Tamadare no osu no ma tōshi hitori ite miru shirushi naki yūzukuyo kamo

玉垂の小簾の間通しひとり居て
見る験なき夕月夜かも

Roma-ji: Tamadare no osu no ma tōshi hitori ite miru shirushi naki yūzukuyo kamo
English Translation: Through the jeweled blinds,
through the gaps in the fine screen,
sitting all alone,
there is no joy in watching
this moon of the early night
Meaning: Sitting alone and gazing out through the gaps in the jeweled blinds, I find no joy in watching this early evening moon.
Commentary: Book Seven Miscellaneous Poems 1073

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On the Moon"
This poem laments that even a lovely early evening moon is not worth watching when seen alone through a bamboo blind. The beauty of the moon only sharpens the loneliness of having no one to share it with.
Although it is a poem on the moon, some read it as spoken by a woman waiting for her lover, because of the image of watching the moon from inside through a blind. The poet is unknown.

The first line, "Through the jeweled blinds," uses "tamadare," meaning beads strung and hung down, as a pillow word for "osu" (blind).
The second line, "through the gaps in the fine screen," shows the speaker gazing at the moon outside from within the room.
The third line, "sitting all alone," reveals the cause of the poem's sorrow.
In the fourth line, "there is no joy in watching," "shirushi" means result or worth; watching alone brings no reward.
The final line closes with "yūzukuyo," a moon that appears in the evening or an evening with the moon out, followed by the exclamatory "kamo."
Source: Manyoshu
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