‘Sleeves' and ‘Tears' in Classical Japanese Poetry and Lyrical Prose

Probably most readers of Japanese classical poetry and lyrical prose have been puzzled by the recurrence in them of ‘sleeves’: ‘sleeves retaining the fragrance of the flowers’ (‘hana nioi-wo utsusu sode’), ‘the moon shining on one’s sleeves’ (‘sode-ni utsuru/yadoru/tsuki’), and a lot of ‘tear-wet sleeves’ (‘sode-no namida’), ‘dew-wet sleeves’ (‘tsuyu oku sode’), ‘streams or rivers of tears flowing over one’s sleeves’ (‘namida-gawa…’), ‘sleeves that are never dry’ (‘kawaku toki naku’) etc. And probably for occidental readers this fact might have seemed even boring – ‘Why did the ancient Japanese shed so many tears upon their sleeves?’