Among the deep hills
it could not be told apart,
not one branch from all—
yet the cherry has revealed
itself now, by its blossoms
- Meaning
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Deep in the mountains it stood indistinguishable, no branch of it to be told from any other; and now, by its blossoms, the cherry has shown itself for what it is.
- Commentary
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Volume One: The Shaking of the Palanquins
The Enryaku-ji petition demanding punishment for Moritaka, governor of Kaga, and his deputy Moritsune went unanswered month after month. Losing patience, the monks of the mountain took up the sacred palanquins of Hiyoshi and poured into the capital. The court ordered the Minamoto and Taira houses to guard the palace gates; Taira no Shigemori held the three gates of Yōmei, Taiken, and Ikuhō with more than three thousand horsemen. Minamoto no Yorimasa, by contrast, was given three hundred and told to hold the north gate.
Seeing how badly he was outnumbered, Yorimasa sent a messenger to speak his mind plainly. The mountain's petition was just, and nothing would please him more than to let the palanquins through; but his force was small, and if he opened the gate so easily there was no telling what would be said of him afterward. To open it would be to defy an imperial command, and to close it would be to draw a bow against the Sannō deity he had revered for years. The eastern line was held by Shigemori with a large force—might they not enter there instead?
Many of the younger monks wanted to force their way in regardless, but the old monk Gōun, famed for his eloquence, held them back. Yorimasa, he said, was of the main Seiwa Genji line, a rare man accomplished in both arms and letters. As proof he cited this poem: at a court poetry gathering in the reign of Emperor Konoe, the topic "blossoms deep in the mountains" was set, and while everyone else labored over it, Yorimasa composed this on the spot and won the emperor's admiration. Could such a man of taste be shamed at a moment like this? At his words, several thousand monks, from the front ranks to the rear, agreed without a single objection and shouldered the palanquins away.
At Taiken Gate, however, they collided with Shigemori's force. Arrows stood thick in the sacred palanquins and many of the monks were shot down. In the end they abandoned the palanquins and fled back to Mount Hiei.
The topic was "blossoms deep in the mountains." Far back in the hills a cherry cannot be told from the trees around it, but once it flowers it is known at a glance. The implication is that what lies buried will show itself in its own season.
Yorimasa went long without advancement and reached the third rank only late in life. Read against that, the poem can be taken as a quiet statement of self-worth.
Its function in the story is considerable: a single poem turns back the blades of several thousand warrior monks. As a scene in which verse, not force, settles a matter, it stands out in the Tale of the Heike.
In Volume Four Yorimasa rises with Prince Mochihito and takes his own life at the Byōdō-in in Uji, leaving the poem "Like a buried tree that never came to flower, so bitter is the end my life has borne." Two poems about blossoms thus stand at the beginning and the end of his life.
miyamagi……trees growing deep in the mountains.
kozue……the topmost branches of a tree.
miezarishi……could not be distinguished.
arawarenikeri……came clearly into view.
sokudai……a topic set on the spot, to be answered at once.
gyokan……the emperor's admiration; his praise.
sanmon……Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei.
daishu……the body of monks of a temple; here, the warrior monks.
mikoshi-buri……carrying sacred palanquins to the court in armed protest.
Sannō……the deity of Hiyoshi Shrine, guardian of Enryaku-ji.
mokudai……a provincial governor's resident deputy.
Genzanmi……Minamoto no Yorimasa, so called from his appointment to the junior third rank.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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