Kokoro naki mi ni mo aware wa shirarekeri shigi tatsu sawa no aki no yūgure

心なき身にもあはれは知られけり
鴫立つ沢の秋の夕暮

Roma-ji: Kokoro naki mi ni mo aware wa shirarekeri shigi tatsu sawa no aki no yūgure
English Translation: Even to one who
has no heart for such things, still
sorrow can be known:
from the marsh a snipe takes flight
in the autumn evening dusk.
Meaning: Even I, who should have no heart for such feelings, cannot help but know the deep sadness of things: a snipe rises from the marsh in the autumn dusk.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 470

Headnote: "On the road to a certain place in autumn"
The headnote tells us this was composed on the road while the poet was travelling somewhere in autumn. Even he, who has left the world and should no longer be stirred by its beauties, cannot help feeling a deep aware: a snipe rises from the marsh in the autumn dusk. It expresses the poet's wonder that, though a monk, he is still moved by the aware of an autumn evening.
It was included in the first book of autumn poems of the Shin Kokin Wakashū, where, together with Jakuren's poem on loneliness that has no particular color, the mountain of black pines in autumn dusk, and Fujiwara no Teika's poem on a seaside hut with neither blossoms nor autumn leaves, it is famed as one of the Three Evening Poems. In this book too autumn dusk has been sung again and again since 289, and this poem is regarded as the finest of them.

First line, “kokoro naki”: without a heart for the beauty of things, the state of one who has renounced worldly feelings.
Second line, “mi ni mo aware wa”: mo means even to this self, not only to people of feeling, and aware is the quiet, deep feeling of things.
Third line, “shirarekeri”: re is the continuative of the spontaneous ru, it came to be felt of itself, and keri expresses realization; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “shigi tatsu sawa no”: of the marsh where the snipe rises, evoking the whirr of wings in the stillness.
Fifth line, “aki no yūgure”: ending on a noun, the scene that stirred the aware; the same last line as 289 and others.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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