Hito o matsu yado wa kuraku zo narinikeru chigirishi tsuki no uchi ni mieneba

English Translation

The house where I wait
for you has grown dark indeed
since within the month
we agreed on — within the
moon — you have not shown yourself

Meaning

The house where I wait for you has grown dark, since within the month we agreed on — within the moon — you have not shown yourself.

Commentary

129 The House Has Grown Dark

Whether it was the Lady of Higaki is not known; a woman living in Tsukushi sent this poem to a man in the capital. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
The prose is careful to say that it is not known whether the poet was the Lady of Higaki, and calls her only a woman in Tsukushi. The Lady appears in the hundred and twenty-sixth through hundred and twenty-eighth sections. Of the man it says only that he was in the capital.
The setting is Tsukushi, as the agreed month was running out.
What prompted the poem was his failing to appear within it. It was sent to him in the capital.
The section ends with the poem; no reply and no later event is recorded. It was later included in the Shingoshūi-shū, attributed there to the Lady of the Palace Guards.

The house that waits is the subject of the poem itself.
It has grown dark, with an emphatic particle governing the verb. A house waiting for someone is unlit because no one comes.
The word in the fourth line means both a month of the calendar and the moon in the sky, so that within the agreed month and within the moonlight are one phrase.
The closing gives the reason and stops there. On the surface: the house is dark because the moon has not shown. Underneath: it is dark because the man has not come within the month. One word carries both. The grief of waiting is narrowed to the single question of whether a house is lit.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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