Hisakata no tsuki yue ni ya wa koisomeshi nagamureba mazu nururu sode kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

久方の月ゆゑにやは恋ひ初めし
眺むればまづ濡るる袖かな

Roma-ji: Hisakata no tsuki yue ni ya wa koisomeshi nagamureba mazu nururu sode kana
English Translation: Was it for the sake
of the moon in the far heavens
that I first fell in love?
Yet whenever I gaze on it,
first of all my sleeves are wet
Meaning: Was it because of the moon that I first fell in love? Surely not; and yet whenever I gaze upon it, it is my sleeves that are wet with tears before all else.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 930

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the topic 'love before the moon'"
Composed on the same topic as the preceding poem, "love before the moon." Was it for the moon's sake that I began to love, he asks? Surely not, yet when I gaze, my sleeves are the first to be wet. Love's beginning should have nothing to do with the moon, yet each time he gazes at it his sleeves are soaked with tears before anything else, expressing a heart whose longing grows at the sight of the moon.
The author, "the monk Jakuchō," was the son of Fujiwara no Tametada, Governor of Tango. His lay name was Tametsune, and with his elder brother Jakunen and younger brother Jakuzen he lived in retreat at Ōhara, the three being called the Three Jaku of Ōhara. He was the father of the poet and painter Fujiwara no Takanobu.
This is the second poem in the sequence. Where the preceding poem, 929, asked the moon whether it was the cause of his brooding, this one asks the moon whether it caused love to begin; both use the rhetorical "ya wa," and the "tears" of the preceding poem are taken up here as "wet sleeves."

First line, "hisakata no": a pillow word attached to "moon," "heaven," "light" and the like, here to "tsuki" in the second line.
Second line, "tsuki yue ni ya wa": "yue" means cause or reason, "because of the moon." "Ya wa" is a rhetorical binding particle that closes with the attributive "shi" in the third line. It shares the rhetorical form with "tsuki ya wa mono o" in the second line of the preceding poem, 929.
Third line, "koisomeshi": "some" is the continuative of "somu," "to begin," and "shi" the attributive of the past "ki," "did I begin to love? surely not." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "nagamureba mazu": "nagamu" means to gaze while lost in thought, and the perfective with "ba" gives "whenever I gaze." "Mazu" means "first of all."
Fifth line, "nururu sode kana": "my sleeves wet with tears," with the exclamatory "kana." It answers "waga namida kana" in the last line of the preceding poem.
Author: Jakuchō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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