Yo o kasane musubu kōri no shita ni sae kokoro fukaku mo yadoru tsuki kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

夜を重ね結ぶ氷の下にさへ
心深くも宿る月かな

Roma-ji: Yo o kasane musubu kōri no shita ni sae kokoro fukaku mo yadoru tsuki kana
English Translation: Night upon night
the ice binds ever thicker,
yet even beneath it,
deep within, how heartfelt is
the moon that dwells in the water
Meaning: Even beneath the ice that thickens night after night, the moon dwells deep and full of heart.
Commentary: Book Six Winter Poems 438

Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'The Winter Moon'"
Composed on the topic of the winter moon. Even beneath the ice that thickens night after night, the poet says, the moon dwells deep and full of heart. He takes the moonlight reaching the water's depths through the thick ice as the moon lodging there with a deep heart.
The author, "Taira no Saneshige," was a poet of the late Heian period, but little is known of his life.
From this poem to 443, poems on the moon and ice continue. Where this poem sings of the moon dwelling even beneath the ice, the next poem, 439, sings of a moon that has lost its dwelling because of the ice, and the two form a reversed pair.

First line, "yo o kasane": "night upon night," the ice thickening day by day.
Second line, "musubu kōri no": "musubu" is for ice to form. 440 of this book uses the same word in "kōri zo musubu."
Third line, "shita ni sae": "sae," "even," "even beneath the ice," a place hard to reach.
Fourth line, "kokoro fukaku mo": "with a deep heart," personifying the moon, and laying the depth of the water over the depth of feeling.
Fifth line, "yadoru tsuki kana": "yadoru" is for the moon to be reflected in water, and "kana" is exclamatory. It links by the same word to "yadorishi mizu" in the next poem, 439.
Author: Taira no Saneshige
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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