Samidare ni mizu masaruramu ayamegusa ureba kakurete karu hito mo nashi

五月雨に水まさるらむあやめ草
うれ葉隠れて刈る人もなし

Roma-ji: Samidare ni mizu masaruramu ayamegusa ureba kakurete karu hito mo nashi
English Translation: With the fifth-month rains
the waters must be rising:
all the iris leaves
hidden even to their tips,
there is no one left to reap.
Meaning: The waters must be rising with the early-summer rains—the irises are hidden to the tips of their leaves, and no one comes to cut them.
Commentary: Summer Poems 163

Headnote: "Irises"
The poet pictures the marsh swollen by the early-summer rains, the irises hidden to the tips of their leaves, with no one to cut them. Against the irises thatched in the preceding poem, here they sink beneath the water, uncut.
The Ruijū and Teika texts give line 2 as mizu masaru rashi and the last line as karu hito zo naki. According to the source's note, line 4 read differently in the original and the editor emended it to ureba following another manuscript; this edition follows that emendation. Because the variant readings appear alongside the text in the source consulted, line 2 has been taken as mizu masaruramu and the last line as karu hito mo nashi in light of the note.

Line 1 shares its opening with 152, showing the scene of the long rains.
Line 2: ramu is a present conjecture, inferring from the scene that the waters are rising, and the poem pauses here.
Line 3 is the same word as line 3 of the preceding poem, 162, so both poems sing of the same plant.
Line 4: ureba means the tips of the leaves, showing them hidden under water up to their tips.
Line 5 means "no one to cut them." Whereas the preceding poem sang of irises someone had pulled from a marsh, this poem sings of irises no one can cut, and the two form a pair.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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