Aki no uchi ni kuchihatenubeku kotowari no ame ni tare ka sode o karamashi - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

秋のうちに朽はてぬへくことはりの
雨に誰か袖をからまし

Roma-ji: Aki no uchi ni kuchihatenubeku kotowari no ame ni tare ka sode o karamashi
English Translation: Within this autumn
my sleeves will surely rot away;
in the rain that falls,
as it must in this season,
whose sleeves could I borrow now?
Meaning: My sleeves seem about to rot away before autumn ends, soaked in the rain that the season brings as a matter of course; whose sleeves could I borrow?
Commentary: 23 The Dawn Moon and the Jotted Verses

After the twentieth of the ninth month, waking to the dawn moon, the prince thought how long it had been since they had met and that she too must be watching this moon. Taking only his usual page boy, he went and had him knock at her gate. Izumi Shikibu happened to be lying awake, turning many things over in her mind; lately, perhaps because of the season, she had felt more forlorn than usual and given to melancholy. Wondering who it could be, she tried to wake the woman sleeping beside her to go and ask, but the woman would not get up. When at last she did, she stumbled about bumping into things, and meanwhile the knocking stopped. Had he gone home? He must think her a sound sleeper, she thought regretfully, and wondered who else had been lying awake as she was. The woman finally went out but found no one, and grumbled, "You must have imagined it. Waking people in the middle of the night," before going back to sleep. Izumi Shikibu stayed up gazing at the misty sky until dawn, and when it grew light she began writing down the thoughts that had come to her in those early hours. Just then a letter came from the prince as usual.
The woman is Izumi Shikibu, daughter of Ōe no Masamune and, as the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi, mother of Koshikibu no Naishi. The Prince of the Dazaifu is Prince Atsumichi, fourth son of Emperor Reizei, so called because he served as Governor-General of the Dazaifu.
This is one of the poems in the jottings Izumi Shikibu wrote at dawn. The wind roared as if to leave not a single leaf on the trees, and it felt sadder than usual. Though the sky was heavily overcast, rain fell only in a token sprinkle, and finding this unbearably sad, she wrote this poem.
After the poem she went on to write that, however sorrowful she felt, there was no one who knew it. These jottings were tied up just as they were and sent as her reply to the prince's "Aki no yo no ariake no tsuki no iru made ni yasuraikanete kaerinishi kana." The prince answered this poem with "Aki no uchi wa kuchikeru mono o hito mo sa wa waga sode to nomi omoikeru kana."

The opening lines mean "so that they will surely rot away within the autumn," speaking of sleeves soaked so long with tears and rain that they decay, with auxiliaries of emphasis and conjecture. The third line, "natural to the season," modifies the rain that follows.
The lower verses mean "in this rain, whose sleeves should I borrow?" ending in a hesitant expression of will. Saying that her own sleeves are about to rot and that there are none to borrow in their place, she laments, through the autumn rain, the loneliness of having no one to console her.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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