Samidare ni yo no fukeyukeba hototogisu hitori yamabe o nakite sugunari

五月雨に夜の更けゆけば郭公
ひとり山辺を鳴きて過ぐなり

Roma-ji: Samidare ni yo no fukeyukeba hototogisu hitori yamabe o nakite sugunari
English Translation: In the fifth-month rains
as the night grows deep and late,
the hototogisu
all alone along the hills
I can hear go singing by.
Meaning: As night deepens in the early-summer rains, I hear the hototogisu pass singing, all alone, along the hills.
Commentary: Summer Poems 152

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "The hototogisu"
Late on a night of steady early-summer rain, the poet hears the hototogisu pass alone along the hills, singing as it goes. The stillness of the rainy night and the loneliness of the bird passing by overlap.
The Ruijū text places this and the next two poems under the section "Early-summer rains." In the source text consulted, a character in line 2 could not be read and has been supplied from the Teika text's yo no fukeyukeba.

Line 1, samidare, is the long rain of the fifth month. The next poems, 153 and 154, also begin with "the fifth-month rains," so three poems on the rains and the hototogisu follow one another.
Line 2: ba after the evaluative form marks the passage of time, "as the night grows late."
Line 3 sets the hototogisu as a bird whose voice carries through the rainy night.
Line 4: hitori shows that the bird is alone, echoing the poet who listens alone on a rainy night in 148.
Line 5: nari infers from sound; the shifting voice tells that the bird is passing by.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
Prev Poem: Ariake no tsuki wa irinuru ko no ma yori yama hototogisu nakite izunari
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