Hitokoe mo kimi ni tsugenan hototogisu kono samidare wa yami ni madou to - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

一声も君に告げなん郭公
この五月雨は闇にまどふと

Roma-ji: Hitokoe mo kimi ni tsugenan hototogisu kono samidare wa yami ni madou to
English Translation: Just a single call,
carry word of me to him,
O cuckoo:
that in these rains of early summer
I wander lost in darkness
Meaning: Cuckoo, with even one call tell him who is gone that in these early-summer rains I wander lost in the darkness of a parent's heart.
Commentary: Book Nine Poems of Lament 555

Headnote: "Composed by Her Majesty when a cuckoo sang in the year Retired Emperor Go-Ichijō passed away"
Composed by Jōtōmon'in on hearing a cuckoo sing in the year her son, Retired Emperor Go-Ichijō, died. Cuckoo, tell him with even one call, she says, that in these early-summer rains I am lost in darkness. Since the cuckoo was believed to travel to and from the world of the dead, she entrusts it with a message to her dead son. Emperor Go-Ichijō died in the Fourth Month of 1036.
The author, "Jōtōmon'in," is Fujiwara no Shōshi. The daughter of Regent Fujiwara no Michinaga, she became consort of Emperor Ichijō and mother of Emperors Go-Ichijō and Go-Suzaku. Murasaki Shikibu, Izumi Shikibu and Akazome Emon served her.
"Yami ni madou" draws on a Gosen Wakashū poem by Fujiwara no Kanesuke saying that a parent's heart is not darkness, yet it loses its way on the road of love for a child; here it is the darkness in the heart of a mother who has lost her son. The cuckoo also appears in 582 and 588 of this book.

First line, "hitokoe mo": "with even a single call."
Second line, "kimi ni tsugenan": "kimi" is the late Emperor Go-Ichijō. "Nan" is a particle of wish directed at another, "please tell him."
Third line, "hototogisu": an address, and the poem pauses here. The cuckoo was believed to go between this world and the next and to sing as it crossed the mountain of death.
Fourth line, "kono samidare wa": "in this season of early-summer rains," overlaying the endless rain with unceasing tears.
Fifth line, "yami ni madou to": the "darkness" is that of a parent's heart lost in love for a child, drawing on Fujiwara no Kanesuke's poem. The quotative "to" returns by inversion to "tsugenan" in the second line.
Author: Fujiwara no Shōshi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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