Mi o tsumeba tsuyu o aware to omou kana akatsuki goto ni ika de okuran - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

身をつめば露をあはれと思ふかな
暁ごとにいかでおくらん

Roma-ji: Mi o tsumeba tsuyu o aware to omou kana akatsuki goto ni ika de okuran
English Translation: When I pinch my flesh
I feel pity for the dew;
how, I wonder, does it
rise and settle every dawn,
as I must rise and go?
Meaning: When I pinch myself and compare, I feel pity for the dew: how can it bear to settle each dawn, just as I must rise each dawn and leave?
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 730

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Sent to a woman"
The poem says that comparing the dew with oneself, the poet feels pity for it, and wonders how it can settle each dawn. Pivoting "oku" on dew "settling" and a person "rising," it lays the poet, who must rise and part each dawn, over the dew that settles on the grass each dawn, expressing sympathy for the dew. The headnote continues from the preceding poem, 729, so it is taken as a poem sent to a woman.

First line, "mi o tsumeba," means "when I pinch myself," that is, when I compare another's lot with my own. It is the same phrasing as the fourth line of the opening poem, 698, "mi o tsumite dani."
Second line, "tsuyu o aware to," means "the dew, with pity."
Third line, "omou kana," means "how I feel," and the poem breaks after this third line.
Fourth line, "akatsuki goto ni," means "every dawn," the hour when a man left a woman's house.
Final line, "ika de okuran," is a pivot word: "oku" means dew "settling" and a person "rising." "Ika de" means "how," and "ran" is conjectural. It uses the same pivot as the fourth line of 715 in this book, "okite wabishiki."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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