When I breathe the scent
Of tachibana flowers that wait
For the Fifth Month’s time,
It is the fragrance that clings
To the sleeves of one long past.
- Meaning
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When I breathe the fragrance of tachibana blossoms that bloom in the Fifth Month, it recalls the scent that once clung to the sleeves of the one I loved long ago.
- Commentary
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60. Waiting for the Fifth Month
There was a certain man. While he was busy with duties at court and could not treat his wife with proper devotion, she followed another man who promised to love her sincerely and went away with him to the provinces.
The man, who had once been her husband, was later appointed an official dispatched to Usa Shrine and set out on the journey. Along the way, he heard that the wife of the official responsible for lodging and entertaining traveling officials had once been his own wife.
"Have the woman, the wife of this attendant, pour the sake," he said.
The attendant could not disobey the order, and the woman came forward holding the cup.
The poem was composed when he saw the woman who came to pour the sake; taking a tachibana orange that had been served as a dish with the wine, he recited it.
The woman, recalling that she had once left her former husband, was overcome with unbearable feelings and later took religious vows, withdrawing to live in the mountains.
What feelings did the man have when he faced his former wife? Using his authority as an official, he forced her to appear before him. Yet, as the poem suggests in calling her "one long past," any thought of taking her back may already have faded. Perhaps he only wished to see her once more, remembering the past with a trace of longing.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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Having grown weary of living,
Now at last, I shall seek
A dwelling in the mountain village
Where I may hide myself,
For this, I fear, is my final time.
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Upon my very self
Dew now seems to fall and rest—
Could it be, I wonder,
Drops from the oar of the boat
That crosses the Milky Way?
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Should one cross the stream
Called the River of Dyeing,
How could it be so
That no color would cling fast
To the person passing through?
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If true to its name,
Then Tawared Isle must be
But vain and inconstant—
They say it wears, as a robe,
The wet sleeves of the waves.