Shimo kōru sode ni mo kage wa nokorikeri tsuyu yori nareshi ariake no tsuki

English Translation

On my frozen sleeve
where the frost has hardened, still
the light remains—
the moon of dawn I came to know
since the season of the dew

Meaning

Even on my sleeve, where the frost has frozen hard, its light still lingers—the dawn moon I have known so well since the days of dew.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 594

Headnote: "On the topic 'Moon at Daybreak' at the Kasuga Poetry Contest."
This is the fourth poem of the winter-moon sequence. The light of the dawn moon, which has lodged on the speaker's sleeve and grown familiar since the days of dew, still lingers on the sleeve now frozen with frost. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Moon at Daybreak" at the Kasuga Poetry Contest.
The author, "Intendant of the Right Gate Guards Michitomo," is Minamoto no Michitomo. A son of the Palace Minister Minamoto no Michichika, he was one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is a winter daybreak with frozen frost, and the place is where the light of the dawn moon falls.
The direct occasion is the topic "Moon at Daybreak" at the Kasuga Shrine Poetry Contest of Genkyū 1 (1204). The "Kasuga Poetry Contest" of the headnote refers to this contest.

The first line, "shimo kōru," means "where the frost freezes," conveying the bitter cold of a winter dawn.
In the second line, "sode ni mo kage wa," "kage" means moonlight. "Mo" adds "not only in the days of dew but on this frost-frozen sleeve too." The moonlight lodged on the sleeve is the moon reflected on a sleeve wet with tears.
The third line, "nokorikeri," means "it has remained," with "keri" expressing the exclamation of awareness. The poem breaks after the third line, in inverted relation to the lower verse.
The fourth line, "tsuyu yori nareshi," means "grown familiar since the days of dew," with "shi" as the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki." From the moon lodged in autumn dew to the moon lingering on a winter sleeve of frost, the passage of time is shown.
The last line, "ariake no tsuki," closes on a noun and presents the "moon at daybreak" of the topic. The poem sings of a moon that stays on the sleeve unchanged even as dew turns to frost, answering the opening poem of the book, 551, which knew the arrival of winter when the dew on the sleeve bound into frost, in that both catch the passage from dew to frost upon the sleeve. It moves on from the pairing of crimson leaves and moon in the poems before to the dawn moon after the leaves are gone.

Author

Minamoto no Michitomo

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other