Ōaraki no mori no shitakusa shigeriaite fukaku mo natsu no narinikeru kana - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

大荒木の森の下草茂りあひて
深くも夏のなりにけるかな

Roma-ji: Ōaraki no mori no shitakusa shigeriaite fukaku mo natsu no narinikeru kana
English Translation: In Ōaraki's
forest the undergrowth
has grown thick and dense;
so deeply now the summer
has advanced upon us here.
Meaning: The undergrowth of the Ōaraki forest has grown thick and tangled, and summer has deepened completely.
Commentary: Book Two Summer Poems 136

Headnote: "When a folding screen was prepared by the palace and bestowed for the fortieth-year celebration of Sadakuni, Commander of the Right"
Seeing the undergrowth of the Ōaraki forest grown thick and tangled, the poet feels that summer has fully deepened. Overlaying the depth of the growth with the deepening of summer, the poem captures the season's progress in a forest scene. According to the headnote, it was composed when the palace prepared and bestowed a folding screen for the fortieth-year celebration of Fujiwara no Sadakuni, Commander of the Right.
The author, written as Tadamine, is Mibu no Tadamine. One of the compilers of the Kokinshū, he is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets and was the father of Mibu no Tadami.
The poem recasts as summer's lush growth the undergrowth of the Ōaraki forest sung of in the Kokinshū poem, "Ōaraki no mori no shitakusa oinureba koma mo susamezu karu hito mo nashi."

First line, "Ōaraki no," names the forest of Ōaraki, a poetic place in Yamashiro Province, and has an extra syllable.
Second line, "mori no shitakusa," refers to the grass growing beneath the trees of the forest. The undergrowth sung of in the Kokinshū as a symbol of old age is sung of here as the lush growth of high summer.
Third line, "shigeriaite," means "growing thick together," and has an extra syllable. Taking up the dense summer mountains of 129 and 130 of this book, it shows the deepening of summer through the growth of grass and trees.
Fourth line, "fukaku mo natsu no," overlays the deep growth of grass with the deepening of summer. Like Fukakusayama in 123 of this book, whose name evokes deep grass, it links the growth of grass with depth.
Final line, "narinikeru kana," means "it has become so," with "nikeru" combining the perfective "nu" and the exclamatory "keri." Whereas poem 79 at the head of the book sang of summer's beginning through a robe as thin as a cicada's wings, this poem sings of summer's depth through thick undergrowth, so that the head and the end of the book answer each other as summer's beginning and close.
Author: Mibu no Tadamine
Source: Shui Wakashu
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