Samo koso wa onaji tamoto no iro narame kawaranu ne o mo kaketekeru kana

English Translation

Yes, it must be so—
our sleeves are of the same hue;
and the unchanging
root, the sound of weeping, too,
we have hung upon them both.

Meaning

Yes, surely our sleeves are of the same color; and upon them we have both hung the root that does not change, the sound of weeping that does not change.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 772

Headnote: "Reply."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of summer, a reply to the preceding poem. Drawing close to Kujōin's grief, it answers that their sleeves must indeed be of the same color, and that both have hung upon them the unchanging sound of weeping. The headnote says "Reply," answering Kujōin's poem before it.
A daughter of Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadamichi, the author became the empress of Emperor Sutoku and later received the title Kōkamon'in. She raised Emperor Konoe as her adopted son.
The scene is the same fifth day of the fifth month after Emperor Konoe's death as the preceding poem, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion is the reply to the poem presented by Kujōin in the preceding poem.

The first line, "samo koso wa," means "yes, surely so." "Koso" is an emphatic binding particle, completed by "me" in the realis form in the third line.
The second line, "onaji tamoto no," takes up "tamoto ni wa" from the preceding poem. As one who also mourns Emperor Konoe, she says that Kujōin's sleeves and her own are the same.
In the third line, "iro narame," "me" is the realis form of the conjectural auxiliary "mu," closing in response to "koso" in the first line. The poem pauses after the third line.
In the fourth line, "kawaranu ne o mo," "ne" is a pivot word meaning both the "root" of the iris and the "sound" of weeping. Setting "kawaranu," unchanging, against "hikitagaetaru" in the preceding poem, it answers that though the look of the sleeves has changed, the sound of weeping for the past has not.
In the last line, "kaketekeru kana," "kana" is exclamatory. Taking up "kakari" from the preceding poem's last line, "ne zo kakarikeru," with "kake," the reply draws the sender's own words directly into itself. The conceit of the festival iris and "ne," which ran from 770, closes with this exchange, and the sequence remembering the dead through the things of summer comes to an end.

Author

Fujiwara no Seishi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other