Samidare ni Sano no funahashi ukinureba norite zo hito wa sashiwataruran

五月雨に佐野の舟橋浮きぬれば
乗りてぞ人はさし渡るらん

Roma-ji: Samidare ni Sano no funahashi ukinureba norite zo hito wa sashiwataruran
English Translation: In the summer rain
Sano's bridge of boats is lifted,
floating on the flood,
so now people board it, surely,
and pole their way across.
Meaning: Since the early summer rains have set the boat bridge of Sano afloat, people must now be riding it and poling their way across.
Commentary: Summer Poems 223

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When fifteen poems on the early summer rains were composed at a certain place, written on behalf of another"
This is the ninth of the fifteen poems. The boat bridge of Sano was made of boats moored side by side with planks laid across them, but the floodwater of the rains has lifted it, so instead of walking across it people must be boarding the boats and poling them over, the poet imagines.
The boat bridge of Sano is a poetic place in Kōzuke sung of in the eastern songs of the Man'yōshū. There is wit in seeing what should be a bridge float up and return to being boats, a view that captures the rising water.

First line, “samidare ni”: because of the early summer rains.
Second line, “Sano no funahashi”: the boat bridge at Sano in Kōzuke, boats set side by side with planks across, a poetic place.
Third line, “ukinureba”: the perfective form with ba, since it has floated up with the rising water.
Fourth line, “norite zo hito wa”: zo stresses that people now ride across rather than walk.
Fifth line, “sashiwataruran”: zo is answered by the attributive ran; sasu is to push a boat along with a pole, and the present conjecture ran imagines the distant scene.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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