Ariake no tsuki matsu yado no sode no ue ni hitodanome naru yoi no inazuma

English Translation

At the house that waits
for the moon at daybreak, on
the sleeve there, briefly
and it makes us hope in vain
the lightning of the evening

Meaning

On the sleeve at the house that waits for the dawn moon, holding out a hope it will not keep: the lightning of the evening.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 376

Headnote: from the fifty poems set by Cloistered Prince Shukaku.
Taking up the phrase of the previous poem, this one applies it to lightning. The headnote assigns it to the set of fifty poems from which the thirty-eighth and fortieth poems of Book One, the two hundred and forty-seventh of Book Three and the two hundred and ninety-second and three hundred and thirty-first of this book also come.
Fujiwara no Ietaka was one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashu; this is his third appearance in this book, after the two hundred and eighty-ninth and ninety-second poems.
The time is an autumn evening; the place is a house where the moon is awaited.
The occasion was the presentation of the fifty poems.
The text of the second line carries an editorial note offering a variant particle; the reading given in the phonetic line is followed here.

The first two lines give a house waiting for the moon that rises near dawn, a moon that recurred through Book Three.
The third line narrows to the sleeve. Dew on a sleeve is a tear, so that the light falls on the tears of one who waits.
The fourth line repeats the previous poem's phrase; the two share it, applied there to the moon and here to lightning.
The poem closes on a noun. Lightning is gone in an instant, so that it suggests the awaited moon and vanishes. As something that raises a hope and breaks it, it is an even sharper case than the moon. The poem that follows also takes lightning, so that three stand in a row.

Author

Fujiwara no Ietaka

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other