Honoka ni zo nakiwataru naru hototogisu miyama o izuru kesa no hatsukoe - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ほのかにぞ鳴き渡るなる郭公
み山を出づる今朝の初声

Roma-ji: Honoka ni zo nakiwataru naru hototogisu miyama o izuru kesa no hatsukoe
English Translation: Faintly I can hear
it singing as it crosses,
the cuckoo,
coming out of the deep hills,
its first song this very morning.
Meaning: Faintly, it seems to sing as it crosses the sky, the cuckoo's first song this morning as it comes out of the deep mountains.
Commentary: Book Two Summer Poems 100

Headnote: "For a poetry contest in the reign of Tenryaku"
The poet catches the faint first song of the cuckoo, which has come out of the deep mountains and crosses the sky singing this morning. In the faintness of a song not yet clearly heard, the poem captures the freshness of the long-awaited bird's arrival. According to the headnote, it was submitted to a poetry contest held in the Tenryaku era of Emperor Murakami.
Sakanoue no Mochiki was a poet of the mid-Heian period and the son of Sakanoue no Korenori. As one of the Five Men of the Pear Chamber, he took part in compiling the Gosenshū and in reading the Man'yōshū.

First line, "honoka ni zo," means "faintly," with the emphatic particle "zo," which is resolved by "naru" in the second line. The original text writes it with the characters 髣髴.
Second line, "nakiwataru naru," means "it seems to be crossing as it sings," with "naru," the attributive of the auxiliary "nari," which infers from sound. It shows that only the voice is heard while the bird is unseen, and the poem pauses here.
Third line, "hototogisu," is the cuckoo come down from the mountains.
Fourth line, "miyama o izuru," means "coming out of the deep mountains." The next poem, 101, also sings "miyama idete," continuing the scene of the cuckoo leaving the mountains, and 102 of this book also sings of a cuckoo leaving the hillsides singing.
Final line, "kesa no hatsukoe," ends on a noun. The first song that the poet waited for in 96 of this book, even waking in the night, is at last heard here this morning.
Author: Sakanoue no Mochiki
Source: Shui Wakashu
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