Kaminazuki shigururu koro mo ika nare ya sora ni suginishi aki no miyabito

English Translation

The Godless Month—
in this season of showers, how
are your robes, I wonder,
you who served the Autumn Palace
now gone by into the sky?

Meaning

In the Godless Month, the season of winter showers, how are you and your robes, I wonder—you who served the Autumn Palace, now that autumn has passed away into the empty sky?

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 804

Headnote: "Left anonymously among the people of that household around the tenth month, after the Biwa Empress Dowager had passed away."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of winter. Thinking of the people of a palace that had lost its mistress, it asks how their robes fare in the season of winter showers in the Godless Month, calling out to those who served the Autumn Palace. According to the headnote, after the Biwa Empress Dowager died, it was left around the tenth month among the people who had served her, without saying who had sent it.
The author was a lady-in-waiting and poet of the mid-Heian period, called by this name because she became the wife of Ōe no Kinsuke, Governor of Sagami. She is one of the Thirty-Six Later Poetic Immortals. The "Biwa Empress Dowager" is Fujiwara no Kenshi, daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga, who became the empress of Emperor Sanjō and later empress dowager. She died in the ninth month of Manju 4 (1027).
The scene is the tenth month after Kenshi's death, set at Kenshi's palace.
The direct occasion is consoling the people of the palace who had lost their mistress after Kenshi's death.

The first line, "kaminazuki," is the tenth month of the lunar calendar, the Godless Month. It leads into the second line as the season of winter showers.
In the second line, "shigururu koro mo," "koro mo" is a pivot word meaning both "koro mo," the season too, and "koromo," the robes worn by the palace people. In the season of showers, it calls to mind the sleeves of mourning robes wet with tears.
The third line, "ika nare ya," means "how can it be, I wonder?" The poem pauses after the third line and continues into the address to "miyabito" in the last line.
The fourth line, "sora ni suginishi," means "passed away in vain." "Ni shi" marks completion and the past, and over the passing of autumn lies the death of the empress dowager, who died in autumn.
In the last line, "aki no miyabito," "aki no miya," the Autumn Palace, is a name for the residence of an empress or empress dowager, and it also echoes the season of autumn. "Miyabito" are those who serve there. Ending on a noun, the poem closes by calling out to the palace people. Taking up the winter showers of the preceding poem, 803, it sings of the showers of the Godless Month and brings to a close the sequence remembering the dead through the things of winter.

Author

Sagami

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other