Sayuru yo no kazu kaku shigi wa ware nare ya iku asashimo o okite mitsuran - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

さゆるよの數かく鴫は我なれや
いく朝霜を置てみつらん

Roma-ji: Sayuru yo no kazu kaku shigi wa ware nare ya iku asashimo o okite mitsuran
English Translation: On these freezing nights,
am I the snipe that beats its wings
countless times till dawn?
How many mornings have I risen
to see the settled frost?
Meaning: Am I the snipe that beats its wings countless times on these freezing nights? How many mornings have I risen, sleepless, to look upon the frost?
Commentary: 42 The Snipe on a Freezing Night

After their exchange about composing verse, on a morning when the frost lay whiter than usual, a letter came from the prince asking how she saw it.
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.
In answer to the prince's question on that frosty white morning, Izumi Shikibu composed this poem.
Since heavy rain had also been falling at that time, she went on to compose "Yuki mo furi ame mo furinuru kono koro o asashimo to nomi okiite wa miru." That night the prince would come to her.
The source poem is an anonymous poem in the fifth Love section of the Kokin Wakashū: just as the snipe beats its wings a hundred times at dawn, on nights when you do not come it is I who toss and turn countless times.

The opening lines mean "the snipe that beats its wings countless times on a freezing night," the verb meaning to grow bitterly cold; drawing on the source poem, she likens herself, tossing sleepless on nights without his visit, to the snipe. The third line asks "am I that bird?" with an interrogative particle.
The lower verses ask "how many mornings have I risen to see the frost?" where "oki" means both frost settling and rising without sleep, with auxiliaries of completion and present conjecture. To his "how do you see it?" she answers that she sees the frost because she has spent morning after sleepless morning, and through the source poem voices the ache of waiting for him.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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