Asajiu no tsuyukeku mo aru ka aki kinu to me ni wa sayaka ni miekeru mono o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

浅茅生の露けくもあるか秋来ぬと
目にはさやかに見えけるものを

Roma-ji: Asajiu no tsuyukeku mo aru ka aki kinu to me ni wa sayaka ni miekeru mono o
English Translation: The field of cogon grass,
how drenched it is with dew!
"Autumn has come,"
I find, is something clearly
to be seen with the eyes
Meaning: How drenched with dew the field of cogon grass is! The coming of autumn, it seems, can indeed be seen clearly with the eyes.
Commentary: Book Four Autumn Poems I 227

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the first day of autumn"
Like the preceding poem, this was composed on the first day of autumn. Seeing the field of cogon grass soaked everywhere with dew, the poet finds that the coming of autumn can be seen clearly with the eyes. The device lies in answering the old poem that says autumn's arrival cannot be seen, by declaring that it is known through the visible sign of dew.
The author, "the Ninnaji Prince-Priest (Shukaku)," was the second son of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. He took holy orders, entered Ninnaji and became its abbot. Devoted to poetry, he had many poets compose hundred-poem sequences.
Its foundation poem is Fujiwara no Toshiyuki's in the Kokin Wakashū, "Though autumn's coming cannot be clearly seen, I am startled by the sound of the wind," and it reverses "cannot be seen" into "can be seen." Where the preceding poem, 226, knew autumn by the sound of the wind, this one knows it by the sight of dew, so that the two poems form a pair of hearing and seeing.

First line, "asajiu no": "asajiu" is a place covered with low cogon grass. "Ono no asajiu" in 272 of this book uses the same word.
Second line, "tsuyukeku mo aru ka": "tsuyukeshi" means damp with dew and "ka" is exclamatory: "how dewy it is!" The poem pauses here.
Third line, "aki kinu to": the same line as in the preceding poem, 226, "that autumn has come," taken directly from the opening of the Kokin foundation poem.
Fourth line, "me ni wa sayaka ni": "sayaka ni" means "clearly," picking up "me ni wa sayaka ni miene domo" of the foundation poem.
Fifth line, "miekeru mono o": "keru" is the attributive of "keri" expressing realization and "mono o" is exclamatory. Reversing the foundation poem's "cannot be seen," it voices the discovery that through the dew autumn could be seen clearly.
Author: Cloistered Prince Shukaku
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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