Aki sareba oku shiratsuyu ni waga yado no asaji ga uwaba irozukinikeri

English Translation

When autumn arrives,
with the white dew settling there
by my house, the tops
of the blades of sparse sedge grass
have taken on autumn hues

Meaning

When autumn comes, the upper blades of sedge grass by my house have taken on color from the settling white dew.

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 464

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the fourth poem of the dew sequence. The white dew that settles in autumn has tinted the upper blades of the sedge grass by the speaker's house. The headnote, continued from the preceding poem, gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author was a poet who served at the courts of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu in the Asuka period.
The scene is autumn, in the garden of the speaker's house where sedge grass grows.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

The first line, "aki sareba," means "when autumn comes," the same opening as 458.
In the second line, "ni" marks the cause: "by the white dew that settles."
The third line means "in my own garden," the same phrase as the first line of 462, so dew on the grasses of one's own garden is sung twice in succession.
In the fourth line, "uwaba" are the upper blades of the grass. Taking up "the plain of sparse sedge grass" in 463, the poem again sets dew upon sedge grass.
In the last line, "ni" is the continuative of the perfective "nu" and "keri" is exclamatory, expressing the realization that the grass has taken on color. The notion that dew dyes the grass casts dew as the bearer of autumn's colors. Whereas the dew of 461 through 463 was likened to jewels, tears, or a pledge, this poem turns to the dew's power to color the grass.

Author

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other