Makoto tomo tare ka omowan hitori mite nochi ni koyoi no tsuki o kataraba

まこととも誰か思はん一人見て
後に今宵の月を語らば

Roma-ji: Makoto tomo tare ka omowan hitori mite nochi ni koyoi no tsuki o kataraba
English Translation: Who would think it true,
were I, having watched alone,
in the days to come
to tell of this night's moon,
the moon as it was tonight?
Meaning: Who would believe it true if, having watched it all alone, I were to tell others later of tonight's moon?
Commentary: Autumn Poems 357

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed many poems on the moon"
This is the twenty-first poem in the moon series. Even if, having seen tonight's moon alone, the poet were later to tell others how splendid it was, who would believe it? No one would. Both the joy of having so splendid a moon to himself and the loneliness of being unable to share it come through.
Echoing makotoshikaranu kokochi shite in 355, the sense that the moon's splendor is hard to believe appears here as the thought that no one would believe him even if he told them.

First line, “makoto tomo”: that it is true.
Second line, “tare ka omowan”: ka is rhetorical and n the attributive of the conjectural mu, who would think so? No one; the poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, “hitori mite”: seeing it alone, with no one else watching.
Fourth line, “nochi ni koyoi no”: later, tonight's.
Fifth line, “tsuki o kataraba”: if I were to tell of the moon, a supposition with ba on the conjectural form, given afterward by inversion as the condition for the second line.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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