眺むればほかの影こそゆかしけれ
変はらじものを秋の夜の月
変はらじものを秋の夜の月
- Roma-ji
-
Nagamureba hoka no kage koso yukashikere kawaraji mono o aki no yo no tsuki
- English Translation
-
As I gaze on it,
how I long to see its light
shine in other lands,
though it would not change at all,
the moon of the autumn night.
- Meaning
- As I gaze at it, I long to see how its light looks in other places, though surely it would be no different, the moon of the autumn night.
- Commentary
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Autumn Poems 352
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed many poems on the moon"
This is the sixteenth poem in the moon series. As he gazes at the autumn moon, the poet longs to know how its light looks in other places, though it surely would be the same wherever seen. His heart wavers between a wish, born of love for the moon, to see it in many places and the knowledge that it does not change.
Where the poems before sang of a moon unchanged between past and present, this one sings of a moon unchanged from place to place. Like 350, with the moon shining in the same light, it speaks of the moon's constancy while adding a heart that still yearns for the moon elsewhere.
First line, “nagamureba”: as I gaze, lost in thought.
Second line, “hoka no kage koso”: kage is moonlight, and koso forms a kakari-musubi with the perfective yukashikere in the third line.
Third line, “yukashikere”: yukashi means to long to see or know, in the perfective answering koso; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “kawaraji mono o”: ji is negative conjecture and mono o concessive, though surely it would not differ.
Fifth line, “aki no yo no tsuki”: ending on a noun, the moon that is the same everywhere.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Sankashu
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Yomosugara tsuki koso sode ni yadorikere mukashi no aki o omoiizureba
- Next Poem
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Yukue naku tsuki ni kokoro no sumisumite hate wa ika ni ka naran to suran