Asa madaki tsuyu o sanagara sasame karu shizu ga sode dani kaku wa nureji o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

朝まだき露をさながらささめ刈る
賤が袖だにかくは濡れじを

Roma-ji: Asa madaki tsuyu o sanagara sasame karu shizu ga sode dani kaku wa nureji o
English Translation: Early in the morning,
with the dew still lying on it,
they cut the sedge-grass,
yet even the peasants' sleeves
would not be so wet as mine
Meaning: Even the sleeves of the peasants who cut the sedge in the early morning, dew and all, would surely never get as wet as mine.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 718

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Even the sleeves of peasants who cut sedge at dawn, dew and all, he says, would not be so wet as this. Citing the sleeves of farm folk soaked in morning dew as they cut grass, he expresses tears of love that are greater still.
The author, "the Minister of the Right," is Fujiwara no Sanesada. The son of Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Kinyoshi, he was Minister of the Right at the time this anthology was compiled and later rose to Minister of the Left, known as the Go-Tokudaiji Minister of the Left. "Ōimaukimi" is the native Japanese name for a minister. He has a poem in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
Where 713 compared his sleeves with those of fisherfolk cutting seaweed in the sea, this poem compares them with the sleeves of peasants cutting grass in the fields, so that sea and field form a pair. From 717 on, poems comparing the wetness of sleeves continue.

First line, "asa madaki": "while it is still early in the morning."
Second line, "tsuyu o sanagara": "sanagara" means "just as it is," "with the dew still on it."
Third line, "sasame karu": "sasame" is a grass used to weave straw raincoats and hats. It answers "tamamo karu" in the first line of 713 in singing of the work of cutting.
Fourth line, "shizu ga sode dani": "shizu" is a person of low station and "dani" expresses inference from a lesser case, "even the sleeves of the lowly."
Fifth line, "kaku wa nureji o": "ji" is the negative conjectural and "o" a conjunctive particle of adversative lament, "would not be so wet, and yet." It implies the soaking of his own sleeves.
Author: Fujiwara no Sanesada
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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