Aku to iu koto mo shirabaya kurenai no namida ni somaru sode ya kaeru to - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あくといふこともしらばや紅の
涙に染まる袖やかへると

Roma-ji: Aku to iu koto mo shirabaya kurenai no namida ni somaru sode ya kaeru to
English Translation: Aku, what they call
the lye, I wish that I could know
if my sleeves, dyed through
with the crimson of my tears,
would then return to their hue
Meaning: I wish I knew what aku, the lye that strips dye, could do, to see whether my sleeves dyed crimson with my tears would change back.
Commentary: Book Eleven Variant Poems 716

The poet wishes to know of aku, the lye that draws dye from cloth, hoping it might change the color of sleeves dyed crimson by tears. Joining aku, lye, with aku, to grow weary of love, the poem says that if one could learn to tire of love, sleeves dyed with tears of blood might return to their color, expressing the unending pain of love.
This poem is found only in a variant manuscript line of the anthology; in the variant it is one of the love poems placed after 665 in Book Ten, the closing poem of the anthology. The next poem, 717, is also a love poem drawing on dyeing.

First line, 'aku to iu', means what is called aku, joining aku, lye that draws dye from cloth, with aku, a heart sated and turning away.
Second line, 'koto mo shirabaya', means I wish I knew of it, the particle baya expressing the speaker's own wish; the poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, 'kurenai no', means crimson, standing for tears of blood.
Fourth line, 'namida ni somaru', means dyed with tears. Like Shikama ni somuru in the second and third lines of 717 in this book, it sings of dyeing.
Final line, 'sode ya kaeru to', means to see if the sleeves change, inverted with the second line. Lye, crimson, dyeing and changing are associated words.
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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