Sayo fukete hasu no ukiha no tsuyu no ue ni tama to miru made yadoru tsukikage

小夜更けて蓮の浮き葉の露の上に
玉と見るまでやどる月影

Roma-ji: Sayo fukete hasu no ukiha no tsuyu no ue ni tama to miru made yadoru tsukikage
English Translation: Deep into the night,
on the floating lotus leaves
upon the dew there
so it seems a jewel to me,
the moonlight lodges and shines.
Meaning: Late in the night, upon the dew on the floating lotus leaves, the moonlight lodges, so that it looks like a jewel.
Commentary: Summer Poems 167

Headnote: "Dew on lotus leaves resembles jewels"
Late at night, the moonlight is reflected in the dew on floating lotus leaves, so that it sparkles like a jewel. The poet works out the topic "dew resembles jewels" by making the dew look like a jewel because it holds the moonlight, portraying the pure beauty of a summer night.
Likening the dew on lotus leaves to jewels has a precedent in the Kokin Wakashū poem by Archbishop Henjō asking why the lotus, unstained by muddy water, should deceive us by passing off dew as jewels.

Line 1: sayo means "night," with sa a prefix. Like "night must have grown deep" in 147, it marks the deepening of night.
Line 2 refers to lotus leaves floating on the water.
Line 3 means "upon the dew set on the floating leaves."
Line 4, "so that it seems a jewel," presents the "resembles jewels" of the topic.
Line 5 ends on a noun, giving last the moonlight reflected in the dew. In 150 the bird sang in the moonlight; here the moonlight lodges in a single drop of dew, so the same moonlight is sung at the scale of the vast night sky and of a tiny dewdrop.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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