Saoshika no tsumadou toki ni tsuki o yomi kari ga ne kikoyu ima shi kurashi mo

さを鹿の妻どふ時に月をよみ
雁が音聞こゆ今し来らしも

Roma-ji: Saoshika no tsumadou toki ni tsuki o yomi kari ga ne kikoyu ima shi kurashi mo
English Translation: When the stag goes forth
seeking out his mate to woo,
since the moon is fair,
I can hear the wild geese cry—
they have come just now, it seems.
Meaning: In the season when the stag calls for his mate, the moon is so fine that I hear the cry of the wild geese—they seem to have just arrived.
Commentary: Book Ten Autumn Miscellaneous Poems 2131

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On Wild Geese"
This poem infers that the geese have just arrived, hearing their cry on a beautiful moonlit night in the season when the stag seeks his mate. The stag's courting, the moon, and the geese, emblems of autumn, overlap to richly paint the mood of an autumn night. Against the departing geese of the preceding poems, this one sings of arriving geese, contrasting geese that come and geese that go.

The first line, "of the stag," names the deer.
The second line, "when he courts his mate," marks the deer's mating season in autumn.
In the third line, "tsuki o yomi," "mi" marks cause: because the moon is fine.
The fourth line, "the cry of geese is heard," breaks the poem after the fourth line.
In the last line, "ima shi kurashi mo," "shi" is emphatic, "rashi" marks grounded inference, and "mo" is exclamatory, closing by inferring the geese's arrival.
Source: Manyoshu
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