Asu kara wa wakana tsumamu to shimeshi no ni kinō mo kyō mo yuki wa furitsutsu

English Translation

From tomorrow on
I would gather the young herbs
so I marked the field
yet yesterday and today
the snow keeps on falling still

Meaning

I marked out the field, meaning to gather young herbs there from tomorrow; and yesterday and today alike, the snow goes on falling.

Commentary

Book One Spring Poems I 11

Headnote: topic unknown.
This poem opens a run on the gathering of young herbs. Where the preceding poem set lingering snow against new grass, this one shows a field, already claimed for herb-gathering, shut in by snow. The headnote gives no topic and nothing is known of the circumstances.
Yamabe no Akahito, whose dates are unrecorded, was a poet of the Nara period and one of the great figures of the Man'yoshu. He is spoken of together with Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, and the Japanese preface to the Kokin Wakashu names him among the masters of the art.
The season is the time of the New Year herb-gathering; the place is a field the poet has marked for himself.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.
The poem is preserved in Book Eight of the Man'yoshu under Akahito's name, and the Shin Kokin Wakashu takes it from there.

The auxiliary in the second line expresses intention: from tomorrow I shall gather them. Gathering young herbs was a New Year observance, held on the first day of the Rat and other such days, and eating the herbs was thought to bring health.
The verb in the third line means to set a rope or a branch as a marker and so claim a place as one's own. In a single word the poem tells us the ground had been secured in advance.
The fourth line stacks the days, yesterday and today alike, and by stacking them measures the length of the waiting.
The continuative particle at the close leaves the poem unresolved, the snow still coming down. The thought left unsaid is that the days are passing and the herbs remain ungathered.
The situation is plain enough: everything readied, and the weather against it. But the feeling of waiting is never stated, only implied by the fact of falling snow, and in that restraint lies the strength characteristic of Man'yoshu verse.

Author

Yamabe no Akahito

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other