The highway to Shinano
Is but newly opened.
Mind you do not trip
Over the stumps of trees.
Wear your sandals, husband.
Translation by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite.
The Man’yōshū (‘Collection of Myriad Leaves’) is the oldest of Japan’s poetry anthologies. Divided into twenty books, it gathers poems from approximately 456, with the bulk of the collection from the period between 600 and 759. The compiler is believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi. While the Man’yōshū includes numerous named poets – including Kakinomoto no Hitomaro – many of its poems are anonymous, displaying an array of forms and covering a breadth of Japanese society.
