Tamayura no tsuyu mo namida mo todomarazu naki hito kouru yado no akikaze

English Translation

Not for a moment
do the dew or tears remain—
at the house where
I long for the one who is gone,
the wind of autumn blows.

Meaning

Not even for a moment do the dew or my tears remain, for the autumn wind blows through this house where I long for the one who is gone.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 788

Headnote: "On going to the place where I once lived, on a day when the autumn gale blew, in the autumn my mother died."
This is the fourteenth poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of autumn. It says that not for a moment do the dew or tears remain, as the autumn wind blows through the house where he longs for the dead. According to the headnote, it was composed on going to the place where he once lived, on a day of autumn gale in the year his mother died.
The son of Fujiwara no Shunzei, the author was one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashū. His mother was Bifukumon'in no Kaga, who died in the second month of Kenkyū 4 (1193).
The scene is a day of autumn gale in the year his mother died, set at the house where he once lived.
The direct occasion is visiting the house where he once lived on a day of autumn gale.
Nowaki is the strong wind of autumn that blows hard enough to part the grasses of the fields, corresponding to today's typhoon.

In the first line, "tamayura no," "tamayura" means "for the briefest moment." "Tama," jewel, is a word associated with dew and leads into "tsuyu" in the second line.
The second line, "tsuyu mo namida mo," sets side by side the dew on the grass and his own tears. Over the dew scattered by the gale lie tears that fall without end.
The third line, "todomarazu," means "they do not remain." The poem pauses after the third line.
The fourth line, "naki hito kouru," means "longing for my late mother," and modifies "yado," house, in the last line.
The last line, "yado no akikaze," ends on a noun. The autumn wind blowing through the house in the gale scatters both dew and tears and lets neither stay. Following the preceding poem, 787, which sang of the fields where the dew vanished altogether, the scene here moves to the house where he once lived. The same mother's death appears in the headnote of 766 of this book, and time has moved on from the end of spring to autumn. The next poem, 789, also sings of dew and wind.

Author

Fujiwara no Teika

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other