Omowazu ni ana tsurinikuki kogawa kana satsuki no ame ni mizu masaritsutsu

思はずにあな釣りにくき小川かな
五月の雨に水まさりつつ

Roma-ji: Omowazu ni ana tsurinikuki kogawa kana satsuki no ame ni mizu masaritsutsu
English Translation: Before I knew it,
ah, how hard it is to fish
in this little stream,
with the rain of the Fifth Month
ever swelling up its flow.
Meaning: Before I knew it, this little stream has become so hard to fish in, its waters rising and rising with the rains of the Fifth Month.
Commentary: Summer Poems 229

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 poem closes the fifteen. The little stream where one could usually fish with ease has unexpectedly kept swelling in the long rains of the Fifth Month and become hard to fish in. In the change of a familiar stream the poet lightly captures the force of the rains.
The fifteen poems begin with the fisherfolk of the bay unable to raise the smoke of their salt fires, pass through rivers, marshes, ponds, fields and paths, and end with fishing in a little stream close at hand. While many of the fifteen close with samidare no koro, this one rephrases it as satsuki no ame ni and places it in the lower verse, closing the sequence with a change of manner.

First line, “omowazu ni”: unexpectedly, before one knew it.
Second line, “ana tsurinikuki”: ana is an exclamation, ah, how hard it is to fish.
Third line, “kogawa kana”: a little stream, with the exclamatory kana making a break after the third line.
Fourth line, “satsuki no ame ni”: the rains of the Fifth Month; in place of samidare no koro, which closes many of the fifteen poems, the rain is named here in the fourth line.
Fifth line, “mizu masaritsutsu”: tsutsu expresses continuation, the water rising and rising, giving the reason for the lament of the third line afterwards.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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