紅の八しほの衣朝な朝な
馴れはすれどもいやめづらしも
馴れはすれどもいやめづらしも
- Roma-ji
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Kurenai no yashio no koromo asanasana nare wa suredomo iya mezurashi mo
- English Translation
-
Like a robe of crimson
steeped in dye eight times over,
morning after morning
familiar though we become,
ever fresher is my love
- Meaning
- As a robe dyed deep crimson again and again grows familiar with each morning's wearing, so we grow familiar morning after morning, and yet you grow ever more dear to me.
- Commentary
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Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2623
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing Feelings through Things"
As a beautiful robe dyed again and again in crimson grows soft against the skin with each morning's wearing, so the speaker grows familiar with the beloved morning after morning, and yet the beloved becomes ever more dear: this is a love poem. Through a robe of deep crimson it expresses, brightly, an affection that grows the more familiar it becomes.
The headnote continues from the preceding poem, "Expressing Feelings through Things," and this poem speaks through a crimson robe. The preceding poem, 2622, also used a robe grown soft with wear, "narenuredo"; but where that poem says love cannot be forgotten even with familiarity, this one says the beloved grows only dearer, treating the same conceit once as the pain of love and once as the deepening of affection. It shares its first line, "kurenai no," with the next poem, 2624, so that two poems on crimson-dyed robes stand side by side.
The author is unknown. The anonymous poems of Book Eleven gather love poems by people whose names have not come down to us.
First line, "kurenai no": "of crimson," the vivid red dyed with safflower. The next poem, 2624, begins with the same line.
Second line, "yashio no koromo": "a robe steeped eight times," a robe dyed deep by being dipped again and again in the dye. "Shio" counts the times the cloth is dipped, and "ya" (eight) expresses a great number. The first and second lines form an introductory phrase leading to "nare" in the fourth line.
Third line, "asanasana": "morning after morning." It overlays putting on the robe each morning with meeting the beloved each morning.
Fourth line, "nare wa suredomo": "though we have grown familiar." "Nare" combines the sense of a robe grown soft with wear and of people growing familiar. The particle "wa" singles it out, and "domo" is concessive.
Fifth line, "iya mezurashi mo": "ever more dear." "Iya" means more and more, "mezurashi" means fresh and lovable, and "mo" is a sentence-final particle of feeling.
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
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Shika no ama no shioyakikoromo narenuredo koi to iu mono wa wasurekanetsu mo
- Next Poem
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Kurenai no kosome no koromo iro fukaku shimi ni shikaba ka wasurekanetsuru