Fuyugomori yuki ni madoishi ori sugite kyō zo kakine no ume o tazunuru

English Translation

The season of being
shut in, of losing my way
in snow, is over;
and today, at last, I come
seeking the plum at your hedge.

Meaning

The season of being shut in, of losing my way in the snow, is over; and today at last I come seeking the plum at your hedge.

Commentary

82 The Birth Celebration of the Eleventh Month

There had been a birth at her father Tomoyasu's house in the eleventh month, and nothing had been done about it. Judging that the fiftieth day must now have come, the author had a basket made up all in white, as custom required, tied it to a branch of plum, and sent it with a poem. Her father returned a poem with a gift of a pale crimson robe.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. Tomoyasu was her father, who had served in a succession of provincial posts. The fiftieth-day celebration is the rite at which a child, fifty days after birth, is given rice cake to taste. Gifts sent for a birth were by custom prepared all in white.
It is about the fiftieth day after the birth in the eleventh month, and the places are the author's dwelling and her father Tomoyasu's house.
There had been a birth at Tomoyasu's house in the eleventh month, and nothing had been done about it. Judging that the fiftieth day must now have come, she had a basket made up all in white, as custom required, tied it to a branch of plum, and sent this poem with it.
Her father returned "Eda wakami yuki ma ni sakeru hatsuhana wa ikani to tou ni nioi masu kana," together with a gift of a pale crimson robe.

The opening names the keeping indoors of winter. The second means losing one's way in snow, so that the lateness of the congratulation is excused as the fault of being snowbound. The third means that the season has passed. The fourth means: today, at last, its emphatic particle governing the close and marking out this day, the fiftieth. The word for plum in the close names the tree, but since the occasion is the celebration of a birth it also sounds the verb for bearing a child. Since the basket was in fact tied to a branch of plum, the shape of the gift enters the poem directly. The turn of the season from winter to spring falls exactly over the passing of fifty days since the birth, and the image of a flower opening amid the snow suits the occasion. An apology for a late congratulation is turned into a matter of the weather, and as a poem to accompany a family gift it is well made.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other