Sumiyoshi no matsu no yukiai no hima yori mo tsuki saenureba shimo wa okikeri - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

住吉の松の行き合ひの隙よりも
月冴えぬれば霜は置きけり

Roma-ji: Sumiyoshi no matsu no yukiai no hima yori mo tsuki saenureba shimo wa okikeri
English Translation: Even through the gaps
where the pines of Sumiyoshi
cross their boughs and meet,
the moon shines so cold and clear
that frost, I see, has settled
Meaning: Even through the gaps where the boughs of the Sumiyoshi pines cross, the moon shines so cold and clear that frost seems to have settled.
Commentary: Book Twenty Shinto Poems 1265

Headnote: "Composed on the theme of the moon at the shrine for the same poetry contest"
This too was composed on the theme of the moon at the shrine for the same Sumiyoshi contest. Since even through the gaps where the Sumiyoshi pines meet the moon shines cold, frost has settled, he says. It draws on a poem attributed to the god of Sumiyoshi, "Is the night cold, is my robe thin, that through the gaps where the crossbeams meet the frost settles?" That divine poem is said to lament frost settling through the gaps where the shrine's roof beams cross; this poem moves it to the gaps where the pine boughs cross, and sees the cold moonlight streaming through them as frost.
The author, "Shun'e Hōshi," was a son of Minamoto no Toshiyori and a monk of Tōdaiji. He named his lodging in Shirakawa in the capital the Karin'en, and many poets gathered there.
It is a poem on the moon at the shrine from the same contest as the preceding poem, 1264, and both sing of the pines and moon of Sumiyoshi; the preceding poem asks about the moon of old, this one sees moonlight as frost. The poems on Sumiyoshi that began at 1257 in this book end here.

First line, "Sumiyoshi no": the area of the Sumiyoshi Shrine, the same phrase as "Sumiyoshi no" in the first line of 1257 in this book.
Second line, "matsu no yukiai no": a line of eight syllables, one over the count. "Yukiai" is where boughs cross, moving the "gaps where they meet" of the god's poem to the branches of the pines.
Third line, "hima yori mo": "hima" is a gap, and "mo" adds "even through."
Fourth line, "tsuki saenureba": "saeyu" means light shining cold and clear, and "nure" is the perfective form of the perfective "nu." It takes up "Suminoe no tsuki" in the fifth line of the preceding poem, 1264.
Fifth line, "shimo wa okikeri": the cold moonlight is seen as frost, and "keri" is an exclamatory auxiliary of realization.
Author: Shun'e
Source: Senzai Wakashu
Prev Poem: Furinikeru matsu mono iwaba toite mashi mukashi mo kaku ya Suminoe no tsuki
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