秋田守る庵に片敷く我が袖に
消えあへぬ露の幾夜置きけむ
消えあへぬ露の幾夜置きけむ
- Roma-ji
-
Akita moru io ni katashiku waga sode ni kieaenu tsuyu no ikuyo okikemu
- English Translation
-
In the hut I keep
guarding autumn fields, I lay
one sleeve as my bed—
dew that never fully fades,
for how many nights has it lain?
- Meaning
- On the single sleeve I spread to sleep alone in the hut where I guard the autumn fields, for how many nights has dew that never quite fades lain?
- Commentary
-
Autumn Poems 261
Headnote: "Dew at a farmhouse"
The poet wonders for how many nights dew that never quite fades has settled on the sleeve he spreads to sleep alone in a hut guarding the autumn fields. Overlaying the dew that settles nightly in a rough hut with the tears of sleeping alone, he portrays the loneliness of autumn at a farmhouse.
The poem shares the mood of Emperor Tenji's Gosen Wakashū poem in which his sleeves are wet with dew in a rough hut in the autumn rice fields. According to the source's note, the Ruijū and Teika texts differ in the last line; because variants appear side by side in the source text consulted, the first given, ikuyo okikemu, has been followed.
Line 1, "guarding the autumn fields," like "keeping watch on mountain paddies" in 246, shows a life of watching over the fields.
Line 2: katashiku means spreading only one's own sleeve to sleep on, that is, sleeping alone.
Line 3 means "on my sleeve as I sleep alone."
Line 4, "dew that never fully fades," is hypermetric.
Line 5: the past conjectural kemu wonders for how many nights it has lain. Like "for how many autumn nights has the dew lain" in 221, it sings of dew settling night after night.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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