Sayo fukete kinuta no oto zo tayumu naru tsuki o mitsutsu ya koromo utsuran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

さ夜更けて砧の音ぞたゆむなる
月を見つつや衣打つらん

Roma-ji: Sayo fukete kinuta no oto zo tayumu naru tsuki o mitsutsu ya koromo utsuran
English Translation: As the night grows late
the sound of the fulling block
falters, I can hear:
gazing at the moon, I wonder,
does she beat the cloth?
Meaning: As the night grows late, the sound of the fulling block falters. Is she beating the cloth while gazing at the moon?
Commentary: Book Five Autumn Poems II 338

Headnote: "On the topic 'Fulling Cloth Before the Moon'"
Composed on the topic "Fulling Cloth Before the Moon." As the night grows late and the sound of the fulling block falters, the poet wonders whether the one beating the cloth is gazing at the moon while working. From the breaks in the sound he imagines the unseen worker lost in the moon, binding the topic's "moon" and "fulling" into one.
The author, "Ninnaji Go-Nyūdō Hosshinnō (Kakushō)," was a son of Emperor Toba. He became the fifth abbot of Ninnaji and was called the Shikondaiji Omuro.
Fulling cloth on a block appears in Chinese verse such as Li Bai's "Midnight Songs of Wu," where it is sung as the work of a wife thinking of a husband far away. From this poem through 342, poems on fulling cloth follow.

First line, "sayo fukete": "sa" is a prefix, and "sayo" is night, "as the night grows late," setting the time.
Second line, "kinuta no oto zo": "kinuta" is the beating of cloth laid on a block with a mallet to soften it and give it luster. "Zo" closes with the attributive "naru" in the third line.
Third line, "tayumu naru": "tayumu" is to falter or grow intermittent, and "naru" infers from sound. The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "tsuki o mitsutsu ya": "tsutsu" marks repetition or continuance, and the interrogative "ya" closes with the attributive "ran" in the last line. "While gazing at the moon" gives the topic's "before the moon."
Fifth line, "koromo utsuran": "ran" is the present conjecture "ramu," "can she be fulling cloth?", guessing at the unseen worker. The second line of the next poem, 339, "imo ga utsuran," likewise guesses at the unseen worker.
Author: Prince-Priest Kakushō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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