Asaborake waga mi wa niwa no shimo nagara nani o tane ni te kokoro oikemu

English Translation

At first light, my self
is nothing but frost in the
garden — and even
so, from what seed did this heart
of mine contrive to spring up

Meaning

At first light I am nothing but frost on the garden ground — and even so, from what seed did this heart of mine spring up?

Commentary

42 The Empty Sky of White Clouds

A priest called Eshū was serving a certain woman as her exorcist when talk began to circulate about them, and he composed "Sato wa iu yama ni wa sawagu shirakumo no sora ni hakanaki mi to ya narinamu". He also sent her "Asaborake waga mi wa niwa no shimo nagara nani o tane ni te kokoro oikemu". That is the whole of the section.
Eshū was a priest. An exorcist was a monk who performed rites of healing and protection. He appears again in the forty-third and forty-fourth sections, where he is also called a holy man. Of the woman the prose tells us only that he served her in that capacity.
The setting is the same period of rumour. The poem was sent to the woman he served.
The prose records nothing further of what prompted it. All we are told is that he composed it for her.
The section closes with these two poems. The forty-third goes on to tell how he left the place and went into the mountains.

The first word is the hour when the sky first pales, which is the hour of frost.
To be frost on the garden ground is to be something the sun will erase; and the word for frost carries the sound of the word for below, so that he is also one who stands beneath others.
The fourth line asks from what seed. Behind it lies the plain fact that nothing grows out of frosted ground.
The closing supposes, in the past tense, that a heart has sprung up all the same. He describes his love as a thing that grew where nothing could grow — a priest's feeling stated through the logic of seed and soil.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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