Tsuyu sugaru niwa no tamazasa uchinabiki hitomura suginu yūdachi no kumo

English Translation

Dew clings to the leaves
of the bamboo grass, and now
they bend all as one
and a single bank of it
has passed, the cloud of the squall

Meaning

The dew clings to the bamboo grass in the garden, the blades bend all together, and a single bank of squall cloud has gone by.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 265

Headnote: for the contest in fifteen hundred rounds.
The third poem on summer squalls, on the bamboo grass after rain and the passing cloud. The headnote assigns it to the contest in fifteen hundred rounds.
The poet, given by his court title, is Saionji no Kintsune, who later rose to Chancellor and, through his connections with the Kamakura shogunate, to great power. This is his second appearance in this book, after the two hundred and sixteenth poem.
The time is a summer evening; the place is the poet's garden.
The occasion was submission to the contest.

The verb in the first line means to cling, and gives raindrops still on the leaves: in one word, that the rain has already fallen.
The prefix in the second line is honorific, and the word names bamboo grass, as in the oak of Mototoshi's two hundred and thirtieth poem.
The third line means bending over, with a rhythmic prefix used also in Takato's sixty-ninth poem. The wind driving the cloud is shown by the movement of the leaves.
The fourth line means one mass of it: a single bank of squall cloud has passed.
The poem closes on a noun. The rain itself is never described, and only the dew, the bending grass and the passing cloud are set down. The brevity of the squall is conveyed by a word of quantity.

Author

Fujiwara no Kintsune

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other