Obotsukana aki wa ika naru yue no areba suzuro ni mono no kanashikaruran

おぼつかな秋はいかなる故のあれば
すずろにもののかなしかるらん

Roma-ji: Obotsukana aki wa ika naru yue no areba suzuro ni mono no kanashikaruran
English Translation: How strange it all is:
what reason can autumn have,
that it should be so,
that for nothing I can name,
all things seem so sad to me?
Meaning: How puzzling it is. What reason can autumn have that, for no cause I can name, everything seems so sad?
Commentary: Autumn Poems 290

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Among autumn poems"
This is another poem composed on autumn. How strange it is: what reason can autumn possibly have that, without any particular cause, everything should seem so sad? The poet questions the sadness of autumn as something whose cause he himself cannot find.
Where the preceding poem caught the loneliness of autumn dusk as a scene, this one asks about the mystery of the heart that feels it. The next poem, saying it is not that he thinks of anything in particular, and 292, beginning nani to naku monoganashiku, continue the series of poems on a sadness without cause.

First line, “obotsukana”: the stem of the adjective obotsukanashi, used as an exclamation, how hard to understand; the poem breaks after the first line.
Second line, “aki wa ika naru”: what kind of, questioning autumn itself.
Third line, “yue no areba”: a hypermetric line of six syllables, since there is some reason.
Fourth line, “suzuro ni mono no”: suzuro ni means without particular reason, somehow.
Fifth line, “kanashikaruran”: ran conjectures a cause, why should things seem so sad.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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