Mizu no iro no tada shirakumo to miyuru kana tare sarashiken Nunobiki no taki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

水の色のただ白雲と見ゆるかな
誰さらしけん布引の滝

Roma-ji: Mizu no iro no tada shirakumo to miyuru kana tare sarashiken Nunobiki no taki
English Translation: How the water's hue
seems to be nothing other
than a pure white cloud!
Who could have bleached this cloth,
the Falls of Nunobiki?
Meaning: How the color of the water looks just like white clouds! Who could have laid this cloth out to bleach, the Nunobiki Falls?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1037

Headnote: "Composed when the Former Chancellor of Kyōgoku viewed the Nunobiki Falls"
This poem was composed when the Former Chancellor of Kyōgoku, Fujiwara no Morozane, viewed the Nunobiki Falls. The water's hue looks simply like white cloud; who could have bleached it, the Nunobiki Falls, he asks. Seeing the white falling water as white cloud, he then delights in the name "Nunobiki," cloth-drawn, wondering who has laid white cloth out to bleach. "Cloth" and "bleach" are associated words.
The author, the "Minister of the Right of Rokujō," is Minamoto no Akifusa. A son of Minister of the Right Minamoto no Morofusa, he rose to minister of the right. His daughter Kenshi became the consort of Emperor Shirakawa, making him the maternal grandfather of Emperor Horikawa.
It answers "shirakumo ni magai ya semashi" in 1034 of this book in seeing a waterfall as white cloud. It also shares the fifth line, "Nunobiki no taki," with 1040.

First line, "mizu no iro no": "the color of the falling water." It is a hypermetric line of six syllables.
Second line, "tada shirakumo to": "just like white clouds." It answers "shirakumo ni" in the first line of 1034 of this book.
Third line, "miyuru kana": "kana" is exclamatory, "how it looks." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "tare sarashiken": "sarasu" means to wash cloth and lay it in the sun to whiten, and "ken" is the past conjectural auxiliary, "who could have bleached it?" It is associated with "nuno," cloth, in "Nunobiki."
Fifth line, "Nunobiki no taki": the falls on the upper Ikuta River in Settsu Province, ending in a noun. It is the same line as the fifth line of 1040 of this book.
Author: Minamoto no Akifusa
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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