Yama no ha ni omoi mo iraji yo no naka wa totemo kakutemo ariake no tsuki - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

山の端に思ひも入らじ世の中は
とてもかくてもありあけの月

Roma-ji: Yama no ha ni omoi mo iraji yo no naka wa totemo kakutemo ariake no tsuki
English Translation: Into the hills' rim
I'll not think of going now—
this world, after all,
be it so or be it thus, one lives,
like the moon lingering at dawn.
Meaning: I will not set my heart on vanishing into the mountain rim; in this world, one can live on whatever comes, like the moon lingering at dawn.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1508

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the tenth and last poem of the sequence on the moon. The poet resolves not to withdraw into the mountains as the moon sets behind the mountain rim; in this world one can live on however things go, he says, entrusting the thought to the dawn moon. The headnote reads "topic unknown," and records nothing of the circumstances of composition.
The author, "Fujiwara no Morikata Ason," was a poet of the late Heian period.

The first line, "yama no ha ni," presents the mountain ridge where the moon sets. It is the same mountain rim as in "yama no ha ni hitori zo irishi" of 1505 in this book.
The second line, "omoi mo iraji," uses "ji," negative volition, meaning "I will not set my heart on it." "Iru," to enter, overlays the moon entering behind the mountain rim with setting one's heart on something.
The third line, "yo no naka wa," presents the world one lives in as the subject.
The fourth line, "totemo kakutemo," means "whether this way or that." It expresses the detachment of "whatever my circumstances."
In the last line, "ariake no tsuki," "ariake" plays on "ari," one can go on living, and "ariake," the moon lingering at dawn. Following the moon that remained at Karasaki of Shiga in the preceding poem, it likens himself to the moon lingering at daybreak, showing a heart that lives on without renouncing the world, and closes the sequence.
Author: Fujiwara no Morikata
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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