Tsukiyomi no kami shi terasaba adagumo no kakaru ukiyo mo harezarame ya wa - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

月読の神し照らさばあだ雲の
かかる憂き世も晴れざらめやは

Roma-ji: Tsukiyomi no kami shi terasaba adagumo no kakaru ukiyo mo harezarame ya wa
English Translation: If the god of the moon,
Tsukiyomi, shines upon it,
how could this sad world
with its idle clouds hung low
fail at last to clear?
Meaning: If the moon god Tsukiyomi shines upon it, how could this sorrowful world, overhung with idle clouds, fail to clear? Surely it will.
Commentary: Book Twenty Shinto Poems 1279

Headnote: "Composed when, at the time of the change of capital in the fourth year of Jishō, I returned to the Grand Shrine of Ise and offered prayers for the sovereign"
At the time of the move of the capital to Fukuhara in 1180, he returned to the Grand Shrine of Ise and, offering prayers for the emperor, composed this as well. If the moon god Tsukiyomi shines, could this sorrowful world overhung with idle clouds fail to clear? he says. Likening the turmoil of the change of capital to clouds hanging in the sky, he prays that the light of Tsukiyomi at Ise will clear them away. In the main text, the words "afterward, it is said, the world gradually returned to order" stand where the headnote of the next poem would be; they appear to be a note on this poem, saying that the world later settled down.
The author, "Ōnakatomi no Tamesada," was a priest of the Ōnakatomi clan who served at the Grand Shrine of Ise. The details of his life are not known.
It follows the preceding poem, 1278, as a poem on Ise. Its fifth line, "harezarame ya wa," has the same rhetorical form as "sasazarame ya wa" in the fifth line of 1275 in this book, both confident that the gods' light will reach them.

First line, "Tsukiyomi no": Tsukiyomi, the god of the moon, who has the Tsukiyomi Shrine at Ise.
Second line, "kami shi terasaba": "shi" is an emphatic adverbial particle, and "terasaba," the irrealis with "ba," states a supposition.
Third line, "adagumo no": "adagumo" are idle, drifting clouds, standing for the calamities that throw the world into disorder.
Fourth line, "kakaru ukiyo mo": "kakaru" plays on clouds hanging over and "such as this."
Fifth line, "harezarame ya wa": "zara" is negative, "me" the perfective form of the conjectural "mu," and "ya wa" rhetorical, "how could it fail to clear? It surely will." It has the same form as "sasazarame ya wa" in the fifth line of 1275 in this book.
Author: Ōnakatomi no Tamesada
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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