Haru makete monoganashiki ni sayo fukete habuki naku shigi ta ga ta ni ka sumu

春まけてもの悲しきにさ夜更けて
羽振き鳴く鴫誰が田にか住む

Roma-ji: Haru makete monoganashiki ni sayo fukete habuki naku shigi ta ga ta ni ka sumu
English Translation: Spring having arrived,
though a vague sadness lingers,
as the night grows late,
snipe beat their wings and cry out—
in whose paddy do they dwell?
Meaning: Spring has come and a nameless sadness fills me; and now, deep in the night, the snipe cry out as they beat their wings—whose rice fields can they be living in?
Commentary: Book Nineteen 4141

Headnote: "A poem composed on seeing snipe wheeling in flight"
Amid the vague melancholy that wells up with the coming of spring, the poet hears snipe beating their wings and crying late at night, and wonders whose paddies they live in. Though the headnote says "on seeing," the poem conveys the sound of wings and cries in the darkness, drawing the loneliness of a spring night through hearing.
This sense of laying sorrow upon the things of spring connects with the poems of spring melancholy at the end of the book (4290 to 4292); Yakamochi's springtime gloom that runs through Book Nineteen already appears here.
The poet, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was the son of the Grand Counselor Ōtomo no Tabito. From 746 he served as Governor of Etchū, living at the provincial headquarters in what is now Fushiki, Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture. He is regarded as the leading poet of the Nara period and is thought to have played a central role in compiling the Man'yōshū.

First line, "haru makete" (spring having come): "maku" means to await a season or for it to arrive, marking the coming of spring.
Second line, "monoganashiki ni" (though vaguely sad): the sadness has no clear cause, and the particle "ni" links onward with a sense of "even though."
Third line, "sayo fukete" (the night growing late): the prefix "sa" smooths the rhythm, and the poem moves into deep night, layering the day's gloom onto a nocturnal scene.
Fourth line, "habuki naku shigi" (snipe crying as they beat their wings), captures the figure and sound of the birds and corresponds to "wheeling in flight" in the headnote.
Fifth line, "ta ga ta ni ka sumu" (whose paddy do they live in?), uses "ka" with the attributive "sumu" in a kakari-musubi construction; the question about the birds' whereabouts echoes the poet's own sense of having nowhere to belong.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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