Nobe mireba tsuyujimo samushi kirigirisu yoru no koromo no usuku ya aruramu

野辺見れば露霜寒しきりぎりす
夜の衣の薄くやあるらむ

Roma-ji: Nobe mireba tsuyujimo samushi kirigirisu yoru no koromo no usuku ya aruramu
English Translation: When I see the fields,
frosty dew lies cold and chill—
O crickets there,
are the robes you wear at night
not perhaps a little thin?
Meaning: When I look at the fields, the frosty dew lies cold—O crickets, might your night robes not be too thin?
Commentary: Autumn Poems 256

Headnote: "On giving a robe to a certain priest"
The poet composed this when giving a robe to a certain priest. Seeing frosty dew lying cold on the fields, he wonders whether the crickets' night robes are not too thin, and through this he entrusts to the gift his concern for the priest as the cold season approaches.
The Ruijū and Teika texts differ in line 2, the Teika text reading tsuyujimo samumi. Kamo no Mabuchi marked it with a circle. In the source text consulted, characters in lines 2 and 4 are missing; line 2 has been read as tsuyujimo samushi from the syllable count and the flow of the words, and line 4 supplied from the Teika text's yoru no koromo no. Because a variant appears alongside the last line, it has been taken as usuku ya aruramu, the same as the Teika text.

Line 1 means "when I look at the fields."
Line 2 means "the frosty dew lies cold," and the poem pauses here.
Line 3 names the crickets continuing from the preceding poem, 255, overlaying them with the priest who receives the robe.
Line 4, "of the robes worn at night," takes up "midnight robes" in the preceding poem.
Line 5: ya is an interrogative binding particle concluded by the attributive of the present conjectural ramu. Following the preceding poem's wish that frost not settle on the crickets' robes, this poem expresses the heart that actually gives a robe, entrusted to the thinness of the crickets' clothing.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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