Sorasamumi hananimagaete chiruyukini sukoshiharuaru kokochikososure

English Translation

The sky being cold
and mistaken for blossom
this snow as it falls —
there is in it, faintly held
the feeling of a little spring

Meaning

The sky being cold, in this snow that falls as though mistaken for blossom, there is the feeling of a little spring.

Commentary

106 Around the End of the Second Month

Toward the end of the second month, when the wind was blowing hard, the sky was black with cloud and a little snow was drifting down, a palace attendant came to the Black Door with what he said was a letter from the Consultant. On the folded paper stood only the words: there is the feeling of a little spring. It matched the day exactly, but how was she to cap it? She asked who was present and was given a string of names — all of them formidable, and a reply to the Consultant in particular could be no ordinary thing. She could not show it to the Empress, who was asleep, and the attendant kept urging her to hurry. Thinking that a poor verse delivered late would have nothing to recommend it, she gave up worrying, wrote with a trembling hand, and handed it over.

The Consultant is Fujiwara no Kintō, son of the Chancellor Yoritada, and the foremost man of letters of his day, accomplished in Japanese verse, Chinese poetry and music alike. The one who reported how the reply was received was the gentleman then serving as Captain of the Left Gate Guards and Middle Captain. Toshikata is Minamoto no Toshikata, who later rose to the Council of State.

The time is the end of the second month, a cold day of drifting snow; the place is near the Black Door of the palace.

The immediate occasion is Kintō sending down only the closing lines and asking for an opening. The author longed to know what he had thought of her reply, and was afraid to ask.

Later the Captain of the Left Gate Guards told her that those who saw the reply had gathered over it, and that Toshikata and the others had resolved to petition the Emperor to appoint her a palace attendant.

Kintō's lines render into Japanese the sense of a couplet by Bai Juyi, in which the hills of the second month are still cold and spring is barely present. An emphatic particle binds the perfective ending, so that the whole weight falls on that word: a little.

The author's opening answers the question of where that little spring is to be found. The first line uses a construction meaning because it is cold, giving both cause and scene at once. The second line makes the falling snow mistakable for blossom, and the third hands directly over to the closing lines, so that the feeling of spring arises from the snow itself.

By naming the cold first and then laying the blossom over it, the reply gives the closing lines a footing: the little spring is not a sentiment but the instant of an optical mistake. A question built on a Chinese couplet is answered not with Chinese learning or allusion but with the single sight in front of her — the same manoeuvre as in "Ranshōkaji kinchōka kusanoiorio tarekatazunen," though here the exchange takes the linked-verse form and the two halves stand as one poem.

Author

Sei Shōnagon (opening lines), Fujiwara no Kintō (closing lines)

Source

Makura no Soshi

Other