Yamazakura chirite miyuki ni magainaba izure ka hana to haru ni towanamu

English Translation

If the mountain bloom
falls and is confused with snow
let us put to spring
the question of which of them
is the flower, and let it say

Meaning

If the mountain cherries fall and cannot be told from the deep snow, let the question of which is the flower be put to spring itself.

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 107

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
From here the poems turn to falling blossom. This one imagines a moment when fallen cherry and snow can no longer be told apart, and hands the judgement to spring. The headnote carries over from the poem before.
Ise served the imperial consort Onshi under Emperor Uda. In Book One she is the poet of the sixty-fifth poem; Nakatsukasa of the thirty-ninth was her daughter.
The time is when the cherries fall; the place is a mountain.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The prefix on the word for snow in the second line marks it as deep-lying. Fallen petals and lying snow are set together on the ground.
The verb in the third line means to be mixed in and become indistinguishable, and the conditional form means: if that should happen. The supposition is made before it has.
The fourth line asks which is the flower, the phrasing of Morozane's hundred and second poem; there it was cloud and blossom, here snow and blossom. The subject of telling one from the other, running through Book One, continues into Book Two.
The final particle expresses a wish directed at another: let the question be asked of spring. Making the season itself the judge is the poem's device, handing to the party concerned a decision that people cannot make.

Author

Ise

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other