Sayo fukete nakaba fukeyuku tsukikage ni akade ya hito no koromo utsuramu

さ夜更けてなかば更けゆく月影に
飽かでや人の衣打つらむ

Roma-ji: Sayo fukete nakaba fukeyuku tsukikage ni akade ya hito no koromo utsuramu
English Translation: As the night grows late,
in the moonlight sinking on
past the middle hour,
never tiring, do they still
keep on beating at their cloth?
Meaning: The night grows late, and in the moonlight deepening past midnight, do they go on beating their cloth, never tiring?
Commentary: Autumn Poems 288

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Beating cloth before the moon"
As the night grows late and deepens on past midnight under the moonlight, the poet wonders whether someone is still beating cloth, never tiring of it. In the sound of the fulling block that carries on all night, he surmises the depth of feeling of the one who beats the cloth.
This poem was included in the Shingoshūi Wakashū. The Ruijū and Teika texts give line 2 as nakaba takeyuku, and because this variant appears alongside the text in the source consulted, it has been taken as nakaba fukeyuku in light of the note.

Line 1: sa is a prefix, "the night grows late."
Line 2 means "growing ever later past the middle of the night," repeating the fukete of line 1 to stress the depth of night.
Line 3 means "in the moonlight."
Line 4: akade means "without tiring," and ya is an interrogative binding particle.
Line 5 concludes ya with the attributive of the present conjectural ramu. Whereas the preceding poem, 287, knew of the cloth-beating by its sound, this one surmises the heart of the one who beats.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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