誘はれぬ人のためとや残りけん
明日よりさきの花の白雪
明日よりさきの花の白雪
- Roma-ji
-
Sasowarenu hito no tame to ya nokorikemu asu yori saki no hana no shirayuki
- English Translation
-
Was it left behind
for the one who was not asked
that it lingers still
the white snow of the blossom
kept back from tomorrow's fall
- Meaning
- Was it kept, then, for the one who was not invited? This white snow of blossom, fallen before tomorrow came.
- Commentary
-
Book Two Spring Poems II 136
Headnote: a reply.
This answers the previous poem. Accepting the request to see the flowers as snow, the poet asks whether they were kept back for him, who was not asked along to the viewing.
The poet, given as Regent and Chancellor, is Fujiwara no Yoshitsune, a son of the Regent Fujiwara no Kanezane and author of the Japanese preface to the Shin Kokin Wakashu. In Book One he is the poet of the first, twenty-third, sixty-first, sixty-second and sixty-sixth poems.
The season is that of the previous poem.
The occasion was the arrival of Go-Toba's poem with its petals.
The first line means the one who was not invited: the poet himself. It takes up the headnote's account of a private outing, with a light reproach at not having been included.
An interrogative particle in the second line governs the auxiliary in the third.
That auxiliary expresses past conjecture: they must have been left for that. The petals that arrived are received as having been saved for him.
The fourth line means before tomorrow could come.
The poem closes on a noun, taking up the previous poem's request and calling the flowers white snow. Answering in the sender's own words is the practice of poems of exchange, the method of Daini no Sanmi's forty-ninth poem in Book One.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Kyō dani mo niwa o sakari to utsuru hana kiezu wa ari tomo yuki ka to mo miyo
- Next Poem
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Yae niou nokiba no sakura utsuroinu kaze yori saki ni tou hito mogana