うゑしうゑば秋なき時や咲かざらむ
花こそ散らめ根さへ枯れめや
花こそ散らめ根さへ枯れめや
- Roma-ji
-
Ueshi ueba aki naki toki ya sakazaramu
hana koso chirame ne sae kareme ya - English Translation
-
if well and firmly
planted, will it not bloom again
when autumn returns?
though flowers may fall and scatter,
how could the root itself wither?
- Meaning
- If it is firmly planted, will it not bloom when autumn comes? Though the flowers may fall, the roots themselves will not wither.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems (Part Two)
A poem composed in connection with chrysanthemums planted in someone's garden.
“Will it not bloom when autumn comes?” implies that since there is no year without autumn, it will bloom every year. “How could the roots wither?” is a rhetorical expression meaning that even if the flowers fall, as long as the roots remain, they will bloom again. The repetition in “planted, planted” emphasizes firmness and care.
If “that person” is someone of special importance to the poet, the poem may also convey, implicitly, that the poet’s feelings toward them will not fade.
This poem is also included in *The Tales of Ise* and *The Tales of Yamato*.
- Author
- Ariwara no Narihira
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- for whose sake is it this brocade, that autumn mist should rise and veil it— hiding from sight the mountain slopes of Saho all in its embrace?
- on Mount Saho, though the hahaso leaves are pale in hue, yet all the same autumn has grown ever deeper— so it has come to be.
- in the lofty heights above the clouds where I behold these blooming chrysanthemums— they are mistaken, it would seem, for stars set in the heavens.
- still with its dew upon it, I shall pluck and wear the chrysanthemum— so that this autumn, which knows no aging, may endure and last for long unending days.