Tsuki o matsu takane no kumo wa harenikeri kokoro aru beki hatsushigure kana

English Translation

Over the high peak
where I wait for the moon,
the clouds have cleared away;
surely it has a heart,
this first winter shower

Meaning

The clouds that hung over the high peak where I wait for the moon have cleared. Surely this first winter shower has a heart that understands.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 570

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the first poem of the winter-showers sequence. Seeing that the clouds over the high peak where he waits for the moon have cleared, the speaker says that the first winter shower, now passed, must surely have a heart. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Saigyō Hōshi," is Saigyō. His lay name was Satō Norikiyo, and he served Retired Emperor Toba as a warrior of the Northern Guard, but took holy orders at twenty-three, traveled through the provinces, and left the poetry collection Sankashū.
The scene is an early winter night of waiting for the moonrise, and the place is somewhere with a view of a high peak.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

The first line, "tsuki o matsu," means "waiting for the moon to rise" and modifies "takane" in the second line.
The second line, "takane no kumo wa," refers to the clouds that hung over the high peak. The clouds on the peak where the moon will rise are presented as what hides the moon.
The third line, "harenikeri," means "they have cleared," with "keri" expressing the exclamation of sudden awareness. The poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "kokoro aru beki," means "surely possessed of a heart that feels," with "beki" as the attributive form of the conjectural auxiliary "beshi."
The last line, "hatsushigure kana," closes with the exclamatory particle "kana." Winter showers fall and pass on, and as this first shower passed, the clouds on the peak cleared and opened the sky for one waiting for the moon, so the poem grants the shower a heart. Turning from the violence of the withering wind in the poems before, it sings of the shower as a friend of the moon and stands at the head of the winter-showers sequence. Where 562 in this book sang of the storm scattering the leaves the first showers had dyed, the first shower here is portrayed as something that understands the human heart.

Author

Saigyō

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other