Kai nakute toshi henikeri to nagamureba tamoto mo hana no iro ni koso shime

English Translation

Thinking how the years
have gone by and come to nothing,
I gaze — and find that
even my sleeves have taken
the color of these flowers.

Meaning

Thinking how the years have gone by and come to nothing, I gaze — and find that even my sleeves have taken the color of these flowers.

Commentary

75 The Exchange on the Red Plum in the Second Month

The year turned to the first of Tenen. Kaneie's visits were frequent at this time. In the second month, when the red plum was in beautiful flower and its scent hung about, Michitsuna broke off a spray and sent it to the woman with a poem. She answered it.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. Michitsuna was her son, nineteen that year. The woman is the one the text calls the Yamato-seeming person, and she is unnamed. The red plum is the deeper-colored variety, which blooms in the second month.
It is the second month of the first year of Tenen, and the place is the woman's house at the foot of Mount Miwa.
The red plum was in beautiful flower and its scent hung about; Michitsuna broke off a spray and sent this poem with it to the woman.
She answered with "Toshi o hete nadoka ayanaku sora ni shimo hana no atari o tachi wa somekemu."

The opening means to no purpose, referring to the days that passed with no reply; the series of poems begun in the eighth month of the year before came to nothing, and he now looks back on it across the turn of the year. The second means that a year has gone by. The third means to gaze while sunk in thought, covering at once the act of looking at the flowers and the state of his mind. The fourth means that even his sleeves have taken the flowers' color. The verb at the close means both that a color soaks in and that something sinks into the heart, and on it the poem turns. Since the red plum is the deeper-colored variety, the idea that its color should transfer to a sleeve comes easily; and at the same time the line carries the sense of sleeves wet with tears turned crimson, with the old figure of tears of blood behind it. Since the poem is sent tied to the flower he has broken off, the color of the gift is the substance of the verse — the same reliance on color as in the previous year's poem, which made white paper into a white beach.

Author

Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other