Aki no tsuyu ya tamoto ni itaku musuburamu nagaki yo akazu yadoru tsuki kana

English Translation

Is it autumn dew
that settles so heavily
on my sleeve, I ask
through the long night, not sated
the moon has taken lodging

Meaning

Is it the autumn dew that gathers so thickly on my sleeve? All the long night the moon lodges there and does not tire of it.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 433

Headnote: among his autumn poems.
The poem takes the moon lodging in the dew on a sleeve. The headnote assigns it to his autumn poems.
The poet, given as Retired Emperor, is Go-Toba; he appears in this book at the two hundred and eighty-fifth and three hundred and sixty-seventh, and this is his third appearance.
The time is a long night in autumn; no place is given.
The occasion was the writing of the autumn poems.

An interrogative particle in the first line governs the auxiliary in the third.
The adverb in the second line means excessively, used in Akahito's hundred and tenth poem in Book Two. Dew on a sleeve is a tear, so that the tears are many.
The verb in the third line means for dew to gather, used in the three hundred and tenth and twelfth poems of this book.
The phrase in the fourth line means not having one's fill, the word repeated in this book from the two hundred and ninety-ninth onward; here it is the moon that does not tire.
The poem closes on a noun. Because there is so much dew the moon goes on lodging, so that the quantity of tears is measured by the length of the moon's stay. Michitomo's four hundred and twenty-fourth poem set the moon in the dew of a sleeve, and this one takes the length of that lodging for its subject.

Author

Go-Toba In

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other