Onozukara suzushiku mo aru ka natsugoromo himo yūgure no ame no nagori ni

English Translation

Of its own accord
how cool it has become, this
summer robe, whose cords
are loosened in the evening
after the rain has gone by

Meaning

Of itself it has grown cool: the summer robe, its cords loosened as the day goes down, in what the rain has left behind.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 264

Headnote: from the time when he presented a hundred-poem sequence to Retired Emperor Sutoku.
The second poem on summer squalls, on the coolness after the rain has passed, taken through a summer robe. The headnote refers to the Kyuan sequences of 1150, from which the thirteenth poem of Book One and the hundred and eighty-fifth of this book also come.
The poet, given by his court title, is Fujiwara no Kiyosuke, a son of Fujiwara no Akisuke, who inherited the poetics of the Rokujo house and wrote treatises on poetry. In Book One he is the poet of the thirty-fourth poem. Shigeie, poet of the hundred and eighty-first, was his younger brother.
The time is a summer evening; no place is given.
The occasion was the presentation of the hundred-poem sequence.

The first line means of itself, without anyone's doing. The coolness has come unasked.
The particle closing the second line is exclamatory: how cool it is.
The third line names the robe. Following Yoshitsune's two hundred and sixtieth poem, coolness is again taken through clothing.
The word opening the fourth line means the sun as well, and at the same time the cord of a garment, which belongs with the robe; loosening the cord to be cool is implied without being said. One sound holds both the sky and the body.
The word in the closing line means what is left behind, used in Teika's two hundred and forty-seventh poem. The coolness after a squall stands as the poem's conclusion. The previous poem gave the moment before the rain and this one the moment after, so that between them the two hold the whole event.

Author

Fujiwara no Kiyosuke

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other