Asajiwara hazue no tsuyu no tama goto ni hikari tsuranuku aki no yo no tsuki

浅茅原葉末の露の玉ごとに
光つらぬく秋の夜の月

Roma-ji: Asajiwara hazue no tsuyu no tama goto ni hikari tsuranuku aki no yo no tsuki
English Translation: Over the low reeds,
on the dewdrops at their tips,
through each jewel there
it strings its light right along,
the moon of the autumn night.
Meaning: On the moor of low cogon grass, the autumn night's moon threads its light through every jewel of dew upon the tips of the leaves.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 316

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "The moon"
This poem continues the topic of the moon. Across a moor thick with low cogon grass, the autumn moon lights each jewel of dew on the leaf tips as though threading its light through them. The moonlight is likened to a thread and the dew to jewels, so that the moon's rays seem to string the dewdrops together.
It echoes 304, in which the moon lodges in the white dew on the little grasses of a garden, and here the scale widens to the countless drops of a broad moor. It also shares the figure of tama ni nuku tsuyu in 296.

First line, “asajiwara”: a moor covered in low cogon grass, sung in waka as a desolate, lonely field.
Second line, “hazue no tsuyu no”: of the dew on the leaf tips.
Third line, “tama goto ni”: through each jewel of dew, likening the dew to jewels.
Fourth line, “hikari tsuranuku”: the moonlight threading through the jewels of dew, the light likened to the thread that strings them.
Fifth line, “aki no yo no tsuki”: ending on a noun, with the same last line as 304.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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