Kienubeki tsuyu no inochi to omowazu wa hisashiki kiku ni kakari ya wa semu - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

消ぬへき露の命とおもはすは
久しききくにかゝりやはせむ

Roma-ji: Kienubeki tsuyu no inochi to omowazu wa hisashiki kiku ni kakari ya wa semu
English Translation: If you did not think
your life the dew that soon must vanish,
why then would it cling
to the long-lived chrysanthemum,
hanging there as dewdrops do?
Meaning: If you did not think your life a drop of dew about to vanish, why would it cling, as dew clings, to the long-lived chrysanthemum?
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.
Her jottings contained a passage saying that, seeing the grasses bend in the wind, her own life, like dew about to vanish, seemed strange to her. The prince wrote this poem in answer to those words.
It was sent to her at once as one of five poems answering each piece in her jottings.

The opening lines mean "as a life of dew that must vanish," taking up her words about herself as dew about to disappear. The third line poses the condition "if you did not think so."
The lower verses ask "would it cling to the long-lived chrysanthemum?" with a rhetorical particle. Since the chrysanthemum was believed to bring long life, he plays on the dew that settles on it, retorting that it is precisely because one feels life to be fleeting that one clings to the chrysanthemum of longevity. Linking dew, vanishing, chrysanthemum and clinging as associated words, the poem encourages her, as she laments life's frailty, to hold her life dear.
Author: Prince Atsumichi
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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