Kurenai ni namida shi koku wa midori naru sode mo momiji to miemashi mono o - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

紅に涙し濃くは緑なる
袖も紅葉と見えましものを

Roma-ji: Kurenai ni namida shi koku wa midori naru sode mo momiji to miemashi mono o
English Translation: If your tears were dyed
so deep a crimson as you say,
then your sleeves of green
would look like autumn leaves by now—
and yet they show no such hue
Meaning: If your tears were truly a deep crimson, even your green sleeves would look like autumn leaves. Yet they do not.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems IV 812

Headnote: "Reply."
The poet says that if the tears were truly deep crimson, even green sleeves would look like autumn leaves. To one who protested in the preceding poem that tears turn crimson, this reply teases the exaggeration: if so, the green sleeves should have turned the color of autumn foliage.
It is the reply to the preceding poem, 811, and the third in the sequence on crimson tears. Green sleeves are also said to be the color of robes worn by officials of the sixth rank, so the reply may play on the other's station.
The poet is listed as anonymous, and the composer's name has not come down to us. The text gives the poet as "yomibito mo," indicating that the poem is anonymous.

The first line, "Kurenai ni," means "to crimson," taking up the opening of the preceding poem, 811, unchanged.
The second line, "namida shi koku wa," means "if your tears are deep," with "shi" an emphatic particle and "wa" marking a supposition.
The third line, "midori naru," means "green," heightening the contrast between crimson and green. 834 and 835 in this book likewise contrast the green of the pine with the colors of autumn leaves.
The fourth line, "sode mo momiji to," means "your sleeves, too, as autumn leaves."
The last line, "miemashi mono o," means "would surely appear," with "mashi" a counterfactual auxiliary implying that in fact they do not.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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