Hitorine no yosamu ni naru ni kasaneba ya taga tame ni utsu koromo naruran

独り寝の夜寒になるに重ねばや
誰がために打つ衣なるらん

Roma-ji: Hitorine no yosamu ni naru ni kasaneba ya taga tame ni utsu koromo naruran
English Translation: As the nights grow cold
for one who sleeps alone,
I would like to wear
that robe layered on; for whom
can they be beating it, I wonder?
Meaning: Now that the nights are turning cold for one who sleeps alone, I would like to layer that robe on myself; for whom can it be that they are beating it?
Commentary: Autumn Poems 442

Headnote: "Hearing cloth being beaten, alone"
The topic is hearing, alone, the sound of cloth being beaten on a fulling block. As autumn deepens and the nights grow cold for one sleeping alone, the poet would like to wear, layered on, the robe he hears being beaten somewhere; for whom are they beating it? The loneliness of sleeping alone on a cold night is laid over the longing for someone carried in the sound of the beating.
From here two poems on the fulling block follow. Beating cloth on the block was often sung in waka as the figure of a woman longing for her husband or lover, and this poem imagines that heart from the standpoint of one sleeping alone.

First line, “hitorine no”: of one sleeping alone, answering the topic's alone.
Second line, “yosamu ni naru ni”: as the cold of the night grows.
Third line, “kasaneba ya”: baya expresses the speaker's wish, I would like to layer it on; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “taga tame ni utsu”: beaten for whom, the beating of cloth on the fulling block.
Fifth line, “koromo naruran”: ran is present conjecture, what robe can it be.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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