Yume bakari namida ni nuru to mitsuramedo hoshi zo kanetsuru tamakura no sode - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

夢計なみたにぬると見つらめと
ほしそかねつる手枕のそて

Roma-ji: Yume bakari namida ni nuru to mitsuramedo hoshi zo kanetsuru tamakura no sode
English Translation: You may think it wet
with tears only as in a dream,
yet I cannot dry,
try as I may, the sleeve on which
I gave you a pillow
Meaning: You may have thought it wet with tears only as faintly as in a dream, yet I cannot dry the sleeve on which I pillowed you.
Commentary: 25 The Sleeve Beneath My Head

In the tenth month, after the tenth day, the prince came to Izumi Shikibu. The inner rooms were dark and eerie, so they lay down near the veranda, and he spoke to her of every tender thing, and his words were not in vain. Looking out, she saw the moon clouded over and early winter showers falling, as though the scene had been deliberately arranged to be moving. Her troubled heart felt strangely chilled. Watching her, the prince thought tenderly, "People say only bad things about her, yet how strange: here she is, like this." She lay pretending to sleep, lost in troubled thoughts, and the prince gently roused her.
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.
The next morning Izumi Shikibu's "Kesa no ma wa ima wa hinuran yume bakari nuru to mietsuru tamakura no sode" arrived. Charmed that she herself had taken up the arm-pillow sleeve after he had vowed not to forget it, the prince sent back this poem.
Wondering whether the sky had seemed so moving the night before simply because of where he was, the prince came to feel deep tenderness for her and for a while visited often, seeing how she lived. Before long he would tell her that he wished to bring her to his own residence.

The opening lines mean "wet with tears only as in a dream," answering her "seemed wet only as in a dream." The third line means "you may have seen it so, but," with an auxiliary of present conjecture and an adversative particle.
The lower verses mean "I cannot dry the arm-pillow sleeve," combining the verb to dry with one meaning unable, sealed by an emphatic construction. To her "it must have dried by now," he answers that far from drying, he still cannot dry it: he has not forgotten in the least the tears that wet his sleeve, and his love continues. With this poem he keeps his promise of the night before never to forget the arm-pillow sleeve.
Author: Prince Atsumichi
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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