花見つつ人まつ時は白妙の
袖かとのみぞあやまたれける
袖かとのみぞあやまたれける
- Roma-ji
-
Hana mitsutsu hito matsu toki wa shirotae no
sode ka to nomi zo ayamatarekeru - English Translation
-
gazing on the flowers,
while I wait for one to come—
white as fine cloth sleeves,
so I thought them and mistook
what I saw before my eyes
- Meaning
- While gazing at the flowers and waiting for someone to come, I mistook them for the white sleeves of a robe.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems (Part Two)
A poem composed on seeing a suhama in which a person waits for someone beneath chrysanthemum blossoms.
It expresses that the white chrysanthemums were mistaken for the sleeves of the person being awaited. In reality, such a mistake would not occur, but it suggests an illusion born from longing and anticipation.
- Author
- Ki no Tomonori
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- raised by autumn winds upon the shore of Fukiage, stand these white chrysanthemums— are they flowers, or could they be the waves that gather on the shore?
- drenched, I dry my robes on a mountain path, among chrysanthemums— within the space of this dew, when did I pass a thousand years?
- thinking it but one, this chrysanthemum I saw— in Ōsawa pond, even on the pond’s deep floor, who could have planted it so?
- while autumn chrysanthemums shine in all their fragrance, I shall wear them— for I know not my own life, if it end before these flowers