Akatsuki no tsuyu ya ika naru tsuyu naramu okite shi yukeba wabishikarikeri

暁の露やいかなる露ならむ
おきてし行けばわびしかりけり

Roma-ji: Akatsuki no tsuyu ya ika naru tsuyu naramu okite shi yukeba wabishikarikeri
English Translation: The dew at dawn—
what manner of dew
might it be?
When it settles, I arise and go,
and oh, how desolate it is.
Meaning: What kind of dew is the dew at dawn? When I rise with the settling dew and leave, how desolate it feels.
Commentary: Love Poems 503

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Love at dawn"
Asking what kind of dew the dawn dew is, the poet finds it desolate to rise when it settles and leave his beloved; it sings of the pain of parting after a night together.

Line 1 means "at dawn," the same word as line 1 of the preceding poem.
Line 2: ya is an interrogative binding particle concluded by mu in line 3.
Line 3 means "what dew might it be," and the poem pauses here; tsuyu is repeated across lines 2 and 3.
Line 4 plays on oki, the dew settling and rising from bed: "when I rise and go"; shi is intensive.
Line 5 means "how desolate," keri exclamatory.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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