Kaze no oto ni waki zo kanemashi matsugane no makura ni moranu shigure nariseba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

風の音にわきぞかねまし松が根の
枕に漏らぬ時雨なりせば

Roma-ji: Kaze no oto ni waki zo kanemashi matsugane no makura ni moranu shigure nariseba
English Translation: I could never tell it
from the sound of the wind,
were it not a shower
that leaks through to the pillow
I make of the pine roots
Meaning: I could never have told it from the sound of the wind, were it not for the shower that leaks down onto my pillow of pine roots.
Commentary: Book Eight Travel Poems 525

Headnote: "Composed on the theme of winter showers at a traveler's lodging when people composed poems for the Sumiyoshi Shrine poetry contest"
Composed on the topic "winter showers at a traveler's lodging" when people composed poems for a contest dedicated to the Sumiyoshi Shrine. Were it not a shower that leaks onto my pillow of pine roots, I could not have told it from the sound of the wind, the poet says. The sound of wind in the pines and the sound of a shower are easily confused, but the drops leaking onto the pillow reveal the shower, and the poem pictures this scene of a bed on the road.
The author, "Major Captain of the Right Sanefusa," is Sanjō Sanefusa, son of Palace Minister Fujiwara no Kiminori, who served as Major Captain of the Right Palace Guards and later rose to Minister of the Left.
The Sumiyoshi Shrine poetry contest was organized by the Monk Dōin in 1170 and dedicated to the Sumiyoshi Shrine, with Fujiwara no Shunzei as judge. This poem and those through 528, four in all, are poems on the topic of winter showers at a traveler's lodging from that contest.

First line, "kaze no oto ni": "from the sound of the wind" in the pines. The line has an extra syllable.
Second line, "waki zo kanemashi": "waku" is to distinguish, "kane" means unable, and the counterfactual "mashi" closes the particle "zo" in its attributive form, "I could not have told them apart." The poem pauses here.
Third line, "matsugane no": "of pine roots," the pillow of a night on the road. Poems 510 and 520 of this book also sing of a pillow of pine roots.
Fourth line, "makura ni moranu": "not leaking onto my pillow."
Fifth line, "shigure nariseba": "se" is the irrealis of the past "ki," forming with "ba" a counterfactual condition, inverted with the second line.
Author: Sanjō Sanefusa
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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