Minasoko no tsuki no ue yori kogu fune no sao ni sawaru wa katsura narurashi - Tosa Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

みなそこの月のうへより漕ぐふねの
棹にさはるは桂なるらし

Roma-ji: Minasoko no tsuki no ue yori kogu fune no sao ni sawaru wa katsura narurashi
English Translation: Rowing our boat on
above the moon that lies deep
below the water,
what our pole brushes against
must be the moon's laurel tree
Meaning: As our boat rows over the moon lying deep beneath the water, what brushes against our pole must surely be the laurel that grows upon the moon.
Commentary: 26 The Seventeenth Day of the First Month: The Moon Reflected in the Sea

On the seventeenth day of the first month the clouds that had covered the sky cleared away, and the dawn moon was so lovely that the party set out and rowed on. All the while, the sea floor where the moon was reflected and the sky looked one and the same. The diarist thinks it no wonder that someone long ago wrote in Chinese verse, "The pole pierces the moon upon the waves; the boat presses on the sky within the sea."
The "certain person" who composes a poem in this scene is not named. There was a Chinese legend that a laurel tree grows in the moon, and this day's poem draws on it.
Taking up the lines of Chinese verse half-remembered, a certain person composed this poem about rowing over the moon reflected in the sea.
Hearing it, another person went on to compose "Kage mireba nami no soko naru hisakata no sora kogiwataru ware zo sabishiki." As dawn began to break, the steersmen said that black clouds had suddenly appeared and the wind would surely blow, and turned the boat back; rain began to fall.

The first line, "Minasoko no," means "of the water's depths." The second line, "tsuki no ue yori," means "passing over the moon reflected on the surface." The third line, "kogu fune no," continues the picture: the boat that rows over the moonlight.
The fourth line, "sao ni sawaru wa," means "what touches the pole." In the final line, "katsura narurashi," "rashi" is an auxiliary of grounded inference: it must be the laurel that grows on the moon.
Treating the moon reflected on the sea as the real moon, and seeing what touches the pole as the moon's laurel, it is a poem rich in wit. It takes up the idea of the Chinese line "the pole pierces the moon upon the waves" and unfolds it in the form of a Japanese poem.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Tosa Nikki
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