秋の野に置く白露の朝な朝な
はかなくてのみ消えや返らむ
はかなくてのみ消えや返らむ
- Roma-ji
-
Aki no no ni oku shiratsuyu no asana asana hakanakute nomi kie ya kaeramu
- English Translation
-
Like the white dew
that settles on the autumn fields,
morning after morning
shall I only, frail and fleeting,
vanish utterly away?
- Meaning
- Like the white dew that settles on the autumn fields, shall I vanish away each morning, frail and fleeting, and nothing more?
- Commentary
-
Love Poems 421
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Among poems on love"
Seeing himself in the white dew that settles on the autumn fields each morning and fades, the poet laments that without meeting his beloved he may do nothing but vanish frailly every morning. The grief of each dawn after a sleepless night is expressed through the fragility of dew.
Line 1 means "on the autumn fields," taking up the windswept field of the preceding poem.
Line 2 means "like the white dew that settles," leading to "vanish."
Line 3 means "morning after morning," the time the dew settles and the time of love's grief.
Line 4 means "only frail and fleeting," nomi being limiting.
Line 5: ya binds the attributive ramu. It is the same last line as 414, the dew on the cicada's wings now changed to white dew on autumn fields.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
- Prev Poem
-
Kimi ni koi urabure oreba akikaze ni nabiku asaji no tsuyu zo kenubeki
- Next Poem
-
Aki no no no hana no chigusa ni mono omou tsuyu yori mo shigeki iro wa mienedo