classic waka stream

何事も変はりのみゆく世の中に
同じ影にて澄める月かな
Roma-ji

Nanigoto mo kawari nomi yuku yo no naka ni onaji kage nite sumeru tsuki kana

English Translation
In this world of ours,
where all things change and change on,
nothing else but change,
with the selfsame light as ever,
how the moon shines clear above.
Meaning
In this world where everything does nothing but change, the moon shines clear with the very same light as ever.
Commentary
Autumn Poems 350

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed many poems on the moon"
This is the fourteenth poem in the moon series. In this world everything only changes and passes, yet the moon alone shines clear with the same light as of old. Setting the impermanent world against the moon that shines unchanged, the poet is drawn to the moon's constancy.
It was included in the Shoku Shūi Wakashū. Following the preceding poem, which met again an autumn of the past, this one sings of the moonlight unchanged then and now. It also echoes 352, where the autumn moon will not change, so poems on the moon's constancy pile up.

First line, “nanigoto mo”: everything.
Second line, “kawari nomi yuku”: only ever changing, nomi stressing that there is nothing but change.
Third line, “yo no naka ni”: in this world, the world of impermanence.
Fourth line, “onaji kage nite”: kage is light, with the same light as of old, set against kawari in the second line.
Fifth line, “sumeru tsuki kana”: ru is the attributive of the continuative ri and kana is exclamatory, closing in wonder at the moon shining unchanged.
Author
Saigyō
Source
Sankashu
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