Saoshika no naku ne wa nobe ni kikoyuredo namida wa toko no mono ni zo arikeru - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

さを鹿の鳴く音は野辺に聞こゆれど
涙は床のものにぞありける

Roma-ji: Saoshika no naku ne wa nobe ni kikoyuredo namida wa toko no mono ni zo arikeru
English Translation: The stag's crying voice
is heard out on the moor,
far away from me,
yet the tears, I came to know,
are things that fall on my bed
Meaning: The stag's cry is heard out in the fields, yet the tears, I find, belong to my own bed.
Commentary: Book Five Autumn Poems II 310

Headnote: "Composed on hearing a deer cry at a mountain village in Tanakami"
Composed on hearing a deer cry at a mountain village in Tanakami. The stag's cry is heard far off in the fields, the poet says, yet the tears fall not there but on the bed of the one who listens. Contrasting the fields where the voice rises with the bed where the tears fall, he presents his own weeping, drawn out by the deer's voice, as a slightly surprising discovery.
The author, "Minamoto no Toshiyori Ason," was the son of Major Counselor Minamoto no Tsunenobu. The central poet of Emperor Horikawa's poetry circle, he compiled the Kin'yō Wakashū at the command of Retired Emperor Shirakawa and wrote the treatise Toshiyori Zuinō. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
Tanakami is a place in Ōmi province with which Toshiyori had ties.

First line, "saoshika no": "sa" is a prefix, and "saoshika" means a stag.
Second line, "naku ne wa nobe ni": "nobe" is the area of the fields, the distant place where the voice is heard.
Third line, "kikoyuredo": the concessive "do," "though it is heard," leads to the surprising turn of the lower verse.
Fourth line, "namida wa toko no": "toko" is a bed, set against the fields. The contrast, the voice in the fields and the tears in the bed, is the heart of the poem.
Fifth line, "mono ni zo arikeru": "zo" closes with the attributive "keru." "Keri" expresses realization, "the tears belonged to my bed after all."
Author: Minamoto no Toshiyori
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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