五月闇木の下闇の暗ければ
おのれ惑ひて鳴く郭公
おのれ惑ひて鳴く郭公
- Roma-ji
-
Satsukiyami ko no shitayami no kurakereba onore madoite naku hototogisu
- English Translation
-
In the fifth-month dark,
the darkness under the trees
grows so very dark
that losing its own way
the cuckoo cries aloud.
- Meaning
- In the darkness of the fifth month, the shadows beneath the trees are so dark that the cuckoo, losing its own way, cries out.
- Commentary
-
Love Poems 507
Headnote: "Love in summer"
On a dark night of the fifth month, the shade beneath the trees is so deep that the cuckoo loses its way and cries; the poet lays over it his own weeping, lost in the darkness of love.
The Ruijū text titles it "On love in summer." Kamo no Mabuchi marked this poem with a circle.
Line 1 names the moonless dark of the rainy season.
Line 2 means "the dark beneath the trees," repeating yami to deepen the darkness.
Line 3 means "since it is dark."
Line 4 means "losing its own way," overlaid with the poet lost in love; like onore nomi in 412, it uses onore.
Line 5 ends on a noun. As with the cuckoo of 408, the bird's cry and the poet's weeping overlap.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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