Natsu hatsuru ōgi to aki no shiratsuyu to izure ka mazu wa okamu to suramu

English Translation

The fan of summer
ending, and the white dew of
autumn: which of them
will be the first to be laid
down, I wonder, of the two

Meaning

The fan that summer's ending puts aside, and autumn's white dew: which of the two will be set down first?

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 283

Headnote: for a screen of the months, in the Engi era.
The fifth poem on the end of summer. A fan that will no longer be needed and the dew that autumn is about to lay down are set side by side, and the poem asks which comes first. The headnote assigns it to a screen of the twelve months, painted with the observances and features of each and accompanied by poems.
Mibu no Tadamine was an early Heian poet, one of the compilers of the Kokin Wakashu and one of the thirty-six immortals of poetry. Mibu no Tadami, poet of the two hundred and seventy-second piece, was his son.
The time is the end of summer; no place is given.
The occasion was the screen.

The first line means that summer is ending; the verb, meaning to come to an end, is used in the hundred and seventy-seventh and two hundred and twenty-fifth poems.
The second line gives one of the two things. A fan belongs to summer and is set aside when autumn comes.
The third line gives the other. Dew belongs to autumn and is about to settle on the grass.
An interrogative particle in the fourth line governs the auxiliary at the close: which of them first?
The verb at the end does double duty: laying down a fan and dew settling. One word serving both is what makes the question possible. The withdrawal of a summer implement and the arrival of an autumn feature are given by the two senses of a single verb, a conceit well suited to a place near the end of the book.

Author

Mibu no Tadamine

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other