Kakikurashi koto wa furanamu harusame ni nureginu kisete kimi o todomemu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

かきくらしことは降らなむ春雨に
ぬれぎぬ着せて君をとどめむ

Roma-ji: Kakikurashi koto wa furanamu harusame ni nureginu kisete kimi o todomemu
English Translation: Darken all the sky
and fall, if fall you must,
O rain of spring;
I'll dress you in wet robes
as pretext to keep you here.
Meaning: Spring rain, darken the whole sky and pour down, if you must fall at all. Then I will dress my love in rain-soaked robes and, blaming the rain, keep him here with me.
Commentary: Book Eight Parting Poems 402

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poem asks the spring rain to darken the sky and fall, so that the speaker can dress the other in rain-soaked clothes and use that as a pretext to hold him back. Layering the sense of a false charge onto "wet robes," it is a witty conceit of keeping someone from leaving by blaming the rain.
The author is listed as "anonymous," and the name has not come down to us.

The first line, "darken all the sky," means to cover the whole sky in darkness, describing rain clouds gathering.
The second line, "fall, if fall you must," uses koto wa, "if it is all the same," with the desiderative namu to wish for rain, and the poem breaks after this line. It shares a word of the same sense with koto naraba in poem 395 of this book, and both entrust the detaining of people to nature.
The third line, "O rain of spring," marks the season as spring and makes the rain a means of holding the other back.
The fourth line, "I'll dress you in wet robes," is a pivot word joining clothes wet with rain and nureginu, a false accusation. It reveals the scheme of using the wetting as an excuse.
The last line, "to keep you here," ends with the volitional mu: I will hold you back. It shares its words with the last line of poem 374, "hold back my friend"; that poem commands the barrier, while this one resolves to hold the other back oneself.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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