秋萩の上に白露置くごとに
見つつぞ偲ふ君が姿を
見つつぞ偲ふ君が姿を
- Roma-ji
-
Akihagi no ue ni shiratsuyu oku goto ni mitsutsu zo shinou kimi ga sugata o
- English Translation
-
On the autumn clover
every time the silver dew
settles and lies there,
looking on it, I recall
the figure of you, my love.
- Meaning
- Each time the white dew settles on the autumn bush clover, I gaze at it and remember your form.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Autumn Love Poems 2259
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Love Expressed Through Dew"
This poem says that each time white dew settles on the autumn bush clover, the speaker gazes at it and recalls the beloved's form, and it closes the dew group. The beauty of dew on the bush clover becomes something that calls up the beloved's image. Whereas the preceding three poems overlaid the transience of life on the dew's fleetingness, this one overlays the beloved's image on the dew's beauty, singing different feelings toward the same dew on bush clover.
The first line, "of the autumn bush clover," names the plant.
The second line, "white dew upon it," names the dew.
The third line, "each time it settles," marks recurrence.
In the fourth line, "mitsutsu zo shinou," "zo" is an emphatic particle in kakari-musubi with the attributive "shinou." The poem breaks here.
The last line, "your figure," names by inversion the object recalled at the end.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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