Koto naraba yami ni zo aramashi aki no yo no nazo tsukikage no hitodanome naru - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ことならば闇にぞあらまし秋の夜の
なぞ月影の人頼めなる

Roma-ji: Koto naraba yami ni zo aramashi aki no yo no nazo tsukikage no hitodanome naru
English Translation: If all is the same,
would that it had been dark night;
why, on autumn nights,
does the bright light of the moon
only raise my hopes in vain?
Meaning: Since it is all the same, I wish it had been a dark night; why does the moonlight of an autumn night only raise my hopes?
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 796

Headnote: "Waiting for someone on a night of bright moonlight"
The poem says that if the beloved will not come anyway, it would have been better to have a dark night, and asks why the moonlight of an autumn night raises one's hopes. The headnote shows it was composed while waiting for someone on a bright moonlit night. A bright moonlit night suggests a lover's visit, and the pain of the night deepening without one is sung as resentment toward the moon.
The author, "Hitomaro," is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, a court poet of the Asuka period revered as the sage of poetry and the foremost poet of the Man'yōshū, and one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets. Many Man'yōshū poems are included in the Shūishū under Hitomaro's name.

First line, "koto naraba," means "if it were all the same," that is, "since things are so."
Second line, "yami ni zo aramashi," means "it would have been better dark," concluding in the attributive form of the counterfactual "mashi" in answer to "zo," with a caesura here.
Third line, "aki no yo no," means "of an autumn night." It is the same line as the first lines of 785 and 786.
Fourth line, "nazo tsukikage no," means "why does the moonlight," with "nazo" interrogative. It is the closing poem of the moon sequence.
Final line, "hitodanome naru," means "raise one's hopes," concluding in the attributive form in answer to "nazo." It shares with the first line of the closing poem, 848, "tanometsutsu," the heart that waits for a lover who raises hopes and does not come.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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