Kaeritsuru nagori no sora o nagamureba nagusamegataki ariake no tsuki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

帰りつる名残の空を眺むれば
慰めがたき有明の月

Roma-ji: Kaeritsuru nagori no sora o nagamureba nagusamegataki ariake no tsuki
English Translation: Having come back home,
when I gaze upon the sky
that holds what lingers,
there, beyond all consoling,
the moon of dawn remains
Meaning: Having come home, when I gaze at the sky still full of our parting, there remains the moon of dawn, and nothing can console me.
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 838

Headnote: "Composed as a poem on love the morning after when, as Minister of the Right, I had others compose hundred-poem sequences"
Composed on the topic "love the morning after" when Kanezane, as Minister of the Right, had others compose hundred-poem sequences. As I gaze at the sky that holds the lingering trace of my return, he says, there is the moon of dawn that nothing can console. Returning from his beloved and gazing at the sky in the direction where they parted, he sees the moon of dawn still in the morning sky, which only deepens the pain of parting and leaves his heart beyond comfort, conveying the lingering regret of the morning after. It draws on the tradition, since the anonymous Kokinshū poem "My heart could find no comfort, seeing the moon shine on Mount Obasute in Sarashina," of the moon as something that leaves the heart unconsoled.
The author, "Regent and Former Minister of the Right," is Fujiwara no Kanezane. The son of Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadamichi, he rose through Minister of the Right to Regent and later became Chancellor. He founded the Kujō house and left the diary Gyokuyō.
This poem and the next, 839, are morning-after poems from the same hundred-poem sequences, and both place "ariake," dawn, in their last line. Poem 806 of this book also sings of a heart that left before the moon of dawn, so that the dawn moon of the morning after appears again and again in the latter half of the book.

First line, "kaeritsuru": "tsuru" is the attributive of the perfective "tsu," "having returned" from the beloved, giving the "morning after" of the topic.
Second line, "nagori no sora o": "nagori" is the feeling that lingers after parting, "the sky toward where we parted, full of lingering regret."
Third line, "nagamureba": "nagamu" is to gaze lost in thought, and "ba" gives a fixed condition, "as I gaze."
Fourth line, "nagusamegataki": "that cannot be consoled," drawing on the Kokinshū "my heart could find no comfort."
Fifth line, "ariake no tsuki": the poem ends on a noun, the moon still in the sky after daybreak. Like the third line of 806 of this book and the last line of the next poem, 839, it sings of the dawn.
Author: Fujiwara no Kanezane
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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