Ōzora ni teru hi no iro o isametemo ame no shita ni wa tare ka sumubeki - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

大空に照る日の色をいさめても
天の下には誰か住むべき

Roma-ji: Ōzora ni teru hi no iro o isametemo ame no shita ni wa tare ka sumubeki
English Translation: Though you might forbid
the color of the sun that shines
across the great sky,
then beneath the heavens, who
would there be that could still dwell?
Meaning: Though you forbid the color of the sun that shines in the great sky, who then could go on living beneath the heavens?
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1745

Headnote: "In the Engi era, when the lady chamberlain Takumi was watching the White Horse Festival and let a crimson robe show from her carriage, a police commissioner was about to reprimand her; she sent him this."
A poem on living beneath the heavens. Forbid the color of the sun shining in the great sky, and who could live beneath the heavens where it does not shine? According to the headnote, in the reign of Emperor Daigo, when the lady chamberlain Takumi was watching the White Horse Festival, a police commissioner moved to reprimand her for letting the hem of a crimson robe show from her carriage, and she sent him this. Likening crimson to the color of the sun, she wittily retorts that forbidding it is like forbidding sunlight.
The author is the lady chamberlain Takumi named in the headnote, who served in the reign of Emperor Daigo. A "nyokurōdo" was a lower-ranking woman official who attended to miscellaneous duties at court, and "Takumi" was her name.
The White Horse Festival was a court ceremony on the seventh day of the first month in which the emperor viewed white horses at the Shishinden and held a banquet for his courtiers. The police commissioners oversaw order and public conduct in the capital. The headnote of the next poem begins "Because she said this, she was not reprimanded," recording that this poem spared her.

The first line, "ōzora ni," means "high in the sky," setting out the height of heaven and leading to the majesty of the sun.
The second line, "teru hi no iro o," is the color of the shining sun, that is, crimson. The crimson robe shown from the carriage is likened to the color of the sun.
The third line, "isametemo," means "even if you forbid it." "Temo" marks a concessive supposition, taking up the commissioner's reprimand.
The fourth line, "ame no shita ni wa," is this world lit by the sun. Taking up "ame no shita" of the preceding poem, poems on the land under heaven are set side by side with the same phrase.
In the last line, "tare ka sumubeki," "ka" is a rhetorical particle closed in kakari-musubi by the attributive "beki." By the logic that no one could live under heaven if the sun's color were banned, she wittily protests the injustice of the reprimand.
Author: Nyokurōdo Takumi
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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