Akatsuki no tsuyu wa namida mo todomarade uramuru kaze no koe zo nokoreru

English Translation

At the break of day
the dew, and the tears as well
do not stay, and yet
the voice of the wind that grieves
is a thing that has remained

Meaning

At daybreak neither the dew nor the tears remain; only the voice of the wind, with its grievance, is left.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 372

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
Dew and tears vanish at daybreak and only the wind's voice is left. The original gives no fresh headnote.
Sagami was a lady-in-waiting and poet of the mid-Heian period, known by that name from her marriage to Oe no Kinyori, governor of Sagami. In Book Three she is the poet of the two hundred and third poem and in this book of the three hundred and ninth.
The time is daybreak in autumn; no place is given.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line names the hour, when the night is about to end.
The second line pairs dew and tears, a pairing that has run through this book since the two hundred and ninety-fourth poem.
A negative connective in the third line gives the sense of not staying: both vanish.
The fourth line names a wind that voices a grievance, so that its sound is heard as reproach.
An emphatic particle governs the attributive form at the close. What has form disappears and only a sound remains, the pattern of Yasusue's two hundred and thirteenth poem in Book Three, where the bird went and only the dripping was left: what has gone is shown by what stays.

Author

Sagami

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other