あわれなり老木若木も山桜
おくれ先だち花は残らじ
おくれ先だち花は残らじ
- Roma-ji
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Aware nari oiki wakagi mo yamazakura
okure sakidachi hana wa nokoraji - English Translation
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It is a sad thing:
old tree and young, both are still
mountain cherry trees—
one goes first, one after, and
not a blossom will remain
- Meaning
- A sad thing: old tree and young are alike mountain cherries. One falls first, one after, and not a blossom will be left.
- Commentary
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Volume Seven: Tsunemasa Leaves the Capital
After the exchange between the abbot and Tsunemasa, the Hōin Gyōkei, who was present, composed this. He had known Tsunemasa from the boy's earliest years and was among those seeing him off.
One man is leaving the capital and one is staying in the residence; one is young and one is old. Those who go and those who remain stand facing each other in the same room.
Old tree and young tree are set side by side and called alike mountain cherries. Difference in age counts for nothing at the one point where blossoms fall.
Okure sakidachi is dying later and dying first. The old do not necessarily go first; the young may go before them. Either way not one blossom remains.
That it is the one who stays who composes it makes the poem bitter. He will remain in the residence; Tsunemasa is going to war. By the natural order the old man should die first, and in fact the young man will—he does not say so, and states it instead as the way of cherry blossoms. It is built exactly as Giō's poem in Volume One was, where sprouting grass and withering grass are called grasses of one field.
Tsunemasa was killed at Ichi-no-tani the following year. Gyōkei had it right.
aware nari……it moves one deeply; it is a sad thing.
oiki……an aged tree.
wakagi……a young tree.
yamazakura……the wild mountain cherry.
okure sakidachi……being left behind and going on ahead; dying later and dying first.
nokoraji……will surely not remain.
Dainagon Hōin Gyōkei……a monk of Ninna-ji.
hōin……the highest rank in the clerical hierarchy.
- Author
- Jien
- Source
- Heike Monogatari
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