庭の面に茂る蓬にことよせて
心のままに置ける露かな
心のままに置ける露かな
- Roma-ji
-
Niwa no omo ni shigeru yomogi ni koto yosete kokoro no mama ni okeru tsuyu kana
- English Translation
-
Over the garden
on the mugwort growing thick
making that excuse,
just as it pleases its heart
the dewdrops have settled here
- Meaning
- Using the mugwort that grows thick across the garden as its excuse, the dew has settled just as it pleases.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 467
Headnote: "On the topic 'dew thick in a quiet garden.'"
This is the seventh poem of the dew sequence. Using the mugwort that has overgrown the garden as its excuse, the dew settles as it pleases. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "dew thick in a quiet garden."
The author was a son of Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Toshiie. Though he did not rise high in rank, he was learned in poetics and became the teacher of Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The scene is autumn, in a garden overgrown with mugwort, where no one comes to visit.
The direct occasion was the topic "dew thick in a quiet garden."
The first line, "niwa no omo ni," means "all across the garden," and is hypermetric with six syllables.
In the second line, "yomogi," mugwort, is the grass that overruns neglected gardens, conveying the "quiet garden" of the topic where no one visits.
The third line, "koto yosete," means "using as an excuse," personifying the dew as taking the thick mugwort as its pretext.
The fourth line, "kokoro no mama ni," means "as it pleases, without restraint." Following "with the dew so thick" in 466, it explains the abundance of dew from the dew's own heart.
In the last line, "ru" is the attributive of the continuative auxiliary "ri" and "kana" exclamatory. In a garden no one tends, the dew settles without deferring to anyone—a conceit that treats the topic "dew thick" through reasoning. Following "what can it be that it leaves behind" in 465, it again grants the dew a heart. The next poem, 468, sings of dew in the fields on the topic "dew thick on field grasses," so the same topic of thick dew is treated in a garden and in a field in successive poems.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Mototoshi
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- What a mystery! on the fields and mountains too the white dew settles— what can it be that it leaves behind, lingering in thought?
- With the dew so thick I push through the meadow grass— my fine robe soaks through; drenched I make my way back home in the drip of the flowers
- Bending down the blades of grasses on autumn moors the dew lies heavy— drenched by it, will someone still go on seeking through the fields?
- Did the dew perhaps learn it from the sleeves of one lost in brooding thought— that when the autumn wind blows it cannot hold itself back?