Mezurashiki hikari sashisou sakazuki wa mochinagara koso chiyo mo megurame - Murasaki Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

めづらしき光さしそふさかづきは
もちながらこそ千代もめぐらめ

Roma-ji: Mezurashiki hikari sashisou sakazuki wa mochinagara koso chiyo mo megurame
English Translation: With a wondrous light
now shining in it as well,
this cup of sake—
held like the moon still at its full—
will pass around a thousand years
Meaning: This cup, newly graced by a wondrous light, will be passed from hand to hand, unwaning like the full moon, for a thousand years to come.
Commentary: 13 The Fifth-Night Birth Celebration

On the eleventh day of the ninth month of Kankō 5 (1008), Empress Shōshi gave birth to a prince at the Tsuchimikado mansion. On the fifth night, the fifteenth, Michinaga hosted the birth celebration. Under a cloudless harvest moon, bonfires were lit beneath the trees near the edge of the pond and rice-ball refreshments were set out. As the feast went on, the senior nobles left their seats for the bridge, where, led by Michinaga, they played at dice, and poems were composed.
The prince was Prince Atsuhira, later Emperor Go-Ichijō. The Shijō Major Counselor was Fujiwara no Kintō, renowned as the foremost poet of his day.
As the ladies wondered aloud what they should say if called on to offer the cup, Murasaki prepared this poem.
The ladies whispered that when presenting the cup to the Shijō Major Counselor, they must take care not only with the poem but with their very tone of voice. Yet with so many proceedings and the night grown late, the nobles left without the cup being specially passed to the ladies, and the poem was never recited.
It was included in the Celebration section of the Goshūi Wakashū as Murasaki Shikibu's poem, composed when people called for the cup on the seventh night after the birth of the future Emperor Go-Ichijō.

The opening lines speak of "a wondrous light now shining in it as well," overlaying the light of the full moon with the radiance of the newborn prince, and the third line names the cup of the feast.
In the lower verses, the word "mochi" carries two meanings: the full moon of the fifteenth night, and the act of holding the cup in hand. The closing line, "will pass around a thousand years," joins the cup circling among the guests with the circling of the moon, celebrating a prosperity that will endure for ages, the whole sealed by an emphatic construction ending in an auxiliary of conjecture. Light, full moon and circling echo one another as associated words of the moon, gathering the harvest-moon banquet and the joy of the prince's birth into a single poem.
Author: Murasaki Shikibu
Source: Murasaki Shikibu Nikki
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