Fujigoromo haraete sutsuru namidagawa kishi ni mo masaru mizu zo nagaruru - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

藤衣祓へて捨つる涙川
岸にもまさる水ぞ流るる

Roma-ji: Fujigoromo haraete sutsuru namidagawa kishi ni mo masaru mizu zo nagaruru
English Translation: The wisteria robe
I purify and cast away
on the river of tears,
and more than the banks can hold,
the water flows on and on.
Meaning: Into the river of tears where I purify and cast off my wisteria mourning robe, more water flows than the banks can hold.
Commentary: Book Twenty Lament Poems 1291

Headnote: "On taking off mourning clothes"
The poet says that in the river of tears where the mourning robe is purified and cast away, water flows that overflows the banks. The headnote shows it was composed on taking off mourning clothes at the end of the mourning period. At the end of mourning one purified oneself at a river and let the robe float away, and calling that river a river of tears, the poet says that though the robe is cast off, tears overflow beyond the banks, singing of grief without end.
Poems 1291 through 1293 are a group composed on taking off mourning clothes at the end of the period of mourning. All of them sing of the wisteria robe and share the feeling that though the mourning robe is put away, the tears do not end.

First line, "fujigoromo," means "a mourning robe," so called because coarse cloth woven from wisteria fiber was worn in mourning. It shares this word with the third lines of the next poems, 1292 and 1293.
Second line, "haraete sutsuru," means "purifying and casting away," letting the robe float down a river to cleanse oneself at the end of mourning.
Third line, "namidagawa," a "river of tears," speaks of tears flowing like a river, seeing the river of purification as one of tears.
Fourth line, "kishi ni mo masaru," means "rising over the banks."
Final line, "mizu zo nagaruru," means "the water flows," with the binding particle "zo" resolved by the attributive "nagaruru."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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