Furisakeshi hito no kokoro zo shirarenuru koyoi Mikasa no tsuki o nagamete

ふりさけし人の心ぞ知られぬる
今宵三笠の月を眺めて

Roma-ji: Furisakeshi hito no kokoro zo shirarenuru koyoi Mikasa no tsuki o nagamete
English Translation: I have come to know
the heart of the one who gazed
upward to the sky,
as I look this night upon
the moon over Mount Mikasa.
Meaning: Tonight, gazing at the moon over Mount Mikasa, I have come to understand the heart of the one who once looked up to it from far away.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 407

Headnote: "When I visited Kasuga and the moon was brighter than usual and deeply moving"
The headnote tells us this was composed when the poet visited the Kasuga Shrine and the moon was brighter than usual and moved him deeply. Gazing tonight at the moon risen over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga, he comes to understand the heart of the man who once looked up at this moon from a far foreign land.
The poem draws on Abe no Nakamaro's poem in the Kokin Wakashū, composed in China, in which looking up at the heavens he recalls the moon that rose over Mount Mikasa at Kasuga. Seeing the moon over Mikasa with his own eyes, the poet enters into the heart of Nakamaro, who longed for the moon of his homeland from far away.

First line, “furisakeshi”: furisaku is to look up into the distance, drawing on furisake mireba in Nakamaro's poem and pointing to the one who looked up at the moon, Nakamaro.
Second line, “hito no kokoro zo”: that person's heart, with zo forming a kakari-musubi with nuru in the third line.
Third line, “shirarenuru”: re is the spontaneous ru and nuru the attributive of the perfective nu, it has come to be known of itself; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “koyoi Mikasa no”: Mikasa is the mountain behind the Kasuga Shrine, sung in Nakamaro's poem.
Fifth line, “tsuki o nagamete”: gazing at the moon, giving afterward by inversion the reason the heart came to be known.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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