Nadote kaku omoisomeken hototogisu yuki no miyama no nori no sue ka wa - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

などてかく思ひ初めけん時鳥
雪の深山の法の末かは

Roma-ji: Nadote kaku omoisomeken hototogisu yuki no miyama no nori no sue ka wa
English Translation: Why did I begin
to love the cuckoo so?
Is its song the rest
of the Law once sought upon
the snowy mountains' heights?
Meaning: Why did I ever begin to love the cuckoo so? Its song is hardly the rest of the Buddhist verse once sought in the Snowy Mountains.
Commentary: Book Three Summer Poems 192

Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'Never Tired of the Cuckoo' at the quarters of the Holy Man Sensai at Ungoji"
Composed at the quarters of the Holy Man Sensai at Ungoji on the topic "Never Tired of the Cuckoo." Why, the poet asks, did he ever begin to love the cuckoo so much that he never tires of hearing it, when its song is hardly the remaining half of the Buddhist verse once sought in the Snowy Mountains? Drawing on the scripture tale of the Snowy Mountain Youth, who offered his body to hear the second half of a verse, he likens his insatiable attachment to the cuckoo's song to the longing for the Law. Fittingly for a gathering at a monk's quarters, it weaves in a Buddhist story.
The author, "Minamoto no Toshiyori Ason," was the son of Major Counselor Minamoto no Tsunenobu. A central poet of Emperor Horikawa's circle, he compiled the Kin'yō Wakashū at Retired Emperor Shirakawa's command and wrote the treatise Toshiyori Zuinō. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
The Snowy Mountain Youth is a former life of the Buddha who, as the Nirvana Sutra tells, heard the first half of a verse from a demon while practicing in the Snowy Mountains and offered his body to hear the rest.

First line, "nadote kaku": "why in this way," answering "ken" in the second line.
Second line, "omoisomeken": "somu" means to begin, and "ken" is the attributive of "kemu," surmising a past cause: "why did I begin to love it?" The poem pauses here.
Third line, "hototogisu": the object of his love.
Fourth line, "yuki no miyama no": the Snowy Mountains, the Himalayas, pointing to the tale of the Snowy Mountain Youth.
Fifth line, "nori no sue ka wa": "nori no sue" is the latter half of the verse of the Law, and "ka wa" is rhetorical: "it is hardly that." His unsated heart is likened to the youth who sought the verse's end. Like 149 and 166 of this book, which wait for a second call, it expresses a heart that one call cannot satisfy.
Author: Minamoto no Toshiyori
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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