Aki no no o wakuramu shika mo waga goto ya shigeki sawari ni ne o ba nakuramu

English Translation

The deer that pushes
through the autumn fields — does it
too, like me, cry out
and raise its voice, held back by
the thick growth that stands between

Meaning

Does the deer pushing through the autumn fields cry out as I do, held back by the thick growth that stands in its way?

Commentary

53 Thickets in the Way

A man called Sakanoue no Tōmichi, in the service of the retired Emperor Yōzei, was in love with a woman also in that service; and because she would not see him, saying that there was some impediment, he composed this poem. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
Sakanoue no Tōmichi served the retired Emperor Yōzei, who appears in the fourteenth and fifteenth sections. Of the woman the prose tells us only that she was in the same service.
The season is autumn, as the autumn fields in the poem tell us.
What prompted the poem was her refusal to see him on grounds of some impediment.
The section ends with the poem; no reply from her and no later event is recorded. Some manuscripts have an insect in place of the deer.

The deer of the first lines is pushing through the autumn fields; the verb means to part the grasses and go on, so that the growth stands thick before it.
The third line lays the man over the animal: as I do.
What blocks the way is thick growth — at once the grasses of the field and the impediment she pleaded. He takes her word for it straight into the poem.
The closing supposes that the deer is crying out. A deer in autumn was held to call for its mate, and that call had long been in poetry. He never states his own grief; he only asks whether the deer is doing what he is doing.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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