Shibashi koso nururu tamoto mo shiborishika namida ni ima wa makasete zo miru - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

しばしこそ濡るる袂も絞りしか
涙に今は任せてぞ見る

Roma-ji: Shibashi koso nururu tamoto mo shiborishika namida ni ima wa makasete zo miru
English Translation: For a while at least
my sleeves, wet with tears,
I wrung them dry,
but now I leave them to my tears
and simply watch them flow
Meaning: For a while, at least, I wrung out my tear-soaked sleeves; but now I leave them to my tears and simply watch them flow.
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 816

Headnote: "Composed when a poetry contest was held"
Composed at a poetry contest. For a while, he says, I wrung out my tear-wet sleeves, but now I leave them to my tears and simply watch. At first, mindful of others' eyes, he wrung out the sleeves soaked with tears, but at the end of love's long suffering he no longer has the strength to wring them and lets his tears flow as they will, a deepening of love close to resignation.
The author, "Fujiwara no Kiyosuke Ason," was the son of Fujiwara no Akisuke, Master of the Western Capital Office. Known as a scholar of poetics of the Rokujō Fujiwara house, he wrote treatises such as Fukuro Sōshi and Ōgishō. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
The preceding poem lamented sleeves with no time to dry, this one sings of sleeves no longer wrung but left to tears, and the next, 817, calls on the Chinese robe to rot away with tears, so that three poems on tear-wet sleeves stand in stages.

First line, "shibashi koso": "koso" is an emphatic particle that binds with "shika" in the third line, "for a while at least."
Second line, "nururu tamoto mo": "tamoto" is the sleeve, "my sleeves wet with tears."
Third line, "shiborishika": "shika" is the realized form of the past "ki," concluding "koso" and flowing adversatively on, "I wrung them out, but." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "namida ni ima wa": "now, to my tears," setting "ima," now, against "shibashi," for a while, in the first line.
Fifth line, "makasete zo miru": "zo" is emphatic and binds with the attributive "miru," "I leave them to my tears and watch."
Author: Fujiwara no Kiyosuke
Source: Senzai Wakashu
Prev Poem: Shiotaruru Iseo no ama no sode dani mo hosu naru hima wa ari to koso kike
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