Asaborake ogi no uwaha no tsuyu mireba yaya hadasamushi aki no hatsukaze

English Translation

At the break of day
when I look at the dew on
the reeds' upper leaves
there is a chill on the skin
in the first wind of autumn

Meaning

Looking at daybreak at the dew on the upper leaves of the reeds, I feel a chill on the skin: the first wind of autumn.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 311

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
The second poem on dew. Seeing the dew on the reeds' upper leaves, the poet feels the cold on his skin. The original gives no fresh headnote.
Sone no Yoshitada was a mid-Heian poet, known by a shortened name from his post as a secretary in Tango. In Book One he is the poet of the seventy-seventh poem and in Book Three of the hundred and eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh.
The time is daybreak in early autumn; the place is where reeds grow.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line names the hour when the sky first pales.
The word in the second line means the upper leaves, used in the three hundred and sixth poem. The reed has recurred since the two hundred and eighty-sixth and is the chief material of the opening of this book.
The third line gives a settled condition: on looking at the dew.
The fourth line joins an adverb meaning somewhat to a phrase meaning cold on the skin. Seeing with the eye and feeling with the body happen at once, the pattern of the dawn wind in the two hundred and eighty-seventh poem and the cold sleeves of the two hundred and ninety-second.
The poem closes on a noun, following the three hundred and eighth. This is the fifth appearance of that ending in this book, repeated through the run on the opening of autumn.

Author

Sone no Yoshitada

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other