Tsurenasa no tagui made ya wa tsurakaranu tsuki o mo medeji ariake no sora - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

つれなさのたぐひまでやはつらからぬ
月をもめでじ有明の空

Roma-ji: Tsurenasa no tagui made ya wa tsurakaranu tsuki o mo medeji ariake no sora
English Translation: Could even the kin
of your coldness fail to wound?
I will not admire
even the moon that lingers
in the sky at break of dawn.
Meaning: Could anything that resembles your coldness fail to pain me? So I will not admire even the moon that lingers, unfeeling, in the sky at dawn.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 1138

Headnote: "At the hundred-poem contest held at the house of the Regent and Grand Chancellor; on 'Love at Dawn.'"
This is the first of two poems on the moon. Since even things that resemble the beloved's coldness are painful, the speaker will not admire even the moon lingering unfeeling in the dawn sky. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Love at Dawn" for the hundred-poem contest at the house of the Regent and Grand Chancellor, Fujiwara no Yoshitsune.
The author, "Ariie Ason," is Fujiwara no Ariie. The son of Fujiwara no Shigeie, Senior Assistant Governor-General of Dazaifu, he became one of the compilers of the Shin Kokinshū.
This contest is the Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds, held by Yoshitsune in Kenkyū 4 (1193). The source poem is Mibu no Tadamine's Kokinshū poem, "Since that parting when the dawn moon looked so unfeeling, nothing is so bitter to me as the break of day."

The first line, "tsurenasa no," means "of your coldness."
The second line, "tagui made ya wa," means "even things of the same kind," the particle "ya wa" marking a rhetorical question answered by "tsurakaranu" in the third line.
The third line, "tsurakaranu," means "could they fail to pain me? they do," and the poem breaks after the third line. Even things resembling the beloved's coldness are painful.
The fourth line, "tsuki o mo medeji," means "I will not admire even the moon," the poem breaking after the fourth line on the negative volitional "ji." Taking up "ariake no tsurenaku mieshi" of the source poem, the unfeeling dawn moon too, being of the kind of coldness, will not be admired.
The last line, "ariake no sora," is the sky where the moon lingers after daybreak, ending on a noun and showing the "dawn" of the topic "Love at Dawn." Against the poetic convention of admiring the moon, the poem turns an argument: the moon will not be admired because it resembles an unfeeling beloved.
Author: Fujiwara no Ariie
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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