Magau beki tsuki naki koro no u no hana wa yoru sae sarasu nuno ka to zo miru

まがふべき月なき頃の卯の花は
夜さへさらす布かとぞ見る

Roma-ji: Magau beki tsuki naki koro no u no hana wa yoru sae sarasu nuno ka to zo miru
English Translation: With no moon to blend
their brightness into its own,
deutzia flowers
seem a cloth set out to bleach
even through the dark of night.
Meaning: In these nights with no moonlight for them to be mistaken for, the deutzia blossoms look to me like white cloth left out to bleach even after dark.
Commentary: Summer Poems 177

Headnote: "Deutzia at night"
This poem was composed on the topic of deutzia at night. The white deutzia is often mistaken for moonlight, but in dark nights when there is no moon, the flowers look like white cloth left out to bleach even through the night.
Where the preceding poem likened the deutzia to the white waves at a weir, this poem likens the flowers glimmering white in the darkness to bleaching cloth. The scene moves from the riverside by day to the dark of night, while the device of likening the whiteness of the deutzia to something else continues.

First line, “magau beki”: that it might be mistaken for, modifying tsuki in the second line; deutzia was often likened to moonlight, and the phrase takes up the magau of the preceding poem's final line.
Second line, “tsuki naki koro no”: the time of dark nights when there is no moon.
Third line, “u no hana wa”: singles out the deutzia blooming white in the dark.
Fourth line, “yoru sae sarasu”: sae adds, not only by day but even at night; sarasu is to wash cloth and expose it to whiten it.
Fifth line, “nuno ka to zo miru”: zo is answered by the attributive miru, stressing that the poet sees the flowers as white bleached cloth.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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