Shinonome ni naki koso watare hototogisu mono omou yado wa shiruku ya aruran - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

しののめに鳴きこそ渡れ時鳥
物思ふ宿はしるくやあるらん

Roma-ji: Shinonome ni naki koso watare hototogisu mono omou yado wa shiruku ya aruran
English Translation: At the break of day
it goes crying across the sky,
the little cuckoo;
is the house where one broods so
plain for it to see, I wonder?
Meaning: At daybreak the cuckoo goes crying across the sky; is a house where someone broods so plain for it to see?
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 821

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem says that at daybreak the cuckoo flies past crying, and asks whether a house where someone broods is plain to see. Feeling that the cuckoo crosses crying over one's own house, where one has spent a sleepless night, it wonders whether even the cuckoo sees through the house troubled by love.

First line, "shinonome ni," means "at daybreak."
Second line, "naki koso watare," means "it crosses crying," concluding in the perfective form "watare" in answer to "koso," with a caesura here.
Third line, "hototogisu," is the cuckoo, inverted to show the subject of the second line. It shares the cuckoo with the third line of the preceding poem, 820.
Fourth line, "mono omou yado wa," means "a house where someone broods."
Final line, "shiruku ya aruran," means "is it plain to see," concluding in the attributive form of the present conjectural "ran" in answer to "ya." Where the preceding poem makes the waiting heart one with the cuckoo's, this poem has the cuckoo see through the brooding heart, so the two form a pair.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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