Natsumushi o nani ka iikemu kokoro kara ware mo omoi ni moenu beranari - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

夏虫を何か言ひけむ心から
我もおもひに燃えぬべらなり

Roma-ji: Natsumushi o nani ka iikemu kokoro kara ware mo omoi ni moenu beranari
English Translation: The summer moths,
why was it that I mocked them?
Of my own accord,
I too, it seems, shall burn up
in the fire of my love.
Meaning: Why did I ever speak ill of the summer moths? Now of my own will I too seem about to burn up in the fire of love.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 600

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet says that he used to call foolish the summer moths that throw themselves into the flame, but why did he say so, when he too seems about to burn up, of his own will, in the fire of love? In his discovery that the moths' folly, which he had viewed as someone else's affair, is now something he knows firsthand, the irresistibility of love shows through.
Ōshikōchi no Mitsune was a poet of the early Heian period and one of the compilers of the Kokinshū. He held low provincial posts such as Junior Clerk of Kai and Senior Secretary of Izumi, but his poetic talent was highly regarded. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

First line, "natsumushi o": natsumushi are moths and other insects that gather at lamps and burn themselves. It uses the same image as 561 of this book, in which Tomonori sang of a love more bewildered than the moths, so the two echo within the book.
Second line, "nani ka iikemu": nani ka means why, and kemu conjectures the cause of a past act: "why did I call the moths foolish?" The poem breaks here.
Third line, "kokoro kara": of one's own heart, of one's own accord. Just as the moths enter the fire of their own will, he too throws himself into love.
Fourth line, "ware mo omoi ni": omoi puns on the hi of omoi, love, and hi, fire, overlaying the flame the moths enter with the feeling of love.
Fifth line, "moenu beranari": nu marks completion and beranari is a conjectural auxiliary, "I seem about to burn up." Moe, "burn," is an associated word of fire.
Author: Oshikochi no Mitsune
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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