Akatsuki no nakaramashikaba shiratsuyu no okite wabishiki wakare semashi ya - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

暁のなからましかば白露の
おきてわびしき別れせましや

Roma-ji: Akatsuki no nakaramashikaba shiratsuyu no okite wabishiki wakare semashi ya
English Translation: If there were no dawn,
would I rise as the white dew
settles on the grass,
and go through the bitterness
of parting at break of day?
Meaning: If there were no such thing as dawn, would I rise, as the white dew settles, to go through so bitter a parting?
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 715

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Sent the morning after first visiting a woman"
The poem says that if there were no dawn, the poet would never have to rise, as white dew settles, and suffer the bitterness of parting. The headnote is the same as that of the preceding poem, 714, a morning-after poem sent after the first visit to a woman. Pivoting "oki" on dew "settling" and a person "rising," it lays over the fleetingness of dawn dew the grief of having to part at daybreak.
The author, written as "Tsurayuki," is Ki no Tsurayuki. He was the leading compiler of the Kokinshū, wrote its kana preface and the Tosa Diary, and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "akatsuki no," means "of the dawn," the dark hour before daybreak when a man left the woman's house. It is the same word as the first line of 726 in this book, "akatsuki no."
Second line, "nakaramashikaba," means "if there were not," with "mashika" the irrealis form of the counterfactual auxiliary "mashi" and "ba" expressing supposition. It is the same line as the second line of 774 in this book, "nakaramashikaba."
Third line, "shiratsuyu no," means "of the white dew," leading into "oku," to settle.
Fourth line, "okite wabishiki," is a pivot word: "oki" means dew "settling" and a person "rising" from bed.
Final line, "wakare semashi ya," means "would I go through a parting?" with "mashi" counterfactual and "ya" rhetorical. It answers "mashikaba" in the second line to form a counterfactual construction.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Shui Wakashu
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