みな人のその香にめづるふぢばかま
君のみためと手折りたる今日
君のみためと手折りたる今日
- Roma-ji
-
Minahito no sono ka ni mezuru fujibakama kimi nomi tame to taoritaru kyō
- English Translation
-
The thoroughwort that
all the world delights in for
its scent — and today
I have broken off a spray
for you, and for you alone
- Meaning
- The thoroughwort that all the world delights in for its scent — today I have broken off a spray for you, and for you alone.
- Commentary
-
153 Thoroughwort
While the emperor at Nara was on the throne, the Emperor Saga was still Crown Prince, and on one occasion he presented "Minahito no sono ka ni mezuru fujibakama kimi nomi tame to taoritaru kyō" to him. The emperor's reply was "Oru hito no kokoro ni kayou fujibakama mube iro koto ni nioitarikeri". That is the whole of the section.
The emperor at Nara is Emperor Heizei, and the Emperor Saga is his brother. The thoroughwort is one of the seven plants of autumn, valued for its scent.
The setting is the period when the Emperor Saga was still Crown Prince. The thoroughwort tells us it is autumn.
What prompted the poem was his breaking off a spray. It went with the flower to the emperor.
He answered it, and the exchange closes the section.
The opening notes that everyone delights in its scent, establishing the flower's general fame.
The thoroughwort is one of the seven plants of autumn, whose fragrance comes out as it dries; the second half of its name is the word for a garment worn over the legs.
The particle in the fourth line limits it: a flower loved by everyone, picked for one person only. Many and one are set against each other.
The poem ends on the day of the picking, named and left standing. He grants that the flower is admired by all, and then restricts the gift to a single recipient; flower and poem work as one thing.
- Source
- Yamato Monogatari
- Other
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- Down the Tatsuta the autumn leaves come scattered and tangled, it seems — and were I to cross, that brocade would surely part in the middle
- What is thought and not spoken — that is the greater by far, and I say nothing: not of Iwate not of the bird, nothing more
- The heart of the one who broke it off has passed in- to this thoroughwort — no wonder, then, that its colour glows as no other's does
- Whose purification is this cock with its streamers that on Tatsuta — where the Chinese robe is cut — goes on and on with its crying