Shirazaritsu sode nomi nurete ayamegusa kakaru koiji ni oimu mono to wa - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

知らざりつ袖のみ濡れてあやめ草
かかるこひぢに生ひむものとは

Roma-ji: Shirazaritsu sode nomi nurete ayamegusa kakaru koiji ni oimu mono to wa
English Translation: I did not know it:
my sleeves alone soaked through,
like the iris plant,
in such a muddy path of love
I would come to take root
Meaning: I never knew it: with only my sleeves soaked through, like the iris that grows in the mud, I would come to take root on such a path of love.
Commentary: Book Seven Love Poems I 350

With only his sleeves soaked by tears, like the iris that grows in the mud, the poet says he never knew he would find himself on such a painful path of love. Stringing together words tied to the iris, ayamegusa, koiji and ou, to grow, the poem expresses surprise and lament at having stepped into love.
Some manuscripts name Koichijō'in as the author and give the headnote 'Sent on the fifth day of the fifth month to a woman he had first begun to court.' It would then be a poem sent on the day of the Iris Festival by Koichijō'in, Prince Atsuakira, son of Emperor Sanjō, to a woman he had just begun to woo.
This is the opening poem of Book Seven, Love Poems I. Singing of the surprise of having just stepped onto the path of love, it opens the love section. Poem 389 in this book also sings of koiji and ayamegusa, answering this poem.

First line, 'shirazaritsu', means I did not know, using the perfective tsu. The poem breaks after the first line, and by inversion it leads on to 'mono to wa' in the final line.
Second line, 'sode nomi nurete', means only my sleeves soaked, layering wetness from tears over wetness from the mud where irises are pulled.
Third line, 'ayamegusa', is the iris, hung from the eaves at the Iris Festival. Because it grows in mud, it is a related word to koiji in the fourth line and ou, to grow, in the final line.
Fourth line, 'kakaru koiji ni', is a pivot word in which koiji means both koiji, the path of love, and koiji, mud, left in kana. The second line 'koiji ni tachite' of poem 389 in this book uses the same pivot word.
Final line, 'oimu mono to wa', means that I would come to grow there, the inverted form returning to 'shirazaritsu' in the first line.
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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