Kazu naranu mi ni oku yo no shiratama wa hikari miesasu mono ni zo arikeru

English Translation

On this worthless self
the white jewel that settles
in the night is one
that only lets its faint light
show for a moment, and go

Meaning

The white jewel that settles at night on a self that counts for nothing is a thing that shows its light for a moment only, and then is gone.

Commentary

15 The White Jewel of Night

The Prince of the Fishing Pavilion summoned a woman called the Lady of Wakasa, and when no second summons came, she composed this poem and sent it to him. On reading it he is said to have exclaimed what a fine poet of jewels she was. The section closes with the poem and that remark.
The Lady of Wakasa takes her name from that province. Of the Prince of the Fishing Pavilion the prose tells us nothing beyond where he lived.
The setting is the period after a single summons, with no second one following.
What prompted the poem was precisely that absence of a second summons. It was sent to him.
On reading it he called her a poet of jewels. The section ends with the poem itself having moved the scene. The poem was later included in the Gosen-shū.

The phrase for a self that counts for nothing was a set way of speaking about oneself at the time.
The white jewel that settles on it at night is dew, which lies for one night and is gone by morning. The word means a pearl, but was also used for dew.
The closing lines say that it showed a faint light and no more; an emphatic particle governs the final verb, giving the tone of something realised. Underneath, a woman summoned once has seen her moment of light and no more.
Not a word of reproach is used; the whole is carried by a single bead of dew. When the prince praised her as a poet of jewels, it was presumably this way of leaving things unsaid that he was praising.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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