Ika ni sen kage o ba sode ni yadosedomo kokoro no sumeba tsuki no kumoru o

いかにせん影をば袖に宿せども
心の澄めば月の曇るを

Roma-ji: Ika ni sen kage o ba sode ni yadosedomo kokoro no sumeba tsuki no kumoru o
English Translation: What am I to do?
Though I lodge its shining light
in my sleeve's wet folds,
when my heart grows clear and pure,
then it is the moon that clouds.
Meaning: What am I to do? I lodge the moon's light in my tear-wet sleeves, yet the clearer my heart grows, the more the moon there is clouded.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 346

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed many poems on the moon"
This is the tenth poem in the moon series. The poet holds the moonlight reflected in his tear-wet sleeves, but the more his heart grows clear and moved as he gazes at the moon, the more his overflowing tears cloud the moon in his sleeve; what is he to do? The poem tells of a contradictory state in which the more one clears one's heart for the moon, the less of it one can see.
The device of lodging the moon in tear-wet sleeves also appears in the poems that follow, as in 348, gazing at the moon reflected in the sleeve, and 351, where the moon dwells in the sleeves, so poems linking sleeves and moon pile up in this series.

First line, “ika ni sen”: what am I to do; the poem breaks after the first line.
Second line, “kage o ba sode ni”: kage is moonlight, the moon's light in my sleeve.
Third line, “yadosedomo”: though I lodge it, reflected in my tear-wet sleeve.
Fourth line, “kokoro no sumeba”: when my heart grows clear, the heart purified by being moved by the moon.
Fifth line, “tsuki no kumoru o”: that the moon in my sleeve clouds over with tears, the object of ika ni sen given afterward by inversion.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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