Natsuyama ni nakunaru semi no kogakurete aki chikashi to ya koe mo oshimamu

夏山に鳴くなる蟬の木隠れて
秋近しとや声も惜しまむ

Roma-ji: Natsuyama ni nakunaru semi no kogakurete aki chikashi to ya koe mo oshimamu
English Translation: In the summer hills
the cicadas I hear singing,
hidden in the trees—
is it since autumn draws near
that they cherish so their voice?
Meaning: The cicadas I hear singing, hidden among the trees of the summer hills—knowing autumn is near, do they cling to their voices with regret?
Commentary: Summer Poems 170

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On the theme 'Fireflies fly in disarray; autumn is already near'"
Hearing cicadas singing in the shade of the summer hills, the poet wonders whether, knowing autumn is near, they sing as if loath to let their voices go. As the height of summer passes and autumn presses in, he entrusts to the cicadas' song the heart that grieves for a summer that cannot last.
In the source there appears to be no new topic before this poem, which is taken to stand under the topic of the preceding poem, so the headnote is treated as continued. The Teika text gives the last line as koe mo oshimanu, meaning the cicadas sing without sparing their voices. In the source text consulted, a character at the start of line 3 could not be read and has been supplied from the Teika text's kogakurete.

Line 1 refers to the leafy hills of summer.
Line 2: naru is the attributive of nari, which infers from sound, showing the cicadas are known by their voices.
Line 3, "hidden in the trees," like the hototogisu of 149, lets only a voice ring out without showing a form.
Line 4: ya is an interrogative binding particle, asking "thinking that autumn is near?" It takes up the last line of the preceding poem, 169, "is autumn drawing near," carrying on the "autumn is already near" of the topic.
Line 5 concludes ya with the attributive of the conjectural mu, overlaying the cicadas' voices with regret for the passing summer.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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