Tagui naki kokochi koso sure aki no yo no tsuki sumu mine no saoshika no koe

類なき心地こそすれ秋の夜の
月澄む嶺のさを鹿の声

Roma-ji: Tagui naki kokochi koso sure aki no yo no tsuki sumu mine no saoshika no koe
English Translation: Nothing can compare
with the feeling it brings me,
on an autumn night,
from the peak where the moon shines clear,
the calling of the stag.
Meaning: Nothing can compare with the feeling it stirs in me: the call of the stag from the peak where the autumn night's moon shines clear.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 397

Headnote: "Deer before the moon"
The topic is the deer calling before the moon. On an autumn night, hearing the stag call from the peak where the moon shines clear, the poet feels a quiet emotion beyond compare. Pairing the clear moonlight with the call of the stag seeking its mate, two emblems of autumn, the poem praises the depth of their feeling.
After the insects before the moon in the poems before, here the deer before the moon is sung. The deer's call was also sung in 300 and elsewhere, and from 429 a group of poems on the deer follows.

First line, “tagui naki”: without equal, beyond compare.
Second line, “kokochi koso sure”: koso is answered by the perfective sure, it feels so indeed; the poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, “aki no yo no”: modifying tsuki in the fourth line.
Fourth line, “tsuki sumu mine no”: of the peak where the moon shines clear.
Fifth line, “saoshika no koe”: ending on a noun, with sa as a prefix, the call of the stag, the cause of the feeling given afterward by inversion.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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