There was a man who had been secretly conversing with a woman who had a husband. When their relationship cooled, seeing that he had little time for her, the woman sent this to him.
我宿の軒のしのぶにことよせてやがても茂るわすれ草かな
| wa ga yado no noki no sinobu ni koto yosete yagate mo sigeru wasuregusa kana |
At my dwelling Ferns grow beneath the eaves Is your excuse; And in the end all that grows lush is The grass of your forgetfulness! |
Anonymous
Does this poem appear in any other collections? Are there any other clues as to possible authorship, or to the time period in which it was originally composed? (Obviously it must be prior to the completion of the anthology in 1086.)
Nothing which predates this. Kenshō includes it in his Shōchuūshō 袖中抄, which he put together in 1186-87; and Fujiwara no Teika included it in his Teika hachidaishō 定家八代抄, a twenty volume collection of exemplary poems from the first eight imperial anthologies, but that’s it, I’m afraid.