Toshi no uchi ni tsumoreru tsumi wa kakikurashi furu shirayuki to tomo ni kienan - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

年の内に積もれる罪はかきくらし
降る白雪とともに消えなん

Roma-ji: Toshi no uchi ni tsumoreru tsumi wa kakikurashi furu shirayuki to tomo ni kienan
English Translation: All the sins piled up
in the course of the year,
let them melt away
with the white snow that comes down,
darkening all of the sky.
Meaning: The sins piled up over the year will surely melt away together with the white snow that falls and darkens all the sky.
Commentary: Book Four Winter Poems 258

Headnote: "For a folding screen in the Engi era"
The poet says that the sins piled up over the year will surely vanish together with the white snow that falls thickly and darkens the sky. Overlaying the snow, which piles up and then melts, with the vanishing of sin, the poem, placed among the poems on the Buddha Names service, prays that sins be cleansed at the year's end. According to the headnote, it was written for a folding screen in the Engi era of Emperor Daigo.
The author, written as Tsurayuki, is Ki no Tsurayuki. The leading compiler of the Kokinshū, he wrote its Kana Preface and the Tosa Diary, and he is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "toshi no uchi ni," means "within this year," and has six syllables, one more than the norm.
Second line, "tsumoreru tsumi wa," means "the sins that have piled up," with "piling up" an associated word for snow.
Third line, "kakikurashi," means "darkening the whole sky." It is the same word as the first line of 217 in this book, depicting a sky of snow after the sky of showers.
Fourth line, "furu shirayuki to," means "with the white snow that falls."
Final line, "tomo ni kienan," means "will surely vanish together," with "na" intensive and "n" conjectural. It takes up "tsumi mo kenu ran" of the preceding poem.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Shui Wakashu
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