Ōzora o wataru haruhi no kage nare ya yoso ni nomi shite nodokekaruran - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

大空を渡る春日の影なれや
よそにのみしてのどけかるらん

Roma-ji: Ōzora o wataru haruhi no kage nare ya yoso ni nomi shite nodokekaruran
English Translation: Are you the light
of the spring sun that crosses
the great wide sky,
that, far off and apart from me,
you are so calm, so at ease?
Meaning: Are you the light of the spring sun crossing the wide sky, that you stay always so far apart from me, so calm and untroubled?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 1019

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the second poem of the sequence on love that can only look on from afar. Likening the beloved to the spring sunlight crossing the wide sky, the speaker reproaches one who stays far off and at ease, untouched by his suffering. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Poem of Retired Emperor Teiji," is Emperor Uda. A son of Emperor Kōkō, he raised Sugawara no Michizane to high office and yielded the throne to Emperor Daigo. After abdicating he took holy orders as a cloistered emperor and lived at the Teiji-in, from which he took the name.

The first line, "ōzora o," means "across the wide sky," pointing to heights beyond reach.
The second line, "wataru haruhi no," means "of the spring sun crossing."
In the third line, "kage" means light, and "nare ya" asks "is it because you are?" The beloved is likened to the light of the spring sun.
The fourth line, "yoso ni nomi shite," means "staying always far apart." It uses the same words as "yoso ni nomi," the first line of 990, to show the distance between the two.
In the last line, "ran" conjectures a cause: why are you so at ease? The speaker resents a beloved as calm as a spring day while he suffers. Where the preceding poem sang of autumn's first geese leaving over the peaks, this one sings of the spring sun crossing the sky, pairing things of autumn and spring that travel the heavens.
Author: Emperor Uda
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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