Natsukusa no tsuyuwakegoromo ki mo senu ni nado waga sode no kawaku toki naki - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

夏草の露分け衣着もせぬに
などわが袖の乾く時なき

Roma-ji: Natsukusa no tsuyuwakegoromo ki mo senu ni nado waga sode no kawaku toki naki
English Translation: Robes that brush aside
the dew upon summer grass
I have not put on;
why then should these sleeves of mine
never know a time when dry?
Meaning: I am not wearing a robe for parting the dew on the summer grass; why, then, are my sleeves never dry?
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 1375

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the first poem of the sequence on sleeves and waters. The speaker is not wearing a robe for parting the dew on summer grass, yet asks why the sleeves are never dry, singing of sleeves wet with tears. The text gives no author name, and it is arranged as a poem by Hitomaro continuing from the preceding poem. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Hitomaro," is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. A court poet of the Asuka period who served under Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu, he was later revered as the saint of poetry.
Book Ten of the Man'yōshū has an anonymous poem whose last line reads "hiru toki mo naki," of which this is a variant transmission.

The first line, "natsukusa no," takes up the "summer fields" of the preceding poem, continuing the summer imagery.
The second line, "tsuyuwakegoromo," refers to a robe worn when walking through dewy grass, a robe meant to get wet with dew.
The third line, "ki mo senu ni," means "though I do not wear one." The poem breaks after the third line.
In the fourth line, "nado waga sode no," "nado" means "why," expressing a question.
The last line, "kawaku toki naki," answers "nado" with an attributive ending. Sleeves that do not dry, though there is no dew to wet them, show the abundance of tears indirectly. The lament of undrying sleeves carries on into "kawakanu wa," the third line of 1377.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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