Ama no gawa sora yuku tsuki wa hitotsu nite yadoranu mizu no ikade nakaran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

天の川空行く月は一つにて
宿らぬ水のいかでなからん

Roma-ji: Ama no gawa sora yuku tsuki wa hitotsu nite yadoranu mizu no ikade nakaran
English Translation: Crossing the heavens
by the River of the Sky,
the moon is but one,
yet where could there be water
that does not hold its light?
Meaning: The moon crossing the sky where the River of Heaven flows is only one, yet how could there be any water where its reflection does not dwell?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 982

Headnote: "Composed when I had many poems on the moon composed"
Like the preceding poem, this was composed when he had many moon poems composed. The moon crossing the sky is only one, yet how could there be water where its light does not dwell, he asks. With the conceit that a single moon casts its reflection on every water, he praises the all-embracing reach of moonlight. The idea of one moon dwelling in every water is also used as a figure for the Buddha's teaching.
The author, the "Lay Monk of Hosshōji, Former Chancellor," is Fujiwara no Tadamichi. A son of Fujiwara no Tadazane, he served as regent and chancellor through four reigns, of Toba, Sutoku, Konoe and Go-Shirakawa, and rose to chancellor. In his later years he took the tonsure and lived at Hosshōji. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
Where "the moon alone" in the preceding poem, 981, sings of the moon alone remaining over a ruined capital, "the moon is one" in this poem sings of that single moon dwelling in every water, so that loneliness and universality form a pair around the one moon.

First line, "Ama no gawa": the River of Heaven flowing across the night sky, expressing the sky the moon crosses.
Second line, "sora yuku tsuki wa": "the moon that crosses the sky."
Third line, "hitotsu nite": "is but one." It answers "tsuki hitori sumu" in the fifth line of the preceding poem, 981.
Fourth line, "yadoranu mizu no": "yadoru" means for the moon's image to be reflected in water, "water where it is not reflected."
Fifth line, "ikade nakaran": "ikade" is rhetorical and "n" the attributive of the conjectural "mu," "how could there be none? It dwells in every water."
Author: Fujiwara no Tadamichi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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