Osoku izuru tsuki ni mo aru kana ashihiki no yama no anata mo oshimu beranari - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

遅く出づる月にもあるかなあしひきの
山のあなたも惜しむべらなり

Roma-ji: Osoku izuru tsuki ni mo aru kana ashihiki no yama no anata mo oshimu beranari
English Translation: How late it rises,
this moon of ours tonight!
Beyond the foot-dragging
mountains, it would seem,
they too are loath to let it go.
Meaning: How late the moon is in rising! It seems that on the far side of the mountains, too, people are reluctant to let it go.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 877

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Weary of waiting for the slow-rising moon, the poet imagines that people beyond the mountains are loath to let it go. The notion that the moon rises late because it is loved over there too reveals a deep attachment to the moon. The author is unknown.
From this poem through 885, poems on the moon continue. As a poem of waiting for moonrise, it suits the start of the sequence.

First line "osoku izuru" shows how late the moon rises.
Second line "tsuki ni mo aru kana" closes with the exclamatory kana, and the poem pauses here.
Third line "ashihiki no" is a pillow word for "mountain."
Fourth line "yama no anata mo" means people beyond the mountains too, imagining others there who cherish the moon. It echoes "anata omote," the far face, in poem 883 of this book, in thinking of the other side of the mountains.
Fifth line "oshimu beranari": beranari is an early Heian word of conjecture, meaning "they seem to cherish it."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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