Konokure no yūyami naru ni hototogisu izuku o ie to nakiwataruramu

木の暗の夕闇なるに霍公鳥
いづくを家と鳴き渡るらむ

Roma-ji: Konokure no yūyami naru ni hototogisu izuku o ie to nakiwataruramu
English Translation: Under the dark trees
in the gloom of evening falls—
hototogisu,
taking where to be your home
do you cross the sky, singing?
Meaning: Though it is the gloom of evening beneath the dark trees, where does the hototogisu take as its home, as it flies across singing?
Commentary: Book Ten Summer Miscellaneous Poems 1948

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On Birds"
This poem wonders where the hototogisu, singing as it crosses through the evening gloom under dense trees, will make its home. The image of a bird crying through the dark as if with nowhere to go is overlaid with the heart of travel and the loneliness of having no place to rest. The kundoku carries a variant for the second line, "nareba," reading it as "because it is the gloom of evening." It shares something with 1941, the calling bird with no lodging.

The first line, "konokure no," the gloom under thick trees, is a word also seen in 1875 in the spring section.
In the second line, "yūyami naru ni," "ni" is adversative: though it is evening dark.
The third line, "hototogisu," is the subject.
The fourth line, "izuku o ie to," taking where as home, wonders where the bird will return.
In the last line, "nakiwataruramu," "ramu" is present conjecture, closing by imagining where the bird crying through the dark is bound.
Source: Manyoshu
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