Satsukiyami sayama no mine ni tomosu hi wa kumo no taema no hoshi ka to zo miru - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

五月闇さ山の峰にともす火は
雲の絶え間の星かとぞ見る

Roma-ji: Satsukiyami sayama no mine ni tomosu hi wa kumo no taema no hoshi ka to zo miru
English Translation: In the Fifth Month's dark,
the fires that the hunters light
upon the mountain peak
seem to me to be the stars
in a break between the clouds
Meaning: In the darkness of the Fifth Month, the fires lit for the hunt on the mountain peak look like stars glimpsed through a break in the clouds.
Commentary: Book Three Summer Poems 195

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on torch-hunting when presenting a hundred-poem sequence in the same reign"
Like the preceding poem, this was composed on "torch-hunting" for the Horikawa Hundred-Poem Sequence. On a moonless night of the Fifth Month, the hunters' fires on the mountain peak look like stars glimpsed through a break in the clouds. Likening a lone fire floating on the dark mountain to a star, and joining earthly fire with heavenly stars, the poem paints the night hunt in a dreamlike way.
The author, "Master of the Office of Palace Repairs Akisue," is Fujiwara no Akisue; a character in this text's title is a miswriting, and the title comes from his service as Master of the Office of Palace Repairs. The son of Fujiwara no Takatsune, he was a close retainer of Retired Emperor Shirakawa and rose to Senior Third Rank. He founded the Rokujō Fujiwara house.

First line, "satsukiyami": a moonless, dark night in the season of summer rains, the same opening as 193 of this book and the next poem, 196.
Second line, "sayama no mine ni": "sa" is a prefix: "on the mountain peak."
Third line, "tomosu hi wa": "the fires lit" for the torch-hunt.
Fourth line, "kumo no taema no": "of a break in the clouds." Where "kumo no harema" in 188 of this book revealed the moon, here a gap in the clouds frames imagined stars.
Fifth line, "hoshi ka to zo miru": "zo" closes with the attributive "miru," likening the hunting fires to stars.
Author: Fujiwara no Akisue
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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