Kasugano ni asa naku kiji no haneoto wa yuki no kiema ni wakana tsume to ya - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

春日野に朝鳴く雉の羽音は
雪の消え間に若菜摘めとや

Roma-ji: Kasugano ni asa naku kiji no haneoto wa yuki no kiema ni wakana tsume to ya
English Translation: On Kasuga Moor
the pheasant crying at dawn
beats its wings; that sound,
is it saying, where snow has gone,
pick the young greens of spring?
Meaning: On Kasuga Moor the pheasant cries at dawn and beats its wings; is that sound telling us to pick young greens where the snow has melted away?
Commentary: Book One Spring Poems 6

The poet hears the beating wings of a pheasant crying at dawn on Kasuga Moor as an urging to gather greens in the patches where snow has melted. The wingbeats ringing through the quiet early-spring fields announce the season of green-gathering.
Where the preceding poem told of a mountain village where greens cannot yet be gathered, this one shows a moor that invites the gathering, and the two are set in contrast.

The first line, "on Kasuga Moor," names the moor at Nara, long sung as a famous place for gathering spring greens.
The second line, "the pheasant crying at dawn," presents a bird sung as belonging to the spring fields.
The third line, "its wingbeats," catches the sound of the pheasant striking its wings as it cries; the device lies in attending to the wings rather than the voice. The line has an extra syllable.
The fourth line, "where snow has gone," is a patch of ground showing through melted snow. Where the first line of the preceding poem, "if the snow would melt," was hypothetical, here the gaps have actually appeared.
The last line, "pick the young greens," omits a verb such as "say" after "to ya," a conceit that hears the pheasant's wings as an invitation to gather greens.
Author: Minamoto no Shigeyuki
Source: Shika Wakashu
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