草の上にここら玉ゐし白露を
下葉の霜と結ぶ冬かな
下葉の霜と結ぶ冬かな
- Roma-ji
-
Kusa no ue ni kokora tamaishi shiratsuyu o shitaba no shimo to musubu fuyu kana
- English Translation
-
The white dew that lay
in countless jewels
upon the grasses
winter now binds into frost
on the lower leaves
- Meaning
- The white dew that once lay in countless jewels upon the grasses, winter now binds into frost on the lower leaves.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 619
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the ninth poem of the frost-and-withering sequence. The white dew that lay in jewels upon the grasses is bound by winter into frost on the lower leaves. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Yoshitada," is Sone no Yoshitada. Having served as Secretary of Tango, he was called Sotango or Sotan. He is known as a poet who composed hundred-poem sequences at an early date.
The scene is the beginning of winter when dew turns to frost, and the place is a field once thick with grasses.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "kusa no ue ni," means "upon the grasses" and runs to six syllables, one over the count.
In the second line, "kokora tamaishi," "kokora" means "many," "in great number." "Tamaishi" means "which lay like jewels," likening the white dew to jewels.
The third line, "shiratsuyu o," means "the white dew of autumn."
The fourth line, "shitaba no shimo to," means "as frost on the lower leaves of the grass." The dew that lay as jewels on the upper leaves binds into frost on the lower leaves, overlaying a change of position, from above to below, with the change from dew to frost.
The last line, "musubu fuyu kana," closes with the exclamatory particle "kana." Making winter the subject, it grants winter the power to bind autumn's dew into frost. It answers the opening poem of the book, 551, which knew the coming of winter when the dew on the sleeve bound into frost, in singing of this "binding" from dew to frost, and it also connects with the passage from a lodging of dew to frost in 610 of this book.
- Author
- Sone no Yoshitada
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Withered by the frost, nothing marks the place it was— this field of grass; whom then shall I ask about what lingers of the autumn?
- Where the frost is chill, on the ridges of the mountain fields the clumps of pampas grass, with no one there to cut them, still remain in these days
- On the bridge that spans the sky, laid by magpies' wings, the frost has settled; when I see how white it lies, I know the night has grown late
- Winter showers fall, and the flowers of the fields wither one by one; so on the frost-covered fence how brightly glows this color