五月雨のそらもとどろに郭公
なにをうしとかよただなくらむ
なにをうしとかよただなくらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Samidare no sora mo todoro ni hototogisu
nani o ushi to ka yo tada nakuramu - English Translation
-
In the rainy skies
of the Fifth Month, resounding,
the cuckoo cries on—
what sorrow burdens its heart,
that it calls so endlessly?
- Meaning
- In the resounding skies of the Fifth Month rains, the cuckoo cries on—what sorrow does it bear, that it calls so endlessly?
- Commentary
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Book III, Summer Poems
Composed upon hearing the cuckoo’s cry.
The poet wonders what grief the cuckoo feels, that it should cry so insistently beneath the roaring rains of early summer.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- In summer mountains, has the one it longs for gone deep into their depths? raising up its voice in cries, the cuckoo calls and calls.
- Is it the same bird that cried so much last summer, the cuckoo I hear? or is it another— its voice unchanged at all.
- No cuckoo’s voice is heard here at all, and yet the mountain echo— why does it not bring to me the cry from somewhere afar?
- The cuckoo cries upon the mountain of wait— for one it awaits; and I, all at once, as well, feel my longing deepen still.