Fukaki yama ni sumikeru tsuki o mizariseba omoide mo naki waga mi naramashi

深き山に澄みける月を見ざりせば
思ひ出もなき我が身ならまし

Roma-ji: Fukaki yama ni sumikeru tsuki o mizariseba omoide mo naki waga mi naramashi
English Translation: Had I never seen
the moon shining clear upon
these deep mountain heights,
mine would surely be a life
without a memory to keep.
Meaning: Had I not seen the moon shining so clear in these deep mountains, mine would have been a life without a single memory worth keeping.
Commentary: Miscellaneous Poems 1104

Headnote: "Composed on viewing the moon at a place called Shinsen in Ōmine"
Composed on viewing the moon at Shinsen in the Ōmine mountains. Had he not seen the moon shining clear in these deep mountains, his life would have held no memory worth keeping, he says, praising the mountain moon as the finest memory of his life.
Ōmine was a sacred site of mountain asceticism, and Shinsen a place of practice along its ridge route. The clarity of the moon seen at the end of hard austerities moved him enough to be worth a lifetime's memory, as the counterfactual strongly conveys. A sequence on the practice sites of Ōmine follows.

First line, “fukaki yama ni”: in the deep mountains of Ōmine; the line has an extra syllable.
Second line, “sumikeru tsuki o”: the moon that was shining clear.
Third line, “mizariseba”: seba is the counterfactual condition, "had I not seen."
Fourth line, “omoide mo naki”: without any memory.
Fifth line, “waga mi naramashi”: mashi is counterfactual, "mine would have been such a life."
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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