Wasuregusa kare mo ya suru to tsure mo naki hito no kokoro ni shimo wa okanamu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

忘れ草かれもやするとつれもなき
人の心に霜は置かなむ

Roma-ji: Wasuregusa kare mo ya suru to tsure mo naki hito no kokoro ni shimo wa okanamu
English Translation: The forgetting grass
might wither away, I think,
if upon the heart
of one so cold and heartless
the frost would only settle
Meaning: I wish frost would settle on the heart of that cold person, so that the forgetting grass growing there might wither away.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 801

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
The cold lover's heart must have forgetting grass growing in it, so the speaker wishes frost would settle and wither it. Placing the grass inside the lover's heart and killing it with frost is a striking conceit expressing the wish not to be forgotten. It continues the forgetting-grass poems 765 and 766, and forms a pair with the next poem.
The author, "Muneyuki no Ason," is Minamoto no Muneyuki, son of Prince Koretada, a son of Emperor Kōkō; he was given the surname Minamoto and made a commoner. He rose to Master of the Right Capital Office and is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

The first line names the daylily, believed to make one forget sorrow. The next poem begins with the same word.
In the second line kare echoes both withering and drifting apart. Ya asks: thinking it might wither.
The third line, "cold and indifferent," describes the lover, matching "heartless one" in the fourth line of the next poem.
The fourth line presents the lover's heart as the place where the forgetting grass grows.
In the last line namu expresses a wish directed elsewhere: may the frost settle. Frost is placed here as what withers grass.
Author: Minamoto no Muneyuki
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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