Hyakunin Isshu #7

    When I look up at
the distant plains of heaven,
    the moon that arose
over Mikasa Mountain
in the shrine of Kasuga!

—11 May 2010

Original by Abe no Nakamaro, who was sent in 714 to China to study, where he died 54 years later. Written at a farewell banquet before one of his attempts to return to Japan (he had bad travel luck). Kasuga Shrine, where envoys prayed before departing Japan, is at the foot of Mikasa Mountain near the then-capital Nara. The "in" sounds odd, but it is literal (naru = modern ni aru) -- possibly the mountain was in a town/district named after the shrine? Kamo was a poetic exclamation of the Nara period, but I'm having trouble finding out whether it had a questioning aspect like the modern ka mo. Leaving it as ! makes it easier to omit in English the copula that's missing in Japanese, but taking it as !? I get the alternate ending:

is that the moon that
rose over Mount Mikasa
in the shrine of Kasuga?

ama no hara
furisake mireba
kasuga naru
mikasa no yama ni
ideshi tsuki kamo

---L.