木隠れて物を思へば空蟬の
羽に置く露の消えや返らむ
羽に置く露の消えや返らむ
- Roma-ji
-
Kogakurete mono o omoeba utsusemi no ha ni oku tsuyu no kie ya kaeramu
- English Translation
-
Hidden among trees,
when I sink in longing thoughts,
like dew that settles
on the wings of the cicada,
shall I not vanish away?
- Meaning
- Hidden among the trees and lost in longing, shall I not vanish away like the dew that settles on a cicada's wings?
- Commentary
-
Love Poems 414
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Among poems on love"
Hiding among the trees to avoid others' eyes and brooding in secret, the poet feels he might vanish like fragile dew on a cicada's wings. The thin wings and the dew upon them carry the fragility of a hidden love.
Line 1 means "hidden among the trees," suggesting a love kept from others' eyes.
Line 2 means "when I brood," that is, suffer in love.
Line 3 means "of the cicada," the same word as in 412, which took up the emptiness of the shell; here it is the thinness of the wings.
Line 4 means "like dew on its wings," leading to the image of vanishing.
Line 5: ya is an interrogative binding particle concluded by the attributive ramu; kiekaeru means to vanish utterly.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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