Matsu hodo no kinō suginishi hana no e wa kyō oru koto zo kai nakarikeru

English Translation

The branch of blossom
whose yesterday, the day I
waited, has gone by —
what use is there in breaking
it off today, what use at all?

Meaning

The flowering branch whose day — the yesterday I spent waiting — is already gone: there is no use in breaking it off today.

Commentary

8 The Peach Festival and the Parting from Her Sister

The year turned and the third month came. Peach blossoms and the rest had no doubt been made ready, but though she waited, Kaneie did not appear; and the other lady, who was usually never away from her side, did not come that day either. On the morning of the fourth they all appeared together, and saying that the things she had waited over since the night before were better used than left, they brought out this and that. When the flowers she had prepared with such care were broken off and set out from within, there was written on them, in the hand of one who could not keep her composure, a poem jotted down as if in idle practice. Kaneie, seeing her try to hide it, snatched it up and made his reply. The other lady, hearing this, put into a poem of her own the reason she had stayed away. From this time Kaneie made no secret of his visits to the woman of Machi no Kōji, going openly and on purpose. Once there had been at least some care not to rouse the author's suspicions; now there was nothing to be done, and it was wretched. Moreover, while she was still watching the other lady come and go, they said it was time she moved somewhere easier, and took her away. The author, left behind, felt lonelier still, and the thought that she would hardly see her face again made her truly sad, so that as the carriage was drawn up she sent her a poem. It was the man who answered.
Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke and at this time Assistant Commander of the Right Guards; he would rise to be regent and chancellor. The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The other lady is a sister of the author, whom the text names by that designation alone. The woman of Machi no Kōji likewise appears under that name only, her family never disclosed.
It is the morning of the fourth day of the third month of the tenth year of Tenryaku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
The flowers prepared for the festival of the third day were brought out only on the following day, after all her waiting; unable to steady herself, she wrote this poem down as though in idle practice.
Kaneie saw her trying to hide it, snatched it up, and answered with "Michitose o mitsubeki mi ni wa toshigoto ni suku ni mo aranu hana to shirasemu." After this exchange the affair of the woman of Machi no Kōji comes fully into the open, and the parting from her sister follows.

The first two lines mean that the yesterday she spent waiting has already gone by, referring to his failure to come on the day of the festival itself. The word in the third line means a branch, here the flowers made ready for the peach festival. The fourth line speaks of breaking off the branch today, after the day has passed, and its emphatic particle governs the closing phrase. That phrase means to no purpose, without use. To say that a flower is not worth breaking once its day is past is to entrust to the blossom her resentment over a single day of waiting. As the narrative itself notes, she wrote it without composure and as idle practice, not as a poem meant to be sent; and that circumstance accounts for the tone of the whole.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other