Ayamegusa ukine o mite mo namida nomi kakuran sode o omoi koso yare - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あやめ草うきねを見ても涙のみ
かくらん袖を思ひこそやれ

Roma-ji: Ayamegusa ukine o mite mo namida nomi kakuran sode o omoi koso yare
English Translation: Sweet flag plants:
even seeing their floating roots,
with nothing but tears
must be wetting, as I picture,
those sleeves of yours
Meaning: Even seeing the floating roots of the sweet flag, I think of your sorrowful weeping and picture your sleeves, wet with nothing but tears.
Commentary: Book Nine Poems of Lament 573

Headnote: "Reply"
A reply to Fujiwara no Toshitada's poem before it. Even on seeing the floating roots of the sweet flag, the poet says, I picture your sleeves wet with nothing but tears. Taking up the previous poem's pivot words on the sweet flag's root and the sound of weeping, he adds "sorrowful" to "floating" and deeply sympathizes with the grief of a friend who has lost his father.
The author, "Middle Counselor Kunizane," was the son of Minister of the Right Minamoto no Akifusa. He rose to Provisional Middle Counselor and was active in Emperor Horikawa's poetic circle, one of the poets of the Horikawa Hyakushu.
In this exchange with the preceding poem, 572, it takes up that poem's pivot words "ayame" and "ne" in reply.
The fourth line of this text reads "kakuran sode o," which does not agree with "kakaramu sode o" in the reading line. Here the text is followed.

First line, "ayamegusa": the sweet flag, answering "ayame" in the preceding poem. Poem 556 of this book also opens with "ayamegusa."
Second line, "ukine o mite mo": "ukine" is a pivot word joining the sweet flag's root floating on the water with "uki ne," the sound of sorrowful weeping. It answers "ne" in the preceding poem.
Third line, "namida nomi": "nothing but tears."
Fourth line, "kakuran sode o": "kaku" means both hanging roots on the sleeves and letting tears fall on them, and the present conjectural "ran" gives "the sleeves that must be wet."
Fifth line, "omoi koso yare": the emphatic "koso" closes with the perfective "yare," "how I think of you." The next poem, 574, opens with the same word, "omoiyare."
Author: Minamoto no Kunizane
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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