Wagimoko ga uwamo no suso no mizunami ni kesa koso fuyu wa tachihajimekere - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

我妹子が上裳の裾の水波に
今朝こそ冬はたちはじめけれ

Roma-ji: Wagimoko ga uwamo no suso no mizunami ni kesa koso fuyu wa tachihajimekere
English Translation: On the hem of the skirt
my beloved wears above,
the waves of water:
this morning, as they rise,
winter too has begun to rise
Meaning: Like the waves rising in the water pattern on the hem of my beloved's outer skirt, this very morning winter has begun to rise.
Commentary: Book Six Winter Poems 394

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the topic 'Early Winter' when he called for a hundred-poem sequence"
Composed on the topic of early winter for the Kyūan Hyakushu. In the waves of water on the hem of her beloved's outer skirt, the poet says, winter has begun to rise this very morning. Overlaying the "rising" of the wave pattern on the skirt with the "rising" of winter, this ingenious poem works the first morning of winter into a detail of elegant dress.
The author, "Hanazono no Sadaijin-ke no Kodaishin," was a lady in the household of Minamoto no Arihito, the Hanazono Minister of the Left. A daughter of Sugawara no Arinaga, she was one of the authors of Retired Emperor Sutoku's Kyūan Hyakushu.
The five poems from 390 to 394 are poems on early winter taken from Retired Emperor Sutoku's Kyūan Hyakushu. The Kyūan Hyakushu is the hundred-poem sequence that Retired Emperor Sutoku commissioned from poets such as Fujiwara no Akisuke and Fujiwara no Shunzei, presented in the sixth year of Kyūan (1150).

First line, "wagimoko ga": "wagimoko" is a man's fond word for his wife or beloved.
Second line, "uwamo no suso no": "uwamo" is the outer layer of the "mo," the skirt a woman wears from the waist down.
Third line, "mizunami ni": "mizunami" is taken as the pattern of water waves on the hem of the skirt. The first three lines serve as a preface leading to "tachi."
Fourth line, "kesa koso fuyu wa": the emphatic "koso" closes with "kere" in the perfective form in the last line, stressing "this very morning," the first day of winter.
Fifth line, "tachihajimekere": "tachi" is a pivot word meaning both for waves to rise and for winter to "rise," that is, to begin. "Kere," the perfective form of the exclamatory "keri," closes the "koso" of the fourth line.
Author: Hanazono no Sadaijin-ke no Kodaishin
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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