Hototogisu nakite irusa no yama no ha wa tsuki yue yori mo urameshiki kana

English Translation

The cuckoo has cried
and gone behind the ridgeline
and that ridge is now
more hateful to me than when
it was the moon that went in

Meaning

The cuckoo cried and went in behind the ridge; and that ridge is more hateful to me than ever it was for taking the moon.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 211

Headnote: composed on the theme of the cuckoo's heart.
The poem resents the ridge that hides the bird, and so gives the state of mind after the voice has ceased. The headnote gives the subject.
The poet is given as former Chancellor. That he had held and left that office is known, but his identity is not settled, and the original appellation is kept here rather than a name being supplied. The Chancellor was the highest office in the court system.
The time is a summer night; the place is a mountain ridge.
The occasion was the set topic.

The first line names the bird.
The second line is a pivot, holding both the verb for going in and the name of a mountain. The same pivot is used in Kintsune's hundred and fifty-sixth poem in Book Two.
The word in the third line means the line where a mountain meets the sky, used also in the ninety-fourth poem of Book One and the hundred and seventy-third of Book Two.
The fourth line means: more than for the moon's sake. Poems resenting the ridge for hiding the moon are old and many, and to say that this is worse measures the depth of the attachment to the bird.
An exclamatory particle closes the poem. That the resentment falls on the mountain rather than on the bird shows a feeling with nowhere to go.

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other