Shiranami no koyuran Sue no Matsuyama wa hana to ya miyuru haru no yo no tsuki - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

白波の越ゆらん末の松山は
花とや見ゆる春の夜の月

Roma-ji: Shiranami no koyuran Sue no Matsuyama wa hana to ya miyuru haru no yo no tsuki
English Translation: The Sue-no-Matsuyama
over which white waves must now
be passing, I think—
do they look like blossoms there
in the moonlight of a spring night?
Meaning: Sue-no-Matsuyama, where the white waves must now be breaking over the pines—do they look like blossoms there under the moon of this spring night?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1474

Headnote: "When Tachibana no Tamenaka Ason was in Michinoku, I sent him many poems."
This is the second poem of the sequence on the things of late spring. Thinking of someone in Michinoku, the poet asks whether Sue-no-Matsuyama, where the white waves must now be crossing, looks like blossoms under the moon of a spring night. According to the headnote, it is one of many poems sent to Tachibana no Tamenaka while he was in Michinoku.
The author, "Kaga no Saemon," was a lady-in-waiting and poet of the mid-Heian period.
"Tachibana no Tamenaka Ason" in the headnote was a poet who went down to his province as Governor of Mutsu. Sue-no-Matsuyama is a famous place in Michinoku, in present-day Tagajō, Miyagi Prefecture. It is known from an Eastern poem in the Kokin Wakashū, "Kimi o okite / adashi gokoro o / waga motaba / Sue no Matsuyama / nami mo koenan" ("Should I leave you and harbor a fickle heart, the waves would cross even Sue-no-Matsuyama"), and was sung as a mountain the waves never cross.

The first line, "shiranami no," presents the white waves of the sea in Michinoku. Their whiteness echoes the "blossoms" of the fourth line.
In the second line, "koyuran Sue no," "ran" is the present conjectural: "which they must now be crossing." The waves said in the Eastern poem never to cross are here boldly imagined as crossing.
The third line, "Matsuyama wa," presents Sue-no-Matsuyama as the subject.
In the fourth line, "hana to ya miyuru," "ya" is an interrogative binding particle, closed with the attributive form "miyuru." It asks whether the white waves crossing the pine hill look like white blossoms in the moonlight.
The last line, "haru no yo no tsuki," ends on a noun. Following the white blossoms of the mountain pear in the preceding poem, it likens the white waves to blossoms and sets them in the moonlight. The next poem also ends with "haru no yo no tsuki."
Author: Kaga no Saemon
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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