Hana no ka ni koromo wa fukaku narinikeri ko no shitakage no kaze no manimani

English Translation

With the flowers' fragrance
my robe has grown deeply steeped
here in the shadow
beneath the trees, and just as
the wind would have it, no more

Meaning

My robe has taken the scent of the flowers deeply, standing in the shade beneath the trees, just as the wind chose.

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 111

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
Three poems on the scent of blossom follow. This is the first: standing beneath the trees, the poet's robe takes their fragrance. The original gives no fresh headnote.
This is Tsurayuki's second appearance in this book, after the hundred and eighth poem.
The time is the cherry season; the place is beneath a flowering tree.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.

The particle in the first line marks cause.
The adjective in the second line describes colour or scent soaked deeply in. A word from dyeing is turned on fragrance, so that something invisible is said to take a dye.
An exclamatory auxiliary in the third line adds the sense of noticing what had happened unobserved.
The fourth line names the shade under the trees, and in that one word gives the length of time spent standing there.
The closing phrase means as the wind pleased. The scent was not sought; it settled while the poet left things to the air. Where Teika's forty-fourth poem in Book One set plum scent and moonlight quarrelling on a sleeve, this poem describes the taking of the scent itself, and so opens the run properly.

Author

Ki no Tsurayuki

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other