Aki no yo no tsuki ya namida o kakotsuran kumo naki kage o moteyatsusu tote

秋の夜の月や涙をかこつらん
雲なき影をもてやつすとて

Roma-ji: Aki no yo no tsuki ya namida o kakotsuran kumo naki kage o moteyatsusu tote
English Translation: Is the autumn night's
moon complaining, I wonder,
of these tears of mine,
saying they make its cloudless light
look so shabby and so worn?
Meaning: Is the moon of this autumn night complaining against my tears, saying they make its cloudless light look dim and worn?
Commentary: Love Poems 622

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "The moon"
Though it is an autumn moon in a sky without a single cloud, seen through eyes clouded by the tears of love its light looks dim. From the moon's side, the poet wonders, perhaps it is complaining against his tears for making its clear light look worn and shabby. The device lies in turning the blurring of the moon by tears into the moon's resentment of those tears.

First line, “aki no yo no”: of an autumn night, the season when the moon is loveliest.
Second line, “tsuki ya namida o”: the binding particle ya marks a question and is answered by the attributive ran in the third line; this answers the topic.
Third line, “kakotsuran”: kakotsu is to complain, laying the blame on another; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “kumo naki kage o”: its clear light without a cloud.
Fifth line, “moteyatsusu tote”: moteyatsusu is to make something look shabby, the tears dimming the moonlight; this returns in inversion to the upper verse.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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