Waga namida motomete sode ni yadore tsuki saritote hito no kage wa minedomo - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

我が涙もとめて袖に宿れ月
さりとて人の影は見ねども

Roma-ji: Waga namida motomete sode ni yadore tsuki saritote hito no kage wa minedomo
English Translation: Seeking out my tears,
come and lodge upon my sleeve,
O moon, lodge there, though
even so I know I will
not see that one's image there.
Meaning: Seek out my tears, O moon, and lodge upon my sleeve, though even so I will not see the face of the one I love.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1273

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "For the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds."
This is the eighteenth poem of the sequence of love poems on the moon. Seek out my tears and lodge on my sleeve, O moon, the speaker says, though even so I will not see that person's image. Continuing from the preceding poem, it was submitted to the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.
No author is named in the original; continuing from the preceding poem, it is by Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. A son of the Chancellor Kujō Kanezane, he rose to regent and grand minister and was called the Go-Kyōgoku Regent.
In the main text, the last line reads "kage wa minedomo," which does not match "kage wa mienedo" in the reading line. Here the main text is followed.

The first line, "waga namida," is the tears of love.
The second line, "motomete sode ni," means "seeking out my tears, on my sleeve." The moon reflected in tears pooled on the sleeve is imagined as seeking them out and lodging there.
The third line, "yadore tsuki," is an imperative, "lodge there, O moon," and the poem breaks after it. Following the preceding poem's appeal to the drifting clouds not to screen off the moon, here the speaker calls on the moon itself.
In the fourth line, "saritote hito no," "saritote" means "even so, not that."
The last line, "kage wa minedomo," means "though I will not see the image." "Kage" means both moonlight and a person's figure; the lament that the moon lodges on the sleeve but the beloved's image does not is added in inverted order to close the poem.
Author: Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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