いたずらに過ぐす月日は思ほえで
花見てくらす春ぞすくなき
花見てくらす春ぞすくなき
- Roma-ji
-
Itazura ni sugusu tsukihi wa omooede
hana mite kurasu haru zo sukunaki - English Translation
-
idly passing by
the months and days I do not feel—
yet when I behold
the spring spent gazing at blossoms
how few such seasons there are
- Meaning
- The months and days that pass idly I scarcely notice, yet when I spend spring gazing at blossoms, I feel how few such seasons there are.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitations
A poem composed upon seeing a screen painting, prepared for the fiftieth celebration of Prince Sadayasu’s consort, depicting people viewing cherry blossoms as they fall.
At such banquets, it was customary to compose poems based on the scenes painted on folding screens. The poem reflects that while ordinary days pass unnoticed, the springs spent admiring blossoms feel few, perhaps a sentiment born of long life, adding a reflective tone even within a celebratory context.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Okikaze
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- cherry blossoms scatter, whirl, and cloud the way— so that the path by which old age is said to come may lose itself and stray
- from Kame-no-o along the rooted mountain rocks falling, the cascade— its white jeweled drops, could they be the count of your thousand years
- when spring arrives first to bloom at my dwelling— the plum blossoms there I behold them as adornment for your thousand years of life
- whether in ages past such a thing has ever been I do not know— but as the first of a thousand years let it begin with you