春ごとに花のさかりはありなめど
あひ見む事はいのちなりけり
あひ見む事はいのちなりけり
- Roma-ji
-
Haru goto ni hana no sakari wa arinamedo
aimimu koto wa inochi narikeri - English Translation
-
Though every spring
the blossoms reach their height,
as they always will,
to see them in full bloom—
that depends upon my life.
- Meaning
- Though each spring the blossoms surely come into their full bloom, to behold that sight depends upon my being alive.
- Commentary
-
Book II, Spring Poems (Part Two)
Though spring returns again and again and flowers bloom in their glory, the joy of seeing them comes only with life itself—thus expressing a keen awareness of one’s own mortality.
Spring comes repeatedly, yet a human life gradually declines. Perhaps the poet felt the approach of age, illness, or death.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Come, today, let us mingle in the springtime hills; even if evening falls, will there not be blossoms’ shade?
- How long, I wonder, shall my heart wander, drawn to the spring fields? If the blossoms did not fall, I could spend a thousand years here.
- If, like the blossoms, the world were ever constant, as they return each year, then even what has passed away might come again once more.
- If one could command the wind that blows as it will, then I would say: pass by this single tree, and leave it untouched.