五月山卯の花月夜時鳥
聞けどもあかず又鳴かんかも
聞けどもあかず又鳴かんかも
- Roma-ji
-
Satsukiyama u no hanazukiyo hototogisu kikedomo akazu mata nakamu kamo
- English Translation
-
On the hills of May
and the deutzia moonlight
and the cuckoo's call
I hear and am not sated
and would have it sing once more
- Meaning
- Hills in the fifth month, moonlight on the deutzia, the cuckoo: I hear it and cannot have my fill. Will it not sing again?
- Commentary
-
Book Three Summer Poems 193
Headnote: topic unknown.
The poem hears the cuckoo and is still unsatisfied. The headnote gives no topic and nothing is known of the circumstances.
The poet is recorded only as unknown.
The time is a moonlit night in the fifth month; the place is hills where deutzia is in flower.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.
The first three lines are three nouns and nothing else. Hills, moonlit night and bird are piled up without particles, in the manner of the older poetry.
The compound naming the night means one in which deutzia is out and the moon is shining: white flowers and moonlight together, the pairing of Shirakawa's hundred and eightieth poem, which saw the flowers as moonlight.
The verb in the fourth line means not to have one's fill, the word used again and again in Book Two, applied here to a bird's voice.
The particle at the close is exclamatory and carries a wish: will it not sing again? The form is common in the older poetry.
Elements are stacked to make a scene and a wish is placed at the end. The manner is plain, and quite unlike the studied work of the compilers' own day.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
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