Murakumo ya kari no hakaze ni harenuran koe kiku sora ni sumeru tsukikage

English Translation

Have the gathered clouds
been cleared by the wind of wings
of the passing geese?
in the sky where I hear them
the moonlight shines crystal clear

Meaning

Have the scattered clouds been swept away by the wind from the wild geese's wings? In the sky where I hear their cries, the moonlight is clear.

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 504

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the eighth poem of the wild goose sequence. Have the clouds been cleared by the wind of the geese's wings? In the sky where their cries are heard, the moon shines clear. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author was a monk whose career is not known in detail.
The scene is an autumn night as the geese pass, beneath a sky where the moon shines clear.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

In the first line, "murakumo" are gathered clouds, and the interrogative "ya" is bound to "ran" in the third line.
In the second line, "hakaze" is the wind stirred by wingbeats, the same phrase as in 458. There frost fell in the wind of the geese's wings; here the wing-wind is imagined as sweeping away the clouds.
In the third line, "nu" is perfective and "ran" the attributive of the conjectural "ramu": "have they cleared?" The poem breaks here.
The fourth line, "in the sky where I hear their voices," grasps the geese's passage through sound rather than sight.
In the last line, "ru" is the attributive of the continuative "ri," ending on a noun. The poem wittily finds the reason for the clear moon in the geese's wing-wind that cleared the clouds. Following 503 on "hearing geese before the moon," it joins moon and geese in one poem, as if the geese had created the clear moonlit sky.

Author

Chōe

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other