風を待つ草の葉に置く露よりも
あだなるものは朝顔の花
あだなるものは朝顔の花
- Roma-ji
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Kaze o matsu kusa no ha ni oku tsuyu yori mo ada naru mono wa asagao no hana
- English Translation
-
Even more fleeting
than the dew upon the grass
waiting for the wind—
what is frailer still than that
is the flower of morning glory.
- Meaning
- Frailer even than the dew on blades of grass, waiting only for the wind to scatter it, is the morning glory flower.
- Commentary
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Autumn Poems 220
Headnote: "Morning glory"
The poet declares that frailer even than the dew on grass leaves, which falls the moment the wind blows, is the morning glory. He heightens the transience of a flower that blooms at dawn and withers by midday by comparing it with dew.
The phrase "dew waiting for the wind" recalls the anonymous Kokin Wakashū poem of the bush clover of Miyagino heavy with dew, "waiting for the wind," dew that only awaits being scattered.
Line 1, "waiting for the wind," means waiting only for the wind that will scatter it, showing the dew's frailty.
Line 2 means "laid on the grass leaves."
Line 3: yori mo marks a comparison between dew and morning glory. Taking up the dew on the arrowroot leaves of the two preceding poems, this poem makes dew the measure of transience.
Line 4 uses the same word as "the fleeting fields" of 219, "that which is fleeting."
Line 5 ends on a noun, giving last the flower frailer than dew. The frailty of dew in the preceding poems passes on here to the even more fleeting morning glory.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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