Tsuyu no mi no kieba ware koso sakidatame okuremu mono ka mori no shitakusa - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

露の身の消えば我こそ先立ため
後れむものか森の下草

Roma-ji: Tsuyu no mi no kieba ware koso sakidatame okuremu mono ka mori no shitakusa
English Translation: If a life like dew
must vanish, it is I, surely,
who will go before;
shall I be the one left behind,
old grass beneath the forest?
Meaning: If a life like dew must vanish, surely I will be the one to go first. Would I, old as the grass beneath the forest trees, be the one left behind?
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1737

Headnote: "Reply."
This is the second of an exchange on a life like dew, a reply to the preceding poem. If a dewlike life must vanish, surely she, being old, will go first; how could she, like the grass beneath the forest, be left behind? Citing her own age, she encourages the one who is ill.
The author, "Koma no Myōbu," was a lady-in-waiting of the mid-Heian period. "Myōbu" is a title for women serving at court.
"The grass beneath the forest" has served as a figure for old age since the anonymous Kokin Wakashū poem "Ōaraki no / mori no shitakusa / oinureba / koma mo susamezu / karu hito mo nashi" ("The grass beneath the forest of Ōaraki has grown old; even horses will not eat it, and no one comes to cut it").

The first line, "tsuyu no mi no," takes over the third line of the preceding poem unchanged, answering in the manner of an exchange by taking up the other's words.
The second line, "kieba ware koso," means "if it must vanish, I am the one." "Kieba," the irrealis with "ba," is a supposition.
The third line, "sakidatame," closes the kakari-musubi of "koso" with "me," the realis form of the conjectural "mu." It says she will surely die first, and the poem pauses here.
In the fourth line, "okuremu mono ka," "mono ka" is rhetorical, meaning "shall I be left behind? Never."
The last line, "mori no shitakusa," is a figure for her aged self. Ending on a noun, it cites her own age to encourage the younger one that he cannot yet be meant to die.
Author: Koma no Myōbu
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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