Yakazu tomo kusa wa moenamu Kasugano o tada haru no hi ni makasetaranamu

English Translation

Without burning it
the grass will surely come up
on Kasuga moor
so leave it, I would have you
simply to the days of spring

Meaning

The grass will come up without any burning; let Kasuga moor be, and leave it to the sun of spring.

Commentary

Book One Spring Poems I 78

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
The second poem in the run on the plants of the fields. It takes up the custom of burning the moors in spring and argues that no burning is needed. The headnote carries over from the poem before.
This is Mibu no Tadami's second appearance in the book, after the twelfth poem. A son of Mibu no Tadamine, he is counted among the thirty-six immortals of poetry.
The time is early spring, the season of the burning; the place is Kasuga moor in Yamato Province, the same ground as the run on young herbs from the tenth to the thirteenth poems.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.
Burning off the moors in spring, to clear dead grass and help new growth, was a long-established practice.

The particle in the first line marks a concessive supposition: even without burning. The poem opens by denying the practice.
In the second line a perfect auxiliary and one of conjecture together give the sense that the grass will certainly come. Human help, the poem asserts, is not required.
The third line fixes the place.
The particle ending the poem sounds the same as the one in the second line but works differently, expressing a wish directed at others: let it be left alone. Repeating the sound at the end of two lines while changing its function is the poem's device. The word for the sun of spring also chimes with the name of the moor.
The previous poem found new growth on ground no one had touched; this one asks that no one touch it. Both take leaving things to nature for their subject, and they are placed together.

Author

Mibu no Tadami

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other