Sasame karu areta no sawa ni tatsu tami mo mi no tame ni koso sode wa nururame - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ささめ刈る荒田の沢に立つ田民も
身のためにこそ袖は濡るらめ

Roma-ji: Sasame karu areta no sawa ni tatsu tami mo mi no tame ni koso sode wa nururame
English Translation: Even the farmers
who stand in the marshy fields
cutting sasame grass
must wet their sleeves, I think,
for their own sake, not another's
Meaning: Even the farmers who stand in the marsh of the neglected paddies cutting sasame grass must wet their sleeves for their own livelihood; but I wet mine for one who is cold to me.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 956

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Even the farmers standing in the marsh of the neglected paddies cutting sasame grass, he says, must wet their sleeves for their own sake. The farmers who wade into the marsh to cut grass wet their sleeves for their livelihood, but he wets his not for his own sake but with tears for a cold lover, and by this unspoken contrast he laments the tears of an unrequited love. The last line in the text reads "sode wa nururame," which does not match "sode mo nururame" in the line of kana readings; the text is followed here.
The author, "Minamoto no Toshiyori Ason," was the son of Major Counselor Minamoto no Tsunenobu. A central figure of Emperor Horikawa's poetic circle, he compiled the Kin'yō Wakashū at the command of Retired Emperor Shirakawa. His personal collection is the Sanboku Kika Shū, and a poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
Like the preceding poem, 955, it calls up the wet clothes and sleeves of people who work by the water and sets them against the reason his own sleeves are wet, the two forming a pair. The preceding poem sings of the hemp robe of a humble fisherman, this one of the sleeves of farmers cutting grass in the marsh.

First line, "sasame karu": "sasame" is a grass that grows in wetlands, cut and woven into mats and the like.
Second line, "areta no sawa ni": "areta" is a neglected paddy, and "sawa" a marsh of shallow standing water.
Third line, "tatsu tami mo": "tami" are the people who work the fields, farmers standing at work in the marsh. It corresponds to "shioreshi shizu no" in the fourth line of the preceding poem, 955, both singing of people who work by the water.
Fourth line, "mi no tame ni koso": "for their own livelihood." The emphatic "koso" closes with the perfective "rame" in the last line. It carries the unspoken contrast that he wets his own sleeves not for his own sake.
Fifth line, "sode wa nururame": "rame," the perfective of the present conjectural "ramu," closes the "koso" of the fourth line, "they must wet their sleeves." It answers "asagoromo ka wa" in the last line of the preceding poem, both singing of wet clothing.
Author: Minamoto no Toshiyori
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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