Fukakusa no tani no uguisu haru goto ni aware mukashi to ne o nomi zo naku

ふか草の谷の鶯春ごとに
あはれ昔と音をのみぞなく

Roma-ji: Fukakusa no tani no uguisu haru goto ni aware mukashi to ne o nomi zo naku
English Translation: In Fukakusa's
deep valley the warbler, with
every spring that comes,
cries "Ah, the days of long ago,"
and does nothing but weep and sing.
Meaning: Each spring the warbler in the valley of Fukakusa does nothing but cry aloud, "Ah, the days of long ago!"
Commentary: Spring Poems 13

Headnote: "The warbler"
The poet hears the voice of the warbler in the valley of Fukakusa as a cry of longing for the past. Overlaying human lament on the bird's song, he shows how the yearning for bygone days is renewed with every spring. Kamo no Mabuchi remarked of this poem and the next that the poet must have had some reason to think of the past when he composed them.
In the Ruijū text this poem and the next appear among the miscellaneous poems. One character in the last line of the base text is hard to read, so the common reading ne o nomi zo has been adopted.

Line 1: fukakusa joins the place name Fukakusa in Yamashiro with the sense of deep, thick grass. The next poem, 14, opens with kusa fukaki, reversing the word order, so the two poems form a pair.
Line 2, "the warbler in the valley," repeats the words that close poem 5, pointing to the warbler hidden in the valley.
Line 3, "with every spring," means each time spring comes, showing the recurrence of nostalgia every year.
Line 4 renders the warbler's voice as a sigh: "Ah, the past!"
Line 5: the particle zo and the attributive form create a kakarimusubi; ne o naku means to cry aloud. The bird's singing (naku) is overlaid with human weeping (naku).
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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