Text

歌たてまつれとおほせられし時によみてたてまつれる

つらゆき

わがせこが　衣春雨　ふるごとに　野辺のみどりぞ　色まさりける

Translation

When [the Emperor] said "Submit a poem," [Tsurayuki] read this and submitted it.

[Ki no] Tsurayuki

My husband's / clothing the spring rain / every time it falls / the green of the fields / grows a shade deeper.

(See poem 22 for notes on the prose preface, which is the same)

わがせこが: This phrase has been subject to a great deal of commentary. Early commenters such as Template:Oldest interpreted せこ as "wife" here. But later scholars reject the idea that せこ can have this meaning. Template:Nativist thought this was a mistake for わぎもこ. Template:Denju seemed to take the position that the first lines were simply a 序 (preface) and did not refer to any actual people. These interpretations seem to have come from the early scholars' interpreting the わが as Tsurayuki himself. But Template:Edo recognized that men composing poems in the voice of women is quite common during the Heian period, and modern scholars agree that Tsurayuki is using this technique here.; The second question is about the が; is this a possessive or a subject marker? Since women were typically the clothes washers, Katagiri's reading of this as the possessive seems appropriate.

衣春雨: This is a pivot construction, taking はる as 衣を張る (stretch out clothes when washing) and 春雨 (spring rain). This makes the first two lines a preface, but scholars differ on what type of preface it is -- see the analysis for more details.

新選和歌３３
古今和歌六帖４６４・雨・貫之. Line 3 ふるからに
千五百番歌合１０３判詞. The judge criticized the Left's poem (わぎもこが衣はるさめふるからにすそのの草ぞいろまさりゆく by Sanuki) for being too close to KKS 25 and awarded the victory to the Right.
秀歌大体　三五記　定家八代抄
俊頼髄脳　袖中抄　歌林良材　和歌密書