Sayogoromo izuku no sato ni utsu naran tōku kikoyuru tsuchi no oto kana

小夜衣いづくの里に打つならん
遠く聞こゆる槌の音かな

Roma-ji: Sayogoromo izuku no sato ni utsu naran tōku kikoyuru tsuchi no oto kana
English Translation: Robes of the night,
in what village are they being
beaten, I wonder?
How it echoes from afar,
the sound of the fulling mallet.
Meaning: In what village could they be beating their night robes? How far off it sounds, the knocking of the fulling mallet.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 443

Headnote: "Cloth beaten in a distant village"
The topic is the sound of cloth being beaten in a village some distance away. In what village are they beating the robes worn at night? The sound of the fulling mallet comes faintly from far off. In the distant knocking the poet feels the stillness and loneliness of the night.
Where the preceding poem, from one sleeping alone, asked for whom the robe was being beaten, this one imagines the far village from which the sound comes. Across the two poems the one who hears the beating and the distant village are both portrayed.

First line, “sayogoromo”: the robe worn at night, with sa as a prefix.
Second line, “izuku no sato ni”: in what village.
Third line, “utsu naran”: naran joins the assertive nari with the conjectural mu, can they be beating it; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “tōku kikoyuru”: heard from afar, answering the topic's distant village.
Fifth line, “tsuchi no oto kana”: tsuchi is the wooden mallet used to beat cloth, closing with kana.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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