Yūgure ni mono omou toki wa kannazuki ware mo shigure ni otorazarikeri

English Translation

At dusk, when I sink
into brooding, it is like
the tenth month itself
and I am not outdone by
the cold rains of that season

Meaning

When I fall to brooding at dusk it is the tenth month over again, and I am a match for the cold rains themselves.

Commentary

19 When Evening Comes

The same Lady of Nijō sent "Yo ni furedo koi mo senu mi no yū sareba suzuro ni mono no kanashiki ya nazo" to the same Prince of the Ministry of Ceremonial, because he had not come for a long time; it was autumn. His reply was "Yūgure ni mono omou toki wa kannazuki ware mo shigure ni otorazarikeri". The prose remarks that he composed badly, without putting his heart into it. The section closes with the exchange and that verdict.
The Lady of Nijō and the prince are the two of the eighteenth section, where she sent him young herbs at the New Year. This section is the autumn that followed.
The setting is the same autumn, after her poem reached him.
What prompted it is the poem she sent, "Yo ni furedo koi mo senu mi no yū sareba suzuro ni mono no kanashiki ya nazo".
After the poem the prose remarks that he composed badly, without putting his heart into it. The narrator simply pronounces on the quality of the verse, which is not an unusual move in this book.

The tenth month of the old calendar was the season of cold intermittent rains. He builds the poem so that his brooding at dusk is that month itself, and his weeping a match for the rain that falls in it.
He picks up her word for evening and answers it with his own, so that formally the exchange is properly made.
The verb that ends the poem is the one used for noticing something, but since what he notices is himself, it carries little weight.
Where she asked a question without naming the cause of her sadness, he only says that he feels the same, and never answers her. The narrator's verdict can be read as pointing at exactly that inadequacy.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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