Ikade kaku toshigiri mo senu tane mogana areyuku niwa no kage to tanomamu

English Translation

How I wish for such
a seed as that — one that will
not fail from year to
year, to be the shade I trust
in this garden going wild

Meaning

How I wish for such a seed — one that will not fail from year to year, to be the shade I can trust in this garden going wild.

Commentary

120 The Plum That Bloomed at Last

The Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadahira had held ministerial office for a long time, while Fujiwara no Nakahira, known as the Minister of Biwa, had not been able to become a minister at all; and at the celebration when at last he did, Tadahira put a plum spray in his hair and composed "Osoku toku tsui ni sakikeru ume no hana ta ga ueokishi tane ni ka aruramu". When an account of that day, with the poem, was written out to be sent to the High Priestess of Ise, Yoshiko, a daughter of Fujiwara no Sadakata, added "Ikade kaku toshigiri mo senu tane mogana areyuku niwa no kage to tanomamu" to it. Her wish was answered: Fujiwara no Saneyori began to visit her, she was blessed with children, and the family prospered. At that time the High Priestess sent "Hanazakari haru wa mi ni komu toshigiri mo sezu to iu tane wa oinu to ka kiku". That is the whole of the section.
Fujiwara no Tadahira rose to Chancellor and appears in the ninety-seventh through ninety-ninth sections. Fujiwara no Nakahira was his elder brother by the same mother, and appears in the sixty-eighth section as the lord of Biwa, exchanging poems with Toshiko. Yoshiko was a daughter of Fujiwara no Sadakata and appears as the Lady of the Bedchamber of Sanjō in the ninety-fourth through ninety-sixth sections. Fujiwara no Saneyori was Tadahira's eldest son, and sends her a poem in the ninety-sixth.
The setting is the writing out of that day's account, with the poem, to be sent to the High Priestess.
What prompted her poem was finding Tadahira's poem in the letter. She added her own beside it.
Her wish was answered: Saneyori began to visit her, she was blessed with children, and the family prospered. From there the section goes on to the High Priestess's reply. Her poem was later included in the Gosen-shū.

The opening wishes for such a seed as that, taking up the word from Tadahira's poem.
A seed that does not fail from year to year is one that never misses a season — that is, a line that continues.
The particle in the third line marks the wish.
The closing asks for shade to trust in a garden going wild; the word for shade means the shadow of a tree and also protection. Yoshiko, whom the Prince of the Ministry of Ceremonial had stopped visiting in the ninety-fifth section, makes her want of a protector into an untended garden. She takes the seed of the previous poem exactly as it stands and turns a poem of congratulation into a petition of her own — and the prose records that the petition was granted.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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