Taga sato no haru no tayori ni uguisu no kasumi ni tozuru yado o tōran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

誰が里の春のたよりに鶯の
霞に閉づる宿を訪ふらん

Roma-ji: Taga sato no haru no tayori ni uguisu no kasumi ni tozuru yado o tōran
English Translation: On a spring errand
to whose village, I wonder,
does the warbler come
to call upon this dwelling
shut away behind the haze?
Meaning: On its way in spring to whose village, I wonder, does the warbler come to call at this house shut away in the haze?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 962

Headnote: "Sent when a man who had complained around the twelfth month that he had gone home without managing to knock at my gate asked, after the year turned, whether the gate was open now"
A man had complained around the twelfth month that he had gone home without managing to knock at her gate, and when the new year came he asked whether the gate was open yet; this poem was her reply. On a spring visit to whose village, I wonder, does the warbler call at this house shut in by haze, she asks. Likening the man to the spring warbler and her house to a dwelling shut in by haze, she retorts with irony that he will drop by on his way to some other woman. To his question whether the gate is open, she answers that it is shut by the spring haze, a poem of ready wit.
The author, "Murasaki Shikibu of Jōtōmon'in's Household," was the daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki. She married Fujiwara no Nobutaka and bore Daini no Sanmi, and after her husband's death served Jōtōmon'in Shōshi. She is known as the author of The Tale of Genji and The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu, and a poem of hers is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
Following the preceding poem, 961, by Sei Shōnagon, who served Teishi, this poem is by Murasaki Shikibu, who served Shōshi, so that poems by ladies-in-waiting of the two consorts stand side by side.

First line, "taga sato no": "of whose village," a veiled reference to the house of another woman the man visits.
Second line, "haru no tayori ni": "tayori" means occasion or chance, "on the occasion of spring's coming."
Third line, "uguisu no": the bird that announces spring, here standing for the visiting man.
Fourth line, "kasumi ni tozuru": "shut in by the spring haze." To the man's "is the gate open now?" she answers that it is still shut.
Fifth line, "yado o tōran": "tou" means to visit, and "ran" conjectures a cause, "why should it come to call at this house?"
Author: Murasaki Shikibu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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