Kono koro no oshi no ukine zo aware naru uwage no shimo yo shita no kōri yo - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

この頃の鴛鴦の浮き寝ぞあはれなる
上毛の霜よ下の氷よ

Roma-ji: Kono koro no oshi no ukine zo aware naru uwage no shimo yo shita no kōri yo
English Translation: In these winter days
how pitiful is the sleep
of the mandarin ducks:
frost upon their feathers above,
and ice below them too
Meaning: How pitiful the floating sleep of the mandarin ducks these days: frost on their feathers above, ice beneath them below.
Commentary: Book Six Winter Poems 432

Headnote: "Composed when he called for a hundred-poem sequence"
Composed by Retired Emperor Sutoku himself when he called for a hundred-poem sequence, the Kyūan Hyakushu. How pitiful the floating sleep of the mandarin ducks these days, he says, with frost on their feathers above and ice beneath them below. He depicts their floating sleep, beset by cold from above and below, vividly through the contrast of top and bottom.
The author, "Sutokuin Gyosei," is Emperor Sutoku, the seventy-fifth emperor and son of Emperor Toba, who was exiled to Sanuki after his defeat in the Hōgen Disturbance. He conceived the Kyūan Hyakushu and had Fujiwara no Akisuke compile the Shika Wakashū. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
The nine poems from 429 to 437 are poems on waterfowl. Mandarin ducks, wild ducks and other waterfowl were counted among the sights of the winter waterside. This poem and the next, 433, are poems on waterfowl from the 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, "kono koro no": "these days," now that winter has deepened.
Second line, "oshi no ukine zo": "ukine" is sleeping afloat on the water, and the emphatic "zo" closes with the attributive "naru" in the third line. The next poem, 433, and 434 of this book also sing of "ukine."
Third line, "aware naru": "deeply pitiful," and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "uwage no shimo yo": "uwage" are the outer feathers of a bird, the same word as "uwage no shimo" in 429 of this book. "Yo" is an exclamatory particle.
Fifth line, "shita no kōri yo": parallel with the fourth line, it sets the ice below beside the frost above, the contrast of top and bottom depicting the ducks' sleep surrounded by cold.
Author: Retired Emperor Sutoku
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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