Wasurezu wa nareshi sode mo ya kōruramu nenu yo no toko no shimo no samushiro - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

忘れずは慣れし袖もや凍るらむ
寝ぬ夜の床の霜のさむしろ

Roma-ji: Wasurezu wa nareshi sode mo ya kōruramu nenu yo no toko no shimo no samushiro
English Translation: If you've not forgotten,
is the sleeve I knew so well
frozen now as well?
On my sleepless bed at night
I lie on a mat of frost.
Meaning: If you have not forgotten me, is the sleeve I knew so well frozen now with tears? On my bed on sleepless nights I lie on a narrow, cold mat covered in frost.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1291

Headnote: "For the hundred-poem contest at the house of the Regent and Grand Minister."
This is the first poem of the sequence on love being forgotten. If you have not forgotten me, the speaker wonders, is the sleeve I knew so well frozen with tears too? On my sleepless bed I lie on a mat of frost. According to the headnote, it was submitted to a poetry contest of hundred-poem sequences held at the house of Fujiwara no Yoshitsune.
The author, "Teika, Lord of the Court," is Fujiwara no Teika. A son of Fujiwara no Shunzei, he was one of the compilers of the Shinkokinshū and later compiled the Shinchokusenshū on his own.

The first line, "wasurezu wa," is conditional: "if you have not forgotten." From the sequence on neglected dwellings, the poems now turn to the theme of forgetting and not forgetting.
The second line, "nareshi sode mo ya," means "your sleeve too, which I came to know so well." "Ya" is interrogative, answered by "ramu" in the third line.
In the third line, "kōruramu," "ramu" conjectures about the present: "is it frozen now?" The poem breaks after this line. The speaker imagines from afar that the other's tear-wet sleeve is frozen too.
The fourth line, "nenu yo no toko no," means "of the bed on sleepless nights."
In the last line, "shimo no samushiro," "samushiro," a narrow straw mat, plays on "samushi," cold. Ending on a noun, it presents the speaker's own chilled and lonely bed, set against the other's sleeve in the upper lines.
Author: Fujiwara no Teika
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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