Omou koto naki mi nariseba hototogisu yume ni kiku yo mo aramashi mono o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ふことなき身なりせば時鳥
夢に聞く夜もあらましものを

Roma-ji: Omou koto naki mi nariseba hototogisu yume ni kiku yo mo aramashi mono o
English Translation: If I were someone
with no sorrows on my mind,
there might be nights
when I heard the cuckoo's song
only in my dreams
Meaning: If I were someone with no cares on my mind, there might be nights when I heard the cuckoo only in my dreams.
Commentary: Book Three Summer Poems 160

Headnote: "Composed as a poem on the cuckoo when, as Minister of the Right, I had hundred-poem sequences composed at my house"
Composed on "the cuckoo" when Kanezane, then Minister of the Right, had people compose hundred-poem sequences at his residence. Were he free of cares, he would sleep soundly and might hear the cuckoo only in his dreams; but his worries keep him awake, and he always hears it with open eyes. Amid many poems on nights kept awake by waiting for the cuckoo, this one finds the cause of sleeplessness in cares of the heart and expresses that sorrow through the wish to hear it in a dream.
The author, "Regent and Former Minister of the Right," is Kujō Kanezane, son of Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi, who rose through Minister of the Right to Regent. He was Regent at the time the Senzai Wakashū was compiled and left the diary Gyokuyō.

First line, "omou koto": cares weighing on the heart.
Second line, "naki mi nariseba": "se" is the irrealis of the past auxiliary "ki," forming with "ba" a counterfactual condition: "if I were one without them."
Third line, "hototogisu": the object of "kiku" in the fourth line.
Fourth line, "yume ni kiku yo mo": "nights when I hear it in a dream." Where 148 and 149 of this book spoke of nights kept awake waiting for the cuckoo, this poem tells of nights kept awake by cares.
Fifth line, "aramashi mono o": "mashi" is counterfactual, answering "seba" in the second line, and "mono o" carries regret: "there would have been such nights."
Author: Kujō Kanezane
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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