fall and he also saw the white waves around fisherboats on the waves. This apparently is what sparked the use of the preface in the poem.
• 伊勢集II４３５．Fourth and fifth lines かぢとるまなくおもほゆるかな.

Notes

いそま

Kigin glosses as 磯間, but Nakayama suggests 磯回, meaning around the bays. Later scholars all agree.

こぐ舟のかぢ

Up to this point is a 序 for とりあへぬ.

とりあへぬ

「ふとうちつけに、人の恋ひそめて、それより恋の思ひをするをいふならんか」（新抄）Nakayama is doubtful about this interpretation, though, because he thinks it would make the preface go to the middle of the 4th line which he finds unusual. But he continues saying that the とりあへぬ can mean "unable to take the rudder", which is the interpretation later scholars agree with.

Analysis

This is a "preface poem" where most of the poem is a poetic preface leading to the final line. As can be seen above, in the Man'yoshu original this was a poem addressed to a friend and based on the actual scenery of the occasion. Here is becomes a general-purpose love poem of the kind found in the KKS, perhaps appropriate for a poem the compilers believed to be by one of the Six Poetic Immortals.

大島や瀬戸の潮合をこぐ舟のかぢとりあえぬ恋をするかな（恵慶集）