影とめし露の宿りを思ひ出でて
霜に跡とふ浅茅生の月
霜に跡とふ浅茅生の月
- Roma-ji
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Kage tomeshi tsuyu no yadori o omoiidete shimo ni ato tou asajiu no tsuki
- English Translation
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Remembering the dew
where once it came to lodge
and left its light,
it seeks the traces in the frost—
the moon on the field of reeds
- Meaning
- Remembering the dewdrops where it once lodged its light, the moon over the field of low reeds now comes seeking their traces in the frost.
- Commentary
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Book Six Winter Poems 610
Headnote: "When I presented fifty poems."
This is the twentieth poem of the winter-moon sequence. Remembering the dew on the low reeds where its light once lodged, the moon now seeks the traces in the frost. According to the headnote, it was composed when a set of fifty poems was presented.
The author, "Masatsune," is Fujiwara no Masatsune. A son of the Minister of Justice Fujiwara no Yoritsune, he founded the Asukai house of kemari football and poetry. He was one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is a winter night with frost, and the place is where low reeds grow thick.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a fifty-poem set. The headnote does not record for which gathering the fifty poems were composed.
The first line, "kage tomeshi," means "where it once left its light," with "shi" as the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki." It speaks of the moonlight reflected and lodged in the dew.
The second line, "tsuyu no yadori o," means "the lodging of dew," presenting the dew in which the moon lodged as a dwelling place.
The third line, "omoiidete," means "remembering," personifying the moon.
The fourth line, "shimo ni ato tou," means "seeking in the frost the traces of that lodging of dew." Even after the dew has turned to frost, the moon visits the traces of its former lodging and shines upon the frost.
The last line, "asajiu no tsuki," closes on a noun, naming the moon shining where low reeds grow thick. Like 594 in this book, which sang of "the dawn moon I came to know since the season of the dew" lingering on a frosted sleeve, this poem catches the passage from dew to frost through moonlight. The scene moves from the moon of the bedchamber in the poems before to the moon over a field of low reeds.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Masatsune
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- Unable to bear the cold, I wake, and on my pillow see the light— on a night of deepest frost, the moon that lingers into dawn
- Frost binds on the sleeve I spread alone to sleep, and nothing thaws— on this sleepless night the moon, how cold its light appears!
- Upon her single sleeve spread out to sleep alone, does she lay the frost? Forsaken even on moonlit nights, the Lady of Uji Bridge
- The old stalks of reeds that were cut back in summer have withered away; the birds that flocked among them— are they somewhere in the sky?