[75] ちぎりお (Chigirio)

 Poem Meaning and Background

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契りおきし・させもが露を・命にて

chigiri okishi・sasemo ga tsuyu o・inochi ni te

あはれ今年の・秋もいぬめり

aware kotoshi no・aki mo inumeri

〜藤原基俊（Fujiwara no Mototoshi）

Translation

As dew promises

New life to the thirsty plant,

So did your vow to me.

Yet the year has passed away,

And autumn has come again.

Meaning

This poem may seem like a love poem, but it is instead written about a promise involving the author, Fujiwara no Mototoshi, and another poet in the Hyakunin Isshu, Fujiwara no Tadamichi ( [76] Watanoharako) regarding the author's son. The author's son was a Buddhist monk who was hoping to receive an appointment as a lecturer for an annual lecture on sutra that was held each autumn at 興福寺, Kōfuku-ji, in Nara Prefecture. After being passed over for the position year after year, his father Mototoshi decided to ask for help from Tadamichi, who held some influence over the selections of lecturers. Though Tadamichi expressed that he would help Mototoshi's son, when the time came again to choose lecturers, Mototoshi's son was once again not chosen for the position. In the first half of the poem, we see the hope offered by Tadamichi's promise and in the second half, the sadness that comes when the promise goes unfulfilled. 

In the first line, 契りおきし(chigiri okishi) means "was given a promise". させも is referencing a plant, させも草 (sasemogusa) or よもぎ, which is Japanese mugwort. 露 (tsuyu) is dew and 命にて(inochi nite) means something along the lines of "as precious as life itself". Taken together, the dew on the plant is like a metaphor for the faint hope that Tadamichi's promise had given the author, and that hope was as precious to the author as life itself. あはれ (aware) is translated into modern Japanese as ああ, which is like a sigh. 今年の・秋もいぬめり (kotoshi no/ aki mo inumeri) means "this year/ another fall has passed". Though there is a reference to fall, this poem is not considered to be a "fall" poem, since the main theme is the broken promise. The mention of this season is more related to the when the promise was broken, since the annual lecture on sutras was held each fall. 

Author

Fujiwara no Mototoshi (1060~1142) was a poet and nobleman in the Heian period. Some of his poems are included in the Kin'yō Wakashū.