Tsuyu bakari tanomuru koto mo naki mono o ayashi ya nani ni omoioiken - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

露ばかり頼むることもなきものを
あやしや何に思ひおきけん

Roma-ji: Tsuyu bakari tanomuru koto mo naki mono o ayashi ya nani ni omoioiken
English Translation: Not a drop of dew
did I give for you to trust,
and so how strange it is!
on what, then, did you settle
your thoughts, the way dew settles?
Meaning: I never gave you so much as a dewdrop's worth of hope; how strange! On what did you let your thoughts settle, like dew?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 690

Headnote: "Reply"
The poem retorts that she never gave him so much as a dewdrop's worth of hope, and wonders on what he could have let his thoughts settle. The headnote shows it is the reply to the preceding poem, 689. Negating that poem's "tsuyu bakari tanomeshi" with "tsuyu bakari tanomuru koto mo naki," and pivoting "oki" on dew "settling" and thoughts "being set," it turns aside his assumption, saying she remembers no such promise.

First line, "tsuyu bakari," means "not even a dewdrop's worth," the same line as the first line of the preceding poem, 689.
Second line, "tanomuru koto mo," means "anything to rely on," taking up the second line of the preceding poem, "tanomeshi hodo no."
Third line, "naki mono o," means "though there was none," with "mono o" concessive.
Fourth line, "ayashi ya nani ni," means "how strange, on what," with "ya" an exclamatory particle.
Final line, "omoioiken," is a pivot word: "oki" means dew "settling" and thoughts "being set" in one's heart. "Ken," the attributive form of the auxiliary of past conjecture, resolves the interrogative "nani ni" in the fourth line.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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