Tsune yori mo aki no yūbe o aware to wa shika no ne nite ya omoisomeken - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

常よりも秋の夕べをあはれとは
鹿の音にてや思ひそめけん

Roma-ji: Tsune yori mo aki no yūbe o aware to wa shika no ne nite ya omoisomeken
English Translation: More than at other times
the evenings of autumn
as poignant to us,
was it the cry of the deer
that first made us feel them so?
Meaning: Was it the deer's cry that first made us feel autumn evenings more poignant than any other time?
Commentary: Book Five Autumn Poems II 322

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a poem on the deer"
Composed as a poem on the deer. Could it be, the poet asks, that people first came to feel autumn evenings more poignant than any other time because of the deer's voice? Seeking the origin of the pathos of autumn evenings in the deer's cry, the poem reads almost as an answer to the question posed in the preceding poem, 321.
The author, "Kamo no Masahira," came from a family of priests of the Kamo Shrine, but little is known of his life.
This is the sixth of a run of nine poems, 317 through 325, composed as "poems on the deer."

First line, "tsune yori mo": "more than at ordinary times."
Second line, "aki no yūbe o": naming what is felt, autumn evening as in "yūmagure" of the preceding poem, 321.
Third line, "aware to wa": "as poignant," giving the content of the feeling.
Fourth line, "shika no ne nite ya": "nite" marks cause or means, "through the deer's voice," and the interrogative "ya" closes with the attributive "ken" in the last line.
Fifth line, "omoisomeken": "omoisomu" is to begin to feel, and "ken" is the past conjecture "kemu," "did they first feel it through the deer?" As if answering the question of the preceding poem, 321, it asks after the origin of autumn's pathos.
Author: Kamo no Masahira
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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