Kawazu naku Kannabigawa ni kage miete ima ka sakuramu yamabuki no hana

English Translation

Where the frogs are loud
in the river Kannabi
a shadow appears
and is it opening now
the flower of the kerria

Meaning

In the Kannabi, where the frogs are calling, a shadow shows on the water: has the kerria come into flower by now?

Commentary

Book Two Spring Poems II 161

Headnote: topic unknown.
The fourth poem in the run on kerria. From a reflection on the water the poet reasons that the flowers must be open. The headnote gives no topic and nothing is known of the circumstances.
Prince Atsumi was a poet of the Nara period whose work survives in the Man'yoshu.
The time is the end of spring; the place is the Kannabi River. The name refers to a hill where a deity dwells, and to the river running below it.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.
The poem is preserved in Book Eight of the Man'yoshu under Prince Atsumi's name. The text carries a note recording that some copies read the fourth line with a different interrogative particle.

The word in the first line means frogs. Pairing kerria with frogs is an old convention, and the poem that follows uses the same combination.
The second line fixes the place.
The third line means that a shadow shows on the water. Not the flower itself but its reflection is given.
In the fourth line an interrogative particle and an auxiliary of present conjecture together ask whether they are open by now.
The poem closes on a noun. Seeing a reflection and inferring the flowering without looking up is the whole construction, a judgement made without direct sight. It is the method of Saigyo's seventh poem in Book One, which reasoned about water running under moss.

Author

Prince Atsumi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other