Chiri chirazu obotsukanaki wa harugasumi tanabiku yama no sakura narikeri

English Translation

Fallen or not yet
and what I cannot make out
through the haze of spring
is the cherry on the hills
where the long cloud lies trailing

Meaning

Fallen or not, I cannot tell: it is the cherry on the hills where the spring haze lies trailing.

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 115

Headnote: when he wrote a poem on blossom.
The subject is distant cherry whose state cannot be known because haze lies between. The headnote gives blossom as the occasion.
Hafuribe no Narinaka (1099-1191) served as a priest of the Hie Shrine.
The time is when the cherries fall; the place is a distant hillside under haze.
The occasion was the writing of a poem on blossom.

The first line pairs an affirmative with a negative to say that it cannot be known. Jien's ninety-fifth poem in Book One opens with the same words, but there the reason is that nobody comes to look, and here it is that haze intervenes: one phrasing serving two situations.
The adjective in the second line means indistinct, and also troubling.
The third line gives the cause of the uncertainty.
The fourth line names hills across which the haze trails. As in the hundred and second and hundred and third poems, a distant view divided by haze or cloud is the subject.
An exclamatory auxiliary at the close marks the recognition: so that is what was troubling me. What troubles the speaker is stated first and identified only at the end.

Author

Hafuribe no Narinaka

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other