Sayuru yo wa yoso no sora ni zo oshi mo naku kōrinikeri na Koya no ikemizu

冴ゆる夜はよその空にぞ鴛も鳴く
凍りにけりな昆陽の池水

Roma-ji: Sayuru yo wa yoso no sora ni zo oshi mo naku kōrinikeri na Koya no ikemizu
English Translation: On a freezing night
in some other, distant sky
the mandarin ducks cry:
it must have frozen over now,
the water of Koya Pond.
Meaning: On this freezing night even the mandarin ducks are crying in some other sky; the water of Koya Pond must have frozen over.
Commentary: Winter Poems 560

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Ten winter poems"
This is the fourth of the ten winter poems. On a freezing night even the mandarin ducks that always stay on the pond are crying as they fly through some other sky, and the poet realizes that the water of Koya Pond must have frozen. The device is to learn of the frozen pond from the cries of waterfowl driven from it.
Following 554 to 556, which told of ice halting the flow of water, this poem catches the ice of a pond through the voices of waterfowl.

First line, “sayuru yo wa”: on a freezing night.
Second line, “yoso no sora ni zo”: yoso is somewhere else, and zo is an emphatic particle binding with the attributive naku in the third line.
Third line, “oshi mo naku”: oshi is the mandarin duck, and mo means even the mandarin ducks; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “kōrinikeri na”: nikeri is perfective and exclamatory, and na an exclamatory particle, it has frozen; the poem breaks here too.
Fifth line, “Koya no ikemizu”: Koya is a place in Settsu, and Koya Pond a name in poetry for a pond where waterfowl gather. The poem ends on a noun, in inversion with the fourth line.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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