Akikaze no tsuyu no yadori ni kimi o okite chiri o idenuru koto zo kanashiki

English Translation

In the lodging of dew
that the autumn wind scatters
I leave you behind,
and going forth from the dust—
that is what brings me sorrow.

Meaning

Leaving you behind in this world, a passing lodging like dew before the autumn wind, I go forth from the dust of this world—and that is my sorrow.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 779

Headnote: "Sent to Jōtōmon'in, then called the Empress, on the day he took the tonsure when his illness had grown grave."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of autumn. It says that it is sorrowful to leave her behind in a world like dew before the autumn wind and to go forth from the dust of this world. According to the headnote, it was sent to Jōtōmon'in, then empress, on the day he took holy orders when his illness had grown grave.
A son of Emperor En'yū, the author's mother was Fujiwara no Senshi. He took Fujiwara no Teishi and Fujiwara no Shōshi as his consorts, and Sei Shōnagon, Murasaki Shikibu, and others served at his court. "Jōtōmon'in" is Fujiwara no Shōshi, who at this time was the author's empress.
The scene is the day the author took holy orders because of illness, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion is sending a poem to Empress Shōshi on the day he took holy orders as his illness grew grave.
The author took holy orders in the sixth month of Kankō 8 (1011) and died a few days later. The poem is also recorded in Gonki, the diary of Fujiwara no Yukinari, with the upper verse reading "tsuyu no mi no kaze no yadori ni."

The first line, "akikaze no," means "blown by the autumn wind," and leads into "tsuyu," dew, in the second line. The version recorded in Gonki reads "tsuyu no mi no," and in this anthology it is placed, as a phrase of the autumn wind, in the sequence on the things of autumn.
The second line, "tsuyu no yadori ni," speaks of this world as a fleeting, temporary dwelling, like dew that vanishes easily in the autumn wind. Taking up "tsuyu o kaketsutsu" from the preceding poem, 778, dew now becomes a figure for the world of human life.
In the third line, "kimi o okite," "oki" is a pivot word meaning both to leave someone behind and for dew to settle, and it is also a word associated with "tsuyu" in the second line.
In the fourth line, "chiri o idenuru," "chiri," dust, is the defiled secular world. "Ide" refers to leaving the world by taking holy orders, and "nuru" marks completion. As he takes holy orders in grave illness, the phrase carries the feeling of parting from this world.
In the last line, "koto zo kanashiki," "zo" is an emphatic binding particle, completed by the attributive "kanashiki." It is a poem of sorrow from the side of the one departing, thinking of the one he leaves behind, reversing the standpoint of the poems before it, in which those left behind remember the dead. In terms of "okure sakidatsu," being left behind and going first, in the opening poem of this book, 757, it is the poem of the one who goes first.

Author

Emperor Ichijō

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other