Mata ya mimu Katano no mino no sakuragari hana no yuki chiru haru no akebono

English Translation

Shall I see again
at Katano, the hunting
of the flowering
the snow of the blossom falls
at daybreak in the springtime

Meaning

Shall I ever see it again? The cherry-hunting on the imperial fields at Katano, the blossom falling like snow at daybreak in spring.

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 114

Headnote: when he wrote five poems at the residence of the Regent and Chancellor.
After the run on the scent of blossom, the poems turn to blossom-viewing. This one recalls a daybreak of cherry-hunting at Katano and asks whether it will ever be seen again. The headnote places it among five poems written at Yoshitsune's residence.
The poet, given by his court title, is Fujiwara no Shunzei; this is his second appearance in this book, after the hundredth poem.
The time is daybreak when the cherries are falling; the place is Katano in Kawachi Province, in what is now Katano and Hirakata in Osaka. Katano was an imperial hunting ground with a preserve set aside there.
The occasion was the writing of the five poems.
Behind the poem lies the scene in the Tales of Ise of Prince Koretaka's hunt and blossom-viewing at Katano; Narihira's poem, the hundred and fifth of this book, belongs to that same scene, so that the model and the poem that draws on it stand within one volume.

The first line joins an interrogative particle to an auxiliary of conjecture: shall I see it again? The tone is close to a rhetorical question, carrying the sense that he will not. The knowledge of his own age is in that one line.
The prefix in the second line marks the fields as imperial land.
The third line names the practice of going out into the hills in search of cherry blossom. Using the word for hunting chimes with Katano as a hunting ground.
The fourth line has the blossom falling like snow: the comparison that has run since Book One, applied here to the fall.
The poem closes on a noun, the same close as Sueyoshi's ninety-seventh poem in Book One. A remembered scene ends on a word for an hour of the day, and the question of the first line is left hanging.

Author

Fujiwara no Shunzei

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other