Tazunekite hana ni kuraseru ko no ma yori matsu to shi mo naki yama no ha no tsuki

English Translation

I came seeking it
and spent all day in blossom
and through the branches
though I was not waiting for
the moon at the mountain's edge

Meaning

I came out to find them and spent the whole day among the flowers; and through the branches, though I had not been waiting for it, the moon has come up over the ridge.

Commentary

Book One Spring Poems I 94

Headnote: from the time when he presented a fifty-poem sequence.
The sixteenth poem in the run on cherry blossom, on the end of a day spent among flowers. The original gives no fresh attribution, which indicates the same poet as before. The headnote refers to the presentation of a fifty-poem sequence.
The poet is Fujiwara no Masatsune, as in the previous poem.
The time is nightfall in spring; the place is a mountain in flower.
The occasion was the presentation of the fifty poems.

The first line means to have come on purpose. Saigyo's eighty-sixth poem set out to seek the blossom; this one comes after the arrival.
The second line, with a perfect auxiliary in the attributive form, means to have passed the day among the flowers.
The third line turns the eye to a gap in the branches: the same arrangement as the haze of the thirty-fifth poem and the break in the cloud of the seventy-third.
The fourth line, with an emphatic particle, means: not that I was waiting for it. Waiting for the moon belongs to autumn, and a man who has come in spring for blossom had no such object.
The poem closes on a noun. What was not sought appears of its own accord. Following the eighty-second poem, which met nightfall beneath the flowers, two pieces in turn set blossom against the coming of night.

Author

Fujiwara no Masatsune

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other