Morotomo ni nakite todomeyo kirigirisu aki no wakare wa oshiku ya wa aranu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

もろともに鳴きてとどめよきりぎりす
秋の別れは惜しくやはあらぬ

Roma-ji: Morotomo ni nakite todomeyo kirigirisu aki no wakare wa oshiku ya wa aranu
English Translation: Cry along with us
and hold him back,
O cricket!
Is not this autumn parting
something you too regret?
Meaning: Cry together with us, cricket, and keep him from leaving! Is not this parting at autumn's end something you too must grieve?
Commentary: Book Eight Parting Poems 385

Headnote: "Composed on the occasion when the courtiers were granted wine as Fujiwara no Nochikage was leaving near the end of the Ninth Month as envoy for Chinese goods"
This poem was composed at a farewell gathering where the courtiers were granted wine as Fujiwara no Nochikage set out at the end of the Ninth Month as envoy for Chinese goods. Calling on the cricket, which cries in grief for the passing autumn, to cry along with them and hold the traveler back, it overlays the end of autumn with the parting from a friend.
The author, "Fujiwara no Kanemochi," was a son of Fujiwara no Toshimoto, Middle Captain of the Right Inner Palace Guards, and elder brother of Fujiwara no Kanesuke; he rose to the rank of Consultant.
In the source text, the word for "autumn" does not appear, reading instead "cricket's parting," which does not match the reading line, "kirigirisu, aki no wakare wa." As the fourth line cannot stand as written, "autumn" is supplied here following the reading line.

The first line, "along with us," invites the cricket to join the people gathered at the banquet.
The second line, "cry and hold him back," calls out with the imperative todomeyo, and the poem breaks after this line. Where the preceding poem hears the cuckoo's call as grief for the parting, this one asks the cricket to cry along, pairing a summer bird with an autumn insect.
The third line, "O cricket," is the one addressed, the autumn insect kirigirisu, which corresponds to the modern kōrogi.
The fourth line, "this autumn parting," refers, given the season at the end of the Ninth Month, both to parting from autumn and to parting from a person.
The last line, "is it not regrettable?" uses the rhetorical yawa to plead strongly: how could it not be regrettable? It must be.
Author: Fujiwara no Kanemochi
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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