Yū sareba ogura no yama ni fusu shika no koyoi wa nakazu ine ni kerashi mo

夕されば小倉の山に伏す鹿の
今夜は鳴かず寝ねにけらしも

Roma-ji: Yū sareba ogura no yama ni fusu shika no koyoi wa nakazu ine ni kerashi mo
English Translation: When evening falls,
on Ogura's mountain slope
the deer that lies there
tonight does not call at all—
it must have gone to its sleep.
Meaning: Every evening the deer that lies on Mount Ogura calls out, but tonight it is silent. It seems it has already fallen asleep.
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems 1664

Headnote: "A poem composed by the Sovereign Ōhatsuse Wakatakeru, who ruled the realm from the Asakura Palace at Hatsuse"
The poet notices that the deer which called for its mate on Mount Ogura every evening is silent tonight, and imagines that it has gone to sleep. From the hush of the night he pictures the deer lying beside its mate, making this a gentle poem full of tender feeling.
This miscellaneous poem opens Book Nine, and the headnote attributes it to the sovereign who ruled from the Asakura Palace at Hatsuse. A left note, however, records that another text assigns it to the Okamoto Sovereign, and that since neither attribution can be settled the poem is entered here again. Book Eight, poem 1511, contains an almost identical poem attributed to the Okamoto Sovereign, whose third line reads "the deer that calls."
The author, Emperor Yūryaku, was the twenty-first sovereign, named Ōhatsuse Wakatakeru. He ruled from the Asakura Palace at Hatsuse, near present-day Sakurai in Nara, and is remembered as a heroic ruler of ancient times. The Okamoto Sovereign of the left note is thought to be Emperor Jomei, who ruled from the Okamoto Palace.

The first line, "when evening falls," means "whenever evening comes." The verb saru expresses the arrival of a time, and the realis form followed by ba marks a condition that recurs every evening.
The second line, "on Ogura's mountain slope," names the mountain where the deer lives. Its location is uncertain, though one view places it near Sakurai in Nara.
The third line, "the deer that lies there," refers to the deer resting on the mountain through the night. Where poem 1511 of Book Eight has "the deer that calls," this version turns our eyes to the place where the deer lies down.
The fourth line, "tonight does not call at all," states that the voice heard every evening is absent tonight alone, and the poem pauses here. The particle wa sets tonight apart from all other nights.
The final line, "it must have gone to its sleep," joins the verb inu with the perfective ni, the grounded conjecture kerashi, and the exclamatory mo. From the silence the poet infers that the deer lies with its mate. The last poem of this book, 1811, closes with the same pattern, "yori ni kerashi mo," so that the opening and closing poems of Book Nine answer each other with the same conjecture.
Author: Emperor Yūryaku
Source: Manyoshu
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