Yoi no ma mo hakanaku miyuru natsumushi ni mayoi masareru koi mo suru kana - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

宵の間もはかなく見ゆる夏虫に
迷ひまされる恋もするかな

Roma-ji: Yoi no ma mo hakanaku miyuru natsumushi ni mayoi masareru koi mo suru kana
English Translation: Even in the brief
hours of evening they seem
so frail, summer moths;
yet more than theirs is my love,
lost and wandering in the dark.
Meaning: Even more than the summer moths, which seem so fragile they do not last the evening, I am lost and bewildered in the love I now feel.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 561

Headnote: "A poem from the poetry contest held at the residence of the Empress in the Kanpyō era"
Citing the frailty of summer moths that dive into the lamp flame and die before the evening is out, the poet says he is in a love that bewilders him even more. In the moths that throw themselves into fire he sees himself, losing all judgment and burning with love. It was composed for the Kanpyō-era Empress's poetry contest and is placed within the run of poems from that contest. Together with the firefly poem that follows, two poems on summer insects stand side by side.
Ki no Tomonori was a poet of the early Heian period, the son of Ki no Aritomo and a cousin of Ki no Tsurayuki. He served as Senior Private Secretary and was appointed one of the compilers of the Kokinshū, but died before its completion. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

First line, "yoi no ma mo": yoi no ma is the first part of the night soon after dark. Mo means "even in that brief time," showing how short the moth's life is.
Second line, "hakanaku miyuru": "seeming to perish so frailly," modifying "summer moths" in the third line.
Third line, "natsumushi ni": natsumushi are moths and other insects that gather at lamps and burn themselves. Ni marks the standard of comparison, "more than the summer moths." In 600 of this book, summer insects are also invoked for the fire of love, so the same image echoes within the book.
Fourth line, "mayoi masareru": the poet's bewilderment surpasses that of the moths straying into the flame. Ru is the attributive of the continuative auxiliary ri.
Fifth line, "koi mo suru kana": kana is an exclamatory particle. Poems 565 and 579 of this book close with the same final line, "koi mo suru kana," so poems of the same pattern recur with different images.
Author: Ki no Tomonori
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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