Ara oda no kozo no furuato no furuyomogi ima wa harube to hikobaenikeri

English Translation

In the rough rice field
on last year's abandoned ground
the old mugwort stands
and now, since the spring has come
it has put out shoots again

Meaning

In the untilled field, on the old ground of last year, the withered mugwort has sent up new shoots, as if to say that spring is here.

Commentary

Book One Spring Poems I 77

Headnote: topic unknown.
A run on the plants of the fields begins here. This poem shows withered mugwort in an untilled field putting out shoots from the root. The headnote gives no topic and nothing is known of the circumstances.
Sone no Yoshitada was a mid-Heian poet. From his post as a secretary in Tango he was known by a shortened name. He wrote outside the conventions of his day, and stories about his conduct have come down with his verse.
The time is early spring; the place is a field left uncultivated.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The first line names a field gone rough; the prefix on the word for field is rhythmic, and the phrase tells us no one has worked it.
The second and third lines repeat the word for old, piling it up to say that everything here is left over from last year. The repetition deepens the sense of neglect.
The fourth line means the season of spring, and a quotative particle makes the plant seem to have judged for itself that spring has come.
The word at the close names new growth rising from a stump or an old root, and an exclamatory auxiliary adds the tone of noticing.
What marks the poem is its choice of subject: not flowers but a weed on waste ground. The movement of life out of what had withered is caught without ornament.

Author

Sone no Yoshitada

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other