Mono omou ni toshi henikeri tote ayamegusa kyō o tabitabi sugushite zo shiru

English Translation

That the years have gone
by while I brooded — I learn it
now, having let this
day, the day of the sweet flag,
come round and pass, and pass again.

Meaning

That the years have gone by while I brooded I learn only now, having let this day of the sweet flag come round and pass, and pass again.

Commentary

78 The Fifth Month: Exchanges on the Cuckoo and the Sweet Flag

The fifth month came. Michitsuna sent the woman a poem on the cuckoo, and she answered it. Then on the fifth day of the fifth month, the festival of the sweet flag, he sent another on that plant, and again she answered.
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 fifth day of the fifth month is the festival at which sweet flag is hung under the eaves and scented balls are put up.
It is the fifth day of the fifth month of the first year of Tenen, the festival of the sweet flag, and the place is the woman's house at the foot of Mount Miwa.
On the day of the festival Michitsuna sent this poem to the woman.
She answered with "Tsumorikeru toshi no ayame mo omōezu kyō mo suginuru kokoro miyureba."

The opening means while he was sunk in thought, referring to days spent in love. The second means that the years have gone by. The third names the sweet flag hung up at the festival, the plant of that day. The fourth means: this same day, again and again — that is, the festival coming round year after year. That a day which occurs once a year should have been passed many times is itself the reckoning of the years, and this way of counting is the frame of the poem. The close is bound by an emphatic particle and states that only in passing them does he come to know it. Rather than counting days, he counts a landmark that returns once a year, so that a seasonal observance takes the place of a calendar. Michitsuna had composed on the sweet flag in the fifth month of the year before as well, so that the same festival has given occasion for an exchange two years running — which confirms how long this courtship has run.

Author

Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other