Yaemugura shigereru yado wa hito mo nashi mabara ni tsuki no kage zo sumikeru - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

八重葎茂れる宿は人もなし
まばらに月の影ぞすみける

Roma-ji: Yaemugura shigereru yado wa hito mo nashi mabara ni tsuki no kage zo sumikeru
English Translation: In the house where weeds
grow in eightfold tangles now,
there is no one left—
only the moonlight, sparse and clear,
has come to dwell there instead.
Meaning: In the house overgrown with tangled weeds, no one is left—only the moonlight, shining sparse and clear through the roof, has come to dwell there.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1553

Headnote: "When I went to visit an acquaintance, found that the person was living elsewhere, and saw the moon shining into the badly ruined house."
This is the fourth and last poem of the sequence on the moon that recalls the past. No one is left in the house overgrown with tangled weeds, and only the moonlight, shining sparse and clear through the roof, dwells there. According to the headnote, the poet went to visit an acquaintance who had moved elsewhere, and composed it on seeing the moon shining into the badly ruined house.
The author, "Former Middle Counselor Masafusa," was the son of Ōe no Narihira. Known as a scholar, he rose to Provisional Middle Counselor and Provisional Governor-General of Dazaifu.
The first half draws on the priest Egyō's poem in the Shūi Wakashū: "Yaemugura / shigereru yado no / sabishiki ni / hito koso miene / aki wa kinikeri" ("To this lonely house overgrown with tangled weeds no one comes, yet autumn has come").

The first line, "yaemugura," refers to weeds grown in many-layered tangles. A word showing a ruined house, it uses Egyō's first line as it is.
The second line, "shigereru yado wa," means "the house where they grow thick," using the continuative "ru."
The third line, "hito mo nashi," declares, "there is no one," and the poem breaks after the third line. It takes up "hito koso miene" of Egyō's poem.
The fourth line, "mabara ni tsuki no," refers to the moon shining in through the gaps of a roof grown sparse with ruin.
In the last line, "kage zo sumikeru," "sumi" plays on "sumu," for moonlight to be clear, and "sumu," for the moon to dwell in place of people. Closing the kakari-musubi of the particle "zo" with the attributive form "keru," it says that the moon alone dwells in a house people no longer live in, taking up the moon guarding the house in the two preceding poems and closing the sequence.
Author: Oe no Masafusa
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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