Here on Irusa,
the hill where the catalpa
bow's arrow goes in,
I wander, to see whether
that faint moon shows itself yet

Meaning

I am wandering on Irusa hill, where the catalpa bow's arrow goes in, to see whether that faintly glimpsed moon will show itself again.

Commentary

Part One: Hana no En

　Pressed to drink by his host, Genji left the banquet on the pretext of clearing his head and turned toward the quarters of the daughters of the house. There were signs of people behind the blinds, and he approached humming a saibara song, but the sisters, knowing nothing of the matter, only wondered at him. He spoke this poem in the hope of finding the woman of that night. A voice answered, and taking her hand he knew that it was indeed she.

　"Azusa yumi" is a bow of catalpa wood, a fixed epithet leading into the verb for shooting, whose sound in turn leads into the place-name Irusa. The bow also picks up the archery contest held before the banquet. "The moon's light" is the dawn moon of that night, and so the woman herself. The poem builds by association from epithet to place-name to moon, while stating the plain business of a search, so that ornament and urgency lie one on the other.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Here on Irusa, the hill where the catalpa bow's arrow goes in, I wander, to see whether that faint moon shows itself yet

Here on Irusa,
the hill where the catalpa
bow's arrow goes in,
I wander, to see whether
that faint moon shows itself yet