Natsuyama no ko no shita tsuyu no fukakereba katsu zo nageki no iro moenikeru

English Translation

The dew beneath the
trees of the summer hills lies
so deep that already
the color of my sighing wood
has kindled and burned through.

Meaning

The dew beneath the trees of the summer hills lies so deep that already the color of my sighing has kindled and burned through.

Commentary

71 The Cicadas; The Yamato-Seeming Woman: The Exchange on the Colored Leaves

The sixth month came. About the time when the cicadas were heard, Michitsuna sent the woman a poem, tied to a branch among which were colored leaves; and she answered it.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. Michitsuna was her son. The woman is the one the text calls the Yamato-seeming person, and she is unnamed. The tree in question grows in the hills and its leaves may color while it is still summer, so that it figures in poetry as an out-of-season autumn foliage.
It is the sixth month of the third year of Tenroku, and the place is the woman's house at the foot of Mount Miwa.
About the time the cicadas were heard, Michitsuna sent this poem to the woman, tied to a branch among which were colored leaves.
She answered with "Tsuyu ni nomi iro moenureba koto no ha o iku shio to ka wa shiru bekaruramu."

The opening fixes season and place and passes to the second line, the dew that lies beneath the trees, the standing figure for tears. The third means: because it is deep, and introduces the reason for what follows. The fourth means on the one hand, meanwhile. The word for sighing also means wood cast down, a usage found throughout this diary; set beside the dew beneath the trees, the arboreal sense works the harder here. The verb at the close means both to burn and to bud, so that the color flaring and the color coming out are held together. Since he has in fact tied the poem to a branch of leaves colored in midsummer, that out-of-season foliage is the very material of the verse. The argument that dew made them color follows the belief of the time that dew and cold rain dye the leaves, and it turns into the sense that deep tears have brought out the color of grief. The suit of love is entrusted entirely to the color of the branch he sent.

Author

Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other