Nakitsu tomo tare ni ka iwamu hototogisu kage yori hoka ni hito shi nakereba - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

鳴きつとも誰にか言はむほととぎす
影より外に人しなければ

Roma-ji: Nakitsu tomo tare ni ka iwamu hototogisu kage yori hoka ni hito shi nakereba
English Translation: Though it has sung,
to whom then should I tell it?
The cuckoo's song—
for apart from my own shadow
there is no one here at all.
Meaning: Even though the cuckoo has sung, whom could I tell? For besides my own shadow, there is no one at all beside me.
Commentary: Book Two Summer Poems 62

Having at last heard the cuckoo, the poet has no one to share the joy with. The final lines, saying his only companion is his shadow, carry a deep loneliness.
After poems 60 and 61, which ask who hears the song, this poem turns to the lack of anyone to tell once it has been heard. Poems about hearing are arranged so as to view the theme from changing angles.

First line uses the perfective tsu to show the bird has already sung, with tomo as a concessive supposition.
Second line uses ka as a rhetorical question, implying there is no one to tell. The poem pauses here.
Third line places the cuckoo, the poem's theme, at its center.
Fourth line says that only his own shadow, cast perhaps by moonlight, keeps him company.
Fifth line uses the emphatic particle shi, and gives the reason for the second line afterward in an inverted order.
Author: Minamoto no Toshiyori
Source: Shika Wakashu
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