Yo ya samuki koromo ya usuki katasogi no yukiai no ma yori shimo ya okuran - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

夜や寒き衣や薄き片削ぎの
行き合ひの間より霜や置くらん

Roma-ji: Yo ya samuki koromo ya usuki katasogi no yukiai no ma yori shimo ya okuran
English Translation: Is the night so cold?
Is my robe grown thin? Between
the slanting crossbeams,
through the gap where they meet,
does the frost come settling down?
Meaning: Is it that the night is cold, or that my robe is thin? Through the gap where the slant-cut crossbeams meet, is the frost settling in?
Commentary: Book Nineteen Poems on the Gods 1855

Headnote: "It is said to be a poem of the Sumiyoshi Deity."
This is the fourth poem in the sequence of poems composed by the gods. Asking whether the night is cold or the robe thin, it wonders whether frost is settling through the gap where the crossbeams of the shrine roof meet. The left note says only that it is a poem of the Sumiyoshi Deity and records no circumstances. In complaining of the night's chill, the god can be read as hinting at the disrepair of the shrine roof.
The poem has no headnote; a left note follows it instead. In this text the left note is placed under the number of the next poem, but its content shows that it belongs to this poem, so it is cited here as the headnote.
No author is named in the original. According to the left note, the poem is regarded as the utterance of the deity of Sumiyoshi. The Sumiyoshi Shrine stands in Settsu Province (present-day Sumiyoshi Ward, Osaka) and was revered as the god of seafaring and of poetry.

The first line, "yo ya samuki," means "is the night cold?" The particle "ya" is closed by the attributive "samuki," and the poem pauses here.
The second line, "koromo ya usuki," repeats the pairing of "ya" and an attributive, forming a parallel with the first line. Night and robe are set side by side as two possible causes.
The third line, "katasogi no," refers to the slant-cut tips of the chigi, the crossed beams projecting at both ends of the shrine roof.
The fourth line, "yukiai no ma yori," means "through the gap where they meet." It runs to eight syllables, one beyond the norm.
The last line, "shimo ya okuran," means "is the frost settling?" "Ya" is closed by the attributive of the conjectural "ran." "Ya" appears three times, in the first, second, and last lines, as the god guesses at one cause of the cold after another. The next poem is also by the Sumiyoshi Deity, so the two stand as a pair.
Author: Sumiyoshi Deity (per the left note)
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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