桜花咲かば先づ見んと思ふ間に
日数経にけり春の山里
日数経にけり春の山里
- Roma-ji
-
Sakurabana sakaba mazu mimu to omou ma ni hikazu henikeri haru no yamazato
- English Translation
-
When the cherries bloom
I shall be first to see them
so I thought, and while
I thought so the days went by
in the mountain village, spring
- Meaning
- When the cherries open I shall be the first to see them, I thought; and while I was thinking so the days went by, here in the mountain village in spring.
- Commentary
-
Book One Spring Poems I 80
Headnote: composed on the theme of waiting for blossom at a mountain house, when Retired Emperor Shirakawa was at Toba and the company wrote on that subject.
The second poem in the run on cherry blossom, on the waiting for flowers. The topic named is waiting for blossom at a house in the hills, one of a set written when Shirakawa was at his Toba palace.
Fujiwara no Takatoki was a poet of the late Heian period.
The time is spring, before the cherries open; the place is a village in the hills.
The occasion was the set topic. Retired Emperor Shirakawa (1053-1129), after his abdication, built a palace at Toba and held gatherings there often.
The first two lines join a conditional with an auxiliary of intention: if they bloom, I shall be first to see.
The third line means: while I was thinking so. The gap between intention and event opens here.
An exclamatory auxiliary in the fourth line marks the realisation that the days have gone. The time spent waiting has passed without being noticed.
The poem closes on a noun. Putting the place last brings up the picture of one person waiting on alone in that mountain village.
The previous poem accounted for a late season by the weather; this one measures it by the time of the person waiting. The two treat a spring without blossom from outside and from within, and make a pair.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Takatoki
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- 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
- On Yoshino's slopes the snow falls on the branches of the cherry trees and this is one of those years when the blossom will be late
- This heart of mine has gone wandering to the spring hills and the long, long day I have let it pass again and spent today as before
- We who are like minds not knowing where we have come the day has grown dark lend us your flowering house you warbler of the meadows