Shirakumo ni magai ya semashi Yoshinoyama ochikuru taki no oto sezariseba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

白雲にまがひやせまし吉野山
落ち来る滝の音せざりせば

Roma-ji: Shirakumo ni magai ya semashi Yoshinoyama ochikuru taki no oto sezariseba
English Translation: Would I mistake it
for a cloud of drifting white
on Yoshino's peak,
if the waterfall that drops
made no sound as it came down?
Meaning: I might have taken it for a white cloud, the waterfall tumbling down Mount Yoshino, if it had made no sound.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1034

Headnote: "Composed on the waterfall at Yoshino"
This poem was composed on the waterfall at Yoshino. Would I have mistaken it for a white cloud, had the waterfall dropping down Mount Yoshino made no sound, he asks. Seeing the white falls dropping from the mountain heights as a white cloud, he notes that it is only by its sound that one knows it for a waterfall, capturing the falls through both sight and sound.
The author, "Middle Counselor Tsunetada," is Fujiwara no Tsunetada. A son of Fujiwara no Moronobu, he rose to middle counselor.
From this poem through 1040, poems on waterfalls and places associated with them stand together. This poem's "shirakumo" answers "tada shirakumo to miyuru kana" in 1037, and it shares "taki no oto" with the next poem, 1035, so that a waterfall with a sound and one whose sound has ceased form a pair.

First line, "shirakumo ni": "for a white cloud," likening the falls to a white cloud. It answers "tada shirakumo to" in the second line of 1037 of this book.
Second line, "magai ya semashi": "magau" means to be indistinguishable, "ya" is an interrogative binding particle, and "mashi" the counterfactual auxiliary, "might I have mistaken it?" The poem pauses here.
Third line, "Yoshinoyama": a mountain in Yamato Province, a famous place known for its falls as well as its cherries and snow.
Fourth line, "ochikuru taki no": "of the waterfall tumbling down."
Fifth line, "oto sezariseba": "se" is the irrealis of the past auxiliary "ki," and with "ba" it forms a counterfactual condition, "had it made no sound." It stands inverted with the second line. It answers "taki no oto wa" in the first line of the next poem, 1035.
Author: Fujiwara no Tsunetada
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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