Tazunete mo sode ni kaku beki kata zo naki fukaki yomogi no tsuyu no kagoto o - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

尋ねても袖にかくべき方ぞなき
深き蓬の露のかことを

Roma-ji: Tazunete mo sode ni kaku beki kata zo naki fukaki yomogi no tsuyu no kagoto o
English Translation: Though I come seeking,
there is no one on whose sleeve
I might hang these words,
my complaint, the dew that clings
to the deeply grown mugwort.
Meaning: Though I come seeking, there is no one left on whose sleeve I might hang my complaint, the reproach I would make of the dew on the deep-grown mugwort.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1288

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence on love unvisited in a neglected dwelling. Though I come seeking, the speaker says, there is no one on whose sleeve to hang my complaint, the dew of the deep mugwort. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Michiteru, Commander of the Left Gate Guards," is Minamoto no Michiteru. A son of the Palace Minister Minamoto no Michichika, he later rose to grand minister. Commander of the Left Gate Guards was his office when the collection was compiled.
The poem draws on the poem that Genji composes in the "Wormwood Patch" chapter of The Tale of Genji when he visits the Safflower Princess in her ruined mansion: "Though there is no path, I myself will seek and call on the heart that stays unchanged beneath the deep mugwort."

The first line, "tazunete mo," means "though I come seeking." It is the same as the first line of Genji's poem, the foundation poem.
In the second line, "sode ni kaku beki," "kaku" plays on both hanging dew on a sleeve and addressing words of reproach to someone.
The third line, "kata zo naki," means "there is no one," and the poem breaks after it; "naki" takes the attributive form in answer to "zo." In Genji's poem there was someone waiting with an unchanged heart at the place he sought; here the seeker finds no one, reversing the situation.
The fourth line, "fukaki yomogi no," is the same line as "fukaki yomogi no" in the foundation poem. Taking up the mugwort of the preceding poem, it shows a dwelling even more deeply overgrown.
In the last line, "tsuyu no kagoto o," "kagoto" means a complaint made on some pretext. The poem adds in inverted order the grief that, though one would reproach someone by likening the dew on the mugwort to tears, there is no one to hear it.
Author: Minamoto no Michiteru
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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