Morotomo ni kage o naraburu hito mo are ya tsuki no morikuru sasa no iori ni

もろともに影を並ぶる人もあれや
月の漏りくる笹の庵に

Roma-ji: Morotomo ni kage o naraburu hito mo are ya tsuki no morikuru sasa no iori ni
English Translation: Side by side with me,
is there none to set his form
next to mine tonight,
in this hut of bamboo grass
where the moonlight leaks within?
Meaning: Would that there were someone to sit beside me, our shapes side by side in the moonlight, here in this hut of bamboo grass where the moon leaks in.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 369

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When I composed many poems on the moon"
This is the thirty-third poem in the moon series. In this hut thatched with bamboo grass, where moonlight leaks in, the poet wishes there were someone to sit beside him, their shapes side by side in the moonlight, gazing at the moon together. It expresses the loneliness of watching the moon alone and the wish for someone to share it.
Like 357, which says no one would believe him if he told of the moon he saw alone, this poem sings of the loneliness of watching the moon alone. It also echoes the moon leaking into the grass hut of 348, so poems on the moon leaking into a humble hut pile up.

First line, “morotomo ni”: together.
Second line, “kage o naraburu”: kage is form, setting our forms side by side in the moonlight.
Third line, “hito mo are ya”: a hypermetric line of six syllables, would that there were someone; are is an imperative and ya an exclamatory particle expressing the wish. The poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “tsuki no morikuru”: where the moonlight leaks in.
Fifth line, “sasa no iori ni”: in a rough hut thatched with bamboo grass, the place of the wish given afterward by inversion.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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