Matade kiku hito ni towaba ya hototogisu satemo hatsune ya ureshikaruran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

待たで聞く人に問はばや時鳥
さても初音やうれしかるらん

Roma-ji: Matade kiku hito ni towaba ya hototogisu satemo hatsune ya ureshikaruran
English Translation: I would like to ask
someone who heard without waiting:
O cuckoo,
even so, would your first song
bring that person such delight?
Meaning: I would like to ask someone who heard it without waiting: is the cuckoo's first song a joy even so?
Commentary: Book Three Summer Poems 154

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet would like to ask someone who happened to hear the cuckoo without having waited for it whether its first song is a joy even so. Speaking as one who knows the delight of a first song long awaited, and guessing at the heart of one who did not wait, the poem paradoxically shows how waiting deepens the joy of the first song.
The author, "Priest Kakusei," is a monk of whom little is known.

First line, "matade kiku": the negative conjunctive "de" gives "hearing without waiting." Where the preceding poems spoke of waiting, this one considers one who did not wait.
Second line, "hito ni towaba ya": "ba ya" expresses a wish: "I would like to ask that person." The poem pauses here.
Third line, "hototogisu": the singer of the "first song" in the fourth line.
Fourth line, "satemo hatsune ya": "satemo" means "even so," and the interrogative "ya" links with "ran" in the last line.
Fifth line, "ureshikaruran": "ran" is the attributive of present conjecture, closing the construction with "ya."
Author: Kakusei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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