Yaemugura sashikomori ni shi yomogiu ni ikade ka aki no wakete kitsuran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

八重葎さしこもりにし蓬生に
いかでか秋の分けて来つらん

Roma-ji: Yaemugura sashikomori ni shi yomogiu ni ikade ka aki no wakete kitsuran
English Translation: To this weedy place
shut in by eightfold creepers
where I keep withdrawn,
how, I wonder, has autumn
pushed its way to reach me here?
Meaning: How, I wonder, did autumn push its way through to this mugwort-choked dwelling, shut in by thick layers of creepers?
Commentary: Book Four Autumn Poems I 229

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the coming of autumn when presenting a hundred-poem sequence"
Like the preceding poem, this was composed on "the coming of autumn" for the Kyūan Hundred-Poem Sequence. No one visits this dwelling overgrown with mugwort, its gate closed behind layer upon layer of creepers, so how, the poet asks, did autumn push its way through the weeds to arrive? Personifying autumn as a visitor, the poem conveys the loneliness of a ruined house that autumn reaches before any person.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Toshinari," is Fujiwara no Shunzei, son of Provisional Middle Counselor Fujiwara no Toshitada. He served as Master of the Empress Dowager's Household and rose to Senior Third Rank. He is the very compiler of the Senzai Wakashū, chosen at the command of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and a poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
It draws on Priest Egyō's poem in the Shūi Wakashū, "In the loneliness of a house overgrown with eightfold creepers, no one is seen, yet autumn has come," recasting the idea that autumn comes though no person does as a question about how autumn made its way through the creepers.

First line, "yaemugura": creepers grown thick in many layers, expressing a ruined dwelling. It takes the opening line of Egyō's poem as it is.
Second line, "sashikomori ni shi": "having shut the gate and withdrawn," with "ni" the continuative of the perfective "nu" and "shi" the attributive past.
Third line, "yomogiu ni": "yomogiu" is a ruined place overgrown with mugwort, a dwelling that no one visits.
Fourth line, "ikade ka aki no": "ikade ka" means "how," and the interrogative "ka" links with "ran" in the last line, treating autumn as a visitor.
Fifth line, "wakete kitsuran": "tsu" is perfective and "ran" the attributive of present conjecture, closing with "ka": "has it come pushing through the thick creepers?" Following the preceding poem, 228, it again tells of autumn's arrival.
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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