Morotomo ni chiru koto no ha o kaku hodo ni yagate mo sode no sobochinuru kana

もろともに散る言の葉を書くほどに
やがても袖のそぼちぬるかな

Roma-ji: Morotomo ni chiru koto no ha o kaku hodo ni yagate mo sode no sobochinuru kana
English Translation: As I wrote them out,
the words that had scattered
along with him,
before I knew it my sleeves
were drenched through and through.
Meaning: As I copied out the words that had scattered along with him, my sleeves soon grew drenched with tears.
Commentary: Miscellaneous Poems 929

Headnote: "Hearing that the new Retired Emperor was having poems collected, he wrote out the poems of Tametada that remained at Tokiwa and presented them, and sent them from Ōhara for me to see"
Hearing that the new Retired Emperor, Sutoku, was gathering poems, Jakuchō wrote out the poems of his late father Fujiwara no Tametada left at the house at Tokiwa to present them, and sent them from Ōhara for Saigyō to see with this poem. Sutoku had at that time ordered the compiling of the Shikashū. As I copied the words that remained, scattered along with my late father, my sleeves grew drenched with tears, he writes.

First line, “morotomo ni”: together, with his late father.
Second line, “chiru koto no ha o”: koto no ha is poems; chiru, to scatter, is related to leaves.
Third line, “kaku hodo ni”: as I wrote them out.
Fourth line, “yagate mo sode no”: yagate is at once.
Fifth line, “sobochinuru kana”: sobotsu is to be drenched; kana is exclamatory.
Author: Jakuchō
Source: Sankashu
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