Kusa no io nani tsuyukeshi to omoikemu moranu iwaya mo sode wa nurekeri - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

草の庵なに露けしと思ひけむ
漏らぬ岩屋も袖は濡れけり

Roma-ji: Kusa no io nani tsuyukeshi to omoikemu moranu iwaya mo sode wa nurekeri
English Translation: The hut made of grass
why did I once think it
to be damp with dew?
In this cave no rain comes through,
yet my sleeves have grown wet
Meaning: Why did I ever think a grass hut was damp with dew? Even in this rock cave where no rain leaks in, my sleeves are wet.
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems I 533

Why, the poet asks, did he ever think a grass-thatched hut a dewy place, when even in a rock cave where no rain leaks through his sleeves have grown wet? Secluded in the cave for ascetic practice, he realizes that what wets his sleeves is not dew but his own tears, and he conveys the severity and loneliness of his practice.
Some manuscripts have a headnote saying it was composed at the Shō no Iwaya cave in Ōmine. It is said to come from a time when the poet, a mountain ascetic, secluded himself in that cave in the Ōmine range. Like poem 521 in this book, it was composed in the midst of practice in the mountains.
The author, Gyōson, was a son of the Consultant Minamoto no Motohira. A monk of Onjōji who rose to Archbishop, he was also renowned as a mountain ascetic.

First line, 'kusa no io', means a humble hut thatched with grass, thought of as a dwelling easily wet with dew.
Second line, 'nani tsuyukeshi to', means why as damp with dew, nani expressing a question.
Third line, 'omoikemu', means did I think, closing with the attributive of the past conjectural kemu; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, 'moranu iwaya mo', means even in a rock cave where nothing leaks, contrasting with kusa no io in the first line.
Final line, 'sode wa nurekeri', means my sleeves are wet, the exclamatory keri closing on the realization that what wets them is tears.
Author: Gyōson
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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