One of a number of poems on various topics composed by Inbe no Ohito.
からたちと茨刈り除け倉建てむ屎遠くまれ櫛造る刀自
| karatati to ubara karisoke kura tatemu kuso topokumare kusi tukuru todi | The bitter orange’s Thorny grove, I will cut away To build my storehouse; Drop your stools far away, O, comb-making dam! |
What is “comb-making dam”? Shouldn’t be a Makura Kotoba?
‘Dam’ is an archaic English equivalent for ‘dame’, meaning ‘old woman’. I felt this was a suitable, if not exactly precise, translation for the original’s toji, given it’s somewhat crude and humorous tone.