夜もすがら

物思ふ頃は

明けやらぬ

閨のひまさへ

つれなかりけり

しゅんえほうし

よもすがら

ものおもうころは

あけやらぬ

ねやのひまさえ

つれなかりけり

The Monk Shun'e

All night long

Thinking he is coming,

With dawn still absent

Even the bedroom shutters

Only admit darkness.  

Hokusai

Shune Hoshi (1113 - ?) was the son of Minamoto no Toshiyori (poem 74). One of his poetry students was Kamo no Chomei, who wrote the Mumyo Sho (Nameless Notes) containing notes about his teacher. His poems are collected in the Rinyo Shu. He is one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets and has eighty-four poems in imperial collections.

This poem is supposed to have been composed on a set theme (love); the person speaking is a woman. Some editions of this anthology have in line three yarade instead of yaranu, making akeyarade something like ‘the dawn does not come’. Hima can mean ‘gap, interval, leisure time’.

Hokusai’s drawing is fairly simple, a woman looking out, and only seeing the moon of dawn. No one in sight, alas.