Niwa sayuru tsuki narikeri na ominaeshi shimo ni ainuru hana to mitareba

庭冴ゆる月なりけりな女郎花
霜にあひぬる花と見たれば

Roma-ji: Niwa sayuru tsuki narikeri na ominaeshi shimo ni ainuru hana to mitareba
English Translation: So it was the moon
that made the garden cold and clear,
when the maidenflower
seemed to me a flower struck
by the frost that came at night.
Meaning: So it was the moonlight that made the garden so cold and bright, I realize, for I took the maidenflower for a flower touched by frost.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 392

Headnote: "The maidenflower before the moon"
The topic is the maidenflower before the moon. Because the maidenflower in the garden looked white, like a flower touched by frost, the poet realized that it was the moonlight making the whole garden cold and white. Likening the whiteness of the moonlight to frost, he mistakes the moonlit maidenflower for a frosted flower.
The device of likening moonlight to frost or snow appears also in 317, where the moon is mistaken for snow, and here it is joined with the maidenflower. Following the two poems before, the maidenflower in moonlight is sung again.

First line, “niwa sayuru”: making the garden cold and bright, modifying tsuki in the second line.
Second line, “tsuki narikeri na”: keri expresses realization and na is exclamatory, so it was the moonlight; the poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, “ominaeshi”: the flower that the following lines concern.
Fourth line, “shimo ni ainuru”: having met the frost, touched by frost; nuru is the attributive of the perfective nu.
Fifth line, “hana to mitareba”: since I saw it as such a flower, giving afterward by inversion the reason for the realization in the second line.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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