Yūyami no tazutazushiki ni hototogisu koe uraganashi michi ya madoeru

夕闇のたづたづしきに郭公
声うら悲し道やまどへる

Roma-ji: Yūyami no tazutazushiki ni hototogisu koe uraganashi michi ya madoeru
English Translation: In the evening dark,
so uncertain and so dim,
the hototogisu—
how sorrowful its voice sounds:
has it lost its way perhaps?
Meaning: In the dim, uncertain dark of evening, the hototogisu's voice sounds so sorrowful—has it lost its way?
Commentary: Summer Poems 144

Headnote: "The hototogisu at dusk"
Hearing the plaintive voice of the hototogisu in the evening dark, the poet wonders whether it sounds so sad because it has lost its way. Projecting the forlornness of the darkness onto the bird, he heightens the pathos of its call.
The phrase "uncertain in the evening dark" has a precedent in the Man'yōshū poem in which a woman bids her lover wait for the moon because the road is uncertain in the dusk. The Teika text gives line 2 as tadotadoshiki ni.

Line 1, yūyami, is the darkness after sunset before the moon rises, presenting the topic "dusk."
Line 2, tazutazushiki, describes something unclear and uneasy, a Man'yōshū word.
Line 3 sets the hototogisu, heard only as a voice in the dark.
Line 4: ura means "heart," "how sorrowful at heart," and the poem pauses here.
Line 5: ya is an interrogative binding particle concluded by ru, the attributive of the resultative ri, as the poet wonders whether the bird has lost its way.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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