Aki to ieba chigiri okite ya musuburan asajigahara no kesa no shiratsuyu

English Translation

Now that autumn's come,
is it as if by a pledge
that they form and bind—
on the plain of sparse sedge grass,
the white dewdrops of this dawn?

Meaning

Now that it is autumn, do they gather as if by a promise made long before—the white dewdrops on the sedge-grass plain this morning?

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 463

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the third poem of the dew sequence. As if by a promise made beforehand, the white dew forms on the sedge-grass plain this morning now that autumn has come. The headnote, continued from the preceding poem, gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author was a mid-Heian monk and poet and one of the Thirty-six Poetic Immortals of the Middle Ages.
The scene is an autumn morning, on a plain where sparse sedge grass grows.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

The first line, "aki to ieba," means "when it is said to be autumn," setting the season's arrival as the condition.
In the second line, "oki" is a pivot word joining "chigiri oku," to make a promise beforehand, with the dew that "settles" (oku), and it functions as an associated word of dew. "Ya" is interrogative.
In the third line, "musubu" means that dew forms into beads, and it is also an associated word of "chigiri," a pledge (one "binds" a promise). "Ran," the attributive of the conjectural "ramu," is bound to "ya." The poem breaks here.
In the fourth line, "asaji" is low, sparse sedge grass.
The last line ends on a noun, placing the inverted subject at the close. The ordinary fact that dew settles in autumn is personified and explained as though the dew had made a pact with autumn. Whereas the preceding poem, 462, marked the season's arrival by the day the dew settled, this one asks the reason for the dew's settling itself. Poem 465 likewise asks after the dew's heart with "omoi oku," using the same pivot on "oku." The closing "white dew" is shared with "the white dew of autumn" in 461.

Author

Egyō

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other