Tsukikage no sumiwataru kana ama no hara kumo fukiharau yowa no arashi ni

English Translation

The light of the moon
shines clear from end to end now
across heaven's plain
for the storm at dead of night
has swept the clouds away, all

Meaning

The moonlight is clear from end to end of the sky, for a midnight storm has swept the clouds away.

Commentary

Book Four Autumn Poems I 411

Headnote: for a palace contest in 1049.
A run pairing cloud with the moon begins here. In this poem a storm clears the cloud and the moon shines through the whole sky. The headnote assigns it to a contest held at the palace.
The poet, given by his court title, is Minamoto no Tsunenobu, who rose to Major Counsellor and was accomplished in Chinese verse and music as well as poetry. This is his second appearance in this book, after the three hundred and forty-second poem.
The time is midnight in autumn; no place is given.
The occasion was submission to the contest.

The word in the first line means light.
The verb in the second line adds the sense of doing a thing over a whole expanse, as in Kunizane's tenth poem in Book One, where the grass came up everywhere. Here the whole sky is cleared.
The third line names the wide plain of the sky, used in Jien's thirty-third poem in Book One.
The fourth line gives the reason for the clearness.
The poem closes on a noun, with a particle marking cause. Jakuren's three hundred and ninety-sixth poem had the wind blowing while the moon stayed hidden; here the wind clears the cloud and shows it. The same pairing of moon and wind is taken to the opposite result.

Author

Minamoto no Tsunenobu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other