山桜花の下風吹きにけり
木のもとごとの雪のむらぎえ
木のもとごとの雪のむらぎえ
- Roma-ji
-
Yamazakura hana no shitakaze fukinikeri ko no moto goto no yuki no muragie
- English Translation
-
Under the cherry
the low wind has come to blow
and at every root
the snow lies in scattered drifts
melting away in patches
- Meaning
- The wind has been through under the mountain cherries: at the foot of every tree lies snow, melted away in patches.
- Commentary
-
Book Two Spring Poems II 118
Headnote: composed when she had been invited by someone who was viewing the blossom.
The poem was written on being asked out to see the flowers. Fallen petals are seen as snow left in melting patches.
The poet, known as the mother of Prince Yasusuke, was a daughter of Ise no Taifu; her father was Takashina no Nariyori. In Book One she is the poet of the fiftieth poem.
The time is when the cherries fall; the place is beneath the trees.
The occasion was the invitation to view the blossom.
The first two lines name the wind that blows low under the trees, and place the agent of the scattering first.
An exclamatory auxiliary in the third line marks the recognition. The wind itself is not seen; it is inferred from the result.
The fourth line means at the foot of every tree, and the word for every shows the same sight repeated through a whole grove rather than under one tree.
The poem closes on a noun. The word for snow melted away in patches is used in the thirteenth and seventy-sixth poems of Book One, where it meant actual lingering snow; here it is a figure for fallen petals, and the same word turns from fact to comparison.
In her fiftieth poem in Book One this poet wrote of snow that carried the scent of plum; here the flowers look like snow, and the relation of the two is reversed.
- Author
- The Mother of Prince Yasusuke
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Sakura chiru haru no yamabe wa ukarikeri yo o nogare ni to koshi kai mo naku
- Next Poem
-
Harusame no soho furu sora no oyami sezu otsuru namida ni hana zo chirikeru