Ōaraki no mori no ko no ma o morikanete hitodanome naru aki no yo no tsuki

English Translation

Through the branches of
the wood at Oaraki
it cannot leak through
and it makes us hope in vain
the moon of an autumn night

Meaning

It cannot quite come through the branches of the wood at Oaraki, and still it holds out hope: the moon of an autumn night.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 375

Headnote: on the theme of the moon among the groves, from the time when she presented a fifty-poem sequence.
The poems turn here to the moon. The topic is moonlight among trees, and the poem takes light that barely comes through them.
The poet, known as the daughter of Shunzei, was in fact his granddaughter and adopted daughter. In Book One she is the poet of the forty-seventh poem, in Book Two of the hundred and twelfth and others, and in Book Three of the hundred and seventy-ninth and others; this is her first appearance in this book.
The time is an autumn night; the place is the wood at Oaraki, held to be a famous site in Yamashiro Province.
The occasion was the set topic.

The first line raises the place; its name holds the word for wildness and brings a desolate wood to mind.
The word in the second line means the gaps between trees, used in Masatsune's ninety-fourth poem in Book Two.
The word in the third line means both light leaking through and the wood itself; the suffix after it means to be unable to do a thing fully, so that the light does not quite come through.
The fourth line means holding out expectation to a person: the little light that does come through suggests that more may follow.
The poem closes on a noun. The interest lies in crediting the moon with something like deception, and the poem that follows uses the same phrase of lightning, so that the two are set together.

Author

The Daughter of Fujiwara no Shunzei

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other