Omoitatsu tori wa furusu mo tanomuramu narenuru hana no ato no yūgure

English Translation

The bird that sets out
still counts upon the old nest
and I, who have grown
used to the flowers, am left
with the evening after them

Meaning

The bird that resolves to go must still be counting on its old nest; and here is the evening after the flowers I had grown used to.

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 154

Headnote: for the contest in fifteen hundred rounds.
The forlornness after the fall of the blossom is measured against a migrating bird: the bird has a nest to return to, and by implication the poet has not. The headnote assigns it to the contest in fifteen hundred rounds.
The Monk Jakuren, whose lay name was Fujiwara no Sadanaga, was a nephew and adopted son of Fujiwara no Shunzei. He was appointed one of the compilers of the Shin Kokin Wakashu but died before it was finished. In Book One he is the poet of the fifty-eighth and eighty-seventh poems.
The time is an evening after the cherries have fallen; no place is given.
The occasion was submission to the contest.

The first line means to resolve, to make up one's mind to depart, and refers to birds going north.
The word in the second line names a nest long used, as in Prince Koreakira's thirty-first poem in Book One; the particle carries the sense of a place to come back to as well as one to go toward.
The auxiliary in the third line expresses present conjecture: it must be relying on that.
The verb in the fourth line means to grow familiar with, the word used in Saigyo's hundred and twenty-sixth poem; both turn on the argument that familiarity makes the loss harder.
The poem closes on a noun. The bird has somewhere to return to; the one who grew used to the flowers has no flowers left. Only one side of the comparison is stated, and the other is left for the reader to supply.

Author

The Monk Jakuren

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other