Sarashina no yama yori hoka ni teru tsuki mo nagusamekanetsu kono koro no sora - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

更級の山よりほかに照る月も
なぐさめかねつこのころの空

Roma-ji: Sarashina no yama yori hoka ni teru tsuki mo nagusamekanetsu kono koro no sora
English Translation: Even the moon that
shines on hills other than those
of Sarashina
cannot console my heart now:
the sky of these days of love.
Meaning: Even the moon shining on hills other than Sarashina's could not console me; such is the sky in these days of love.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1259

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence of love poems on the moon. Even the moon shining somewhere other than the hills of Sarashina, the speaker says, cannot console me under the sky of these days. As with the preceding poem, the headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances are not recorded.
The author, "Mitsune," whose family name was Ōshikōchi, was one of the poets who compiled the Kokinshū with Ki no Tsurayuki and others. He is one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
The foundation poem is the anonymous poem in Miscellaneous Poems I of the Kokinshū, "My heart cannot be consoled, seeing the moon shine on Mount Obasute in Sarashina". Using its "nagusamekanetsu," cannot be consoled, just as it stands, this poem turns it to say that even a moon other than Obasute's cannot console him.

The first line, "sarashina no," takes up "Sarashina ya" in the foundation poem. Like Ise's poem, 1257, it sets the foundation poem's place name in the first line.
The second line, "yama yori hoka ni," means "elsewhere than those hills." In the foundation poem it was the moon of Obasute that could not console; here the idea is widened to every other moon.
In the third line, "teru tsuki mo," "mo" means "also, even." It takes over "teru tsuki," the shining moon, of the foundation poem.
The fourth line, "nagusamekanetsu," means "could not console," using the words of the foundation poem's second line. "Tsu" is perfective, and the poem breaks after the fourth line.
The last line, "kono koro no sora," ends on a noun. It closes by presenting the sky of these days, when no moon at all can console a heart in love.
Author: Oshikochi no Mitsune
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Itsu totemo aware to omou o nenuru yo no tsuki wa oboroke nakunaku zo mishi
Next Poem: Ama no to o oshiakegata no tsuki mireba ukihito shimo zo koishikarikeru