Arewataru aki no niwa koso aware nare mashite kienan tsuyu no yūgure - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

荒れわたる秋の庭こそあはれなれ
まして消えなん露の夕暮

Roma-ji: Arewataru aki no niwa koso aware nare mashite kienan tsuyu no yūgure
English Translation: How moving it is,
the garden of autumn as
it grows wholly wild—
how much more the dusk of dew
that will soon vanish away!
Meaning: How moving is the garden in autumn, growing wild all over—and how much more so this evening of the dew, soon to vanish, like me.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1561

Headnote: "For the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds."
This is the second poem of the sequence expressing personal feelings through the things of autumn. The autumn garden growing wild is moving, the poet says, and still more so the evening of dew about to vanish, like himself. According to the headnote, it was presented at the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. He was the son of Fujiwara no Toshitada and the father of Teika. He served as Master of the Empress Dowager's Household and took the tonsure in Angen 2 (1176). He compiled the Senzai Wakashū. No author's name is given in the text; the poem follows the author of the preceding poem.
The Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds was the largest poetry contest in history, formed by pairing the hundred-poem sequences that Retired Emperor Go-Toba had thirty poets compose in Kennin 1 (1201).

The first line, "arewataru," means "growing wild all over."
In the second line, "aki no niwa koso," "koso" is a binding particle, closed by "nare" in the third line.
The third line, "aware nare," closes the kakari-musubi of the particle "koso" with the perfective form "nare." It first states the pathos of the ruined autumn garden, and the poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "mashite kienan," means "still more, that will surely vanish." "Nan" adds the conjectural "n" to the emphatic "na," showing something about to vanish at any moment.
The last line, "tsuyu no yūgure," ends on a noun. It overlays the fleeting, vanishing dew with his own life, whose remaining days are few. Shunzei, who thought of his grave in the preceding poem, here entrusts himself to the vanishing dew.
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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