Warinashi ya sa koso mono omou sode narame aki ni aite mo okeru tsuyu kana

わりなしやさこそ物思ふ袖ならめ
あきにあひても置ける露かな

Roma-ji: Warinashi ya sa koso mono omou sode narame aki ni aite mo okeru tsuyu kana
English Translation: It is hopeless, ah!
these are sleeves of one who broods,
that may well be so,
but now autumn's weariness has come,
still the dew has settled there!
Meaning: How hopeless it is! These may well be the sleeves of one who broods over love, yet even now that autumn, your weariness, has come, the dew still settles on them.
Commentary: Love Poems 706

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Love"
Since these are the sleeves of one who broods over love, it is natural that they should be wet with tears. Yet even now, having met with autumn, with the beloved's weariness of him, dew-like tears go on settling on his sleeves, and that is more than he can bear. Aki joins autumn, the season, with aki, a lover's weariness, laying tears over the dew of autumn.
Following 703 and 704 in this book, it again makes aki carry both autumn and weariness, so that three poems are linked by the same pivot word.

First line, “warinashi ya”: warinashi is unbearable, hopeless, and ya exclamatory; the poem breaks after the first line.
Second line, “sa koso mono omou”: sa koso is indeed so; the binding particle koso is answered by the perfective me in the third line. The line has eight syllables, one too many.
Third line, “sode narame”: they may well be such sleeves, closing in the perfective form required by koso and leading concessively into the lower verse.
Fourth line, “aki ni aite mo”: aki is a pivot word joining autumn with aki, weariness of a lover.
Fifth line, “okeru tsuyu kana”: the dew of autumn overlaid with tears, and kana exclamatory.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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