Tsukuzuku to omoiakashi no urachidori nami no makura ni nakunaku zo kiku - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

つくづくと思ひあかしの浦千鳥
波の枕になくなくぞ聞く

Roma-ji: Tsukuzuku to omoiakashi no urachidori nami no makura ni nakunaku zo kiku
English Translation: Brooding all night long
till dawn breaks at Akashi,
the plovers of the bay:
on my pillow of the waves,
crying, crying, I listen.
Meaning: Brooding deeply through the night until dawn at Akashi, with the waves for my pillow, I listen, weeping and weeping, to the plovers crying in the bay.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1331

Headnote: "For the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds."
This is the second poem of the sequence on love sung through tear-wet sleeves and winter imagery. Brooding until dawn at Akashi, the speaker says, I listen weeping to the plovers of the bay, with the waves for my pillow. According to the headnote, it was submitted to the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.
The author, "Kintsune, Provisional Middle Counselor," is Saionji Kintsune. A son of the Palace Minister Fujiwara no Sanemune, he later rose to grand minister and founded the Saionji house. Provisional Middle Counselor was his office when the collection was compiled.
Akashi Bay is a poetic place in Harima Province, sung together with the moon and plovers. The Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds, the largest in history, was arranged by Retired Emperor Go-Toba, who in Kennin 1 (1201) had thirty poets each compose a hundred-poem sequence and over the following year had the poems matched in fifteen hundred rounds and judged.

The first line, "tsukuzuku to," means "deeply, intently."
In the second line, "omoiakashi no," "akashi" is a pivot word meaning both "spending the night till dawn" in brooding and Akashi Bay.
The third line, "urachidori," is the plover crying on the bay, a winter image; its cry calling to its companions was sung as stirring longing.
The fourth line, "nami no makura ni," means "on a traveler's bed with the sound of waves at the pillow." It suggests waves of tears on the sleeve.
In the last line, "nakunaku zo kiku," "naku" is a pivot word meaning both the plovers "crying" and the speaker "weeping"; "kiku" takes the attributive form in answer to "zo." Following the bell sound falling on the sleeve in the preceding poem, here the speaker weeps while listening to the plovers. Nakatsukasa's poem, 1258, closes in the same form with "nakunaku zo mishi."
Author: Fujiwara no Kintsune
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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