Fujibakama nushi wa tare to mo shiratsuyu no koborete niou nobe no akikaze

English Translation

Whose the boneset is
there is no knowing, and white
the dew that spills down
and the fragrance rises up
in the wind across the moor

Meaning

Whose is this boneset? There is no knowing; the white dew spills from it and the scent rises in the autumn wind across the moor.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 339

Headnote: composed on the boneset.
The poems turn here to the boneset, one of the seven plants of autumn. Because its Japanese name contains the word for a pair of trousers, it invites the question of whose garment it is.
The Monk Koyu was a monk of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods; little is recorded of his life.
The time is autumn; the place is a moor where the plant grows.
The occasion was the set topic.

The first line names the plant, whose name allows it to be treated as clothing.
The second line asks whose it is: a garment must have an owner, and the question follows from that. It is the pattern of Michitomo's ninety-sixth poem in Book Two, which asked who had planted the cherries.
The word in the third line does double duty, sounding both the verb for not knowing and the word for white. Taken with the question above it means unknown; taken with the spilling below it means white dew, and one word serves both directions.
The fourth line has the dew spilling and the flower giving out its scent.
The poem closes on a noun. On the conceit of a garment left on the moor with no owner, scent and wind are laid, and the whole poem is built out of the associations of a name.

Author

The Monk Koyu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other