Hitoyo tote yogareshi toko no samushiro ni yagate mo chiri no tsumorinuru kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

一夜とて夜離れし床のさむしろに
やがても塵の積もりぬるかな

Roma-ji: Hitoyo tote yogareshi toko no samushiro ni yagate mo chiri no tsumorinuru kana
English Translation: Just for a single night,
he thought, and stayed away from
my bed, and on its mat
already, just like that,
how thick the dust has settled
Meaning: Thinking it only a single night, he stayed away from my bed, and upon its narrow mat the dust has already settled thick.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 880

Headnote: "Composed as a love poem"
This poem was composed as a love poem. On the narrow mat of the bed he stayed away from, thinking it just one night, she says, dust has already piled up. She had thought a single night's absence would soon end, but his visits stopped altogether, and now dust lies thick on the bed, and the poem conveys the loneliness and emptiness of a waiting woman. It is a poem that reflects the man's drifting heart in the concrete image of a bed gathering dust.
The author, "Sanuki," was a lady-in-waiting called Sanuki. There is no settled view as to who she was.

First line, "hitoyo tote": "tote" means "thinking that," "thinking it only a single night."
Second line, "yogareshi toko no": "yogaru" is for a man to stop visiting a woman at night, and "shi" is the attributive of the past "ki," "of the bed he stopped visiting."
Third line, "samushiro ni": "samushiro" is a narrow straw mat laid on a bed. "Sa" is a prefix.
Fourth line, "yagate mo chiri no": "yagate" means "just so, at once." Set against "hitoyo," "a single night," in the first line, it shows that what should have been a brief absence went on unbroken.
Fifth line, "tsumorinuru kana": "nuru" is the attributive of the completive "nu" and "kana" exclamatory, "how it has piled up." Through the piling up of dust, it closes by hinting at how long his visits have ceased.
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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