Saranu dani koe yowakarishi matsumushi no aki no sue ni wa kiki mo wakarezu

さらぬだに声弱かりし松虫の
秋の末には聞きも分かれず

Roma-ji: Saranu dani koe yowakarishi matsumushi no aki no sue ni wa kiki mo wakarezu
English Translation: Even as it was,
the pine cricket's voice was weak,
and now at the end
of the autumn I can scarcely
tell its singing from the rest.
Meaning: The pine cricket's voice was weak enough before, and now, at the end of autumn, I can no longer even make it out.
Commentary: Autumn Poems 475

Headnote: "Hearing a pine cricket at the end of autumn"
The headnote tells us this was composed on hearing a pine cricket at the end of autumn. The pine cricket's voice was weak to begin with, and now that autumn is ending it has faded so much that it cannot be told from other sounds. In the weakening of the insect voice in late autumn the poet senses the season's end.
It echoes 456 and 457, where the weakening voices of insects showed the deepening of autumn and the frailty of the poet's own life, and here the voice can at last no longer be made out. Within the book's movement toward autumn's end, it shows the close of the insects' song.

First line, “saranu dani”: even when it is not so.
Second line, “koe yowakarishi”: shi is the attributive of the past auxiliary ki, whose voice was weak from the first.
Third line, “matsumushi no”: of the pine cricket, an insect that sings in autumn.
Fourth line, “aki no sue ni wa”: when autumn draws to its close.
Fifth line, “kiki mo wakarezu”: re is the conjectural form of ru expressing possibility, cannot even make it out.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
Prev Poem: Sometekeri momiji no iro no kurenai o shiguru to mieshi miyamabe no sato
Next Poem: Kozue areba kareyuku nobe wa ikaga sen mushi no ne nokose aki no yamazato