Natsugoromo kite ikuka ni ka narinuramu nokoreru hana wa kyō mo chiritsutsu

English Translation

In my summer robe
how many days have I passed
since I put it on
for the flowers left behind
are falling again today

Meaning

How many days is it since I put on the summer robe? The flowers that were left are falling again today.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 178

Headnote: on the theme of today, the day after seeing the spring off.
The third poem on the change of clothes, on the border between the seasons, where blossom is still falling though summer has begun. The topic named is the day that follows the departure of spring.
Minamoto no Michinari (?-1019) was a mid-Heian poet, counted among the thirty-six immortals of poetry.
The time is the beginning of summer; no place is given.
The occasion was the set topic.

The first line places at the head of this poem the noun on which the two before it ended, so that three poems turn on one word.
An interrogative particle in the second line governs the auxiliary in the third; the verb for wearing runs straight into the counting of days since the change of clothes.
The third line joins a perfect auxiliary to one of present conjecture. That the days had gone uncounted is what the question reveals.
The fourth line means the flowers that had not yet fallen, the idea of Michinobu's hundred and sixty-seventh poem in Book Two.
A continuative particle closes the poem without a full stop. Summer has come and the flowers have still not finished falling, so that the seasons overlap. Book One repeatedly held snow and spring in one scene; the same device is used here between spring and summer.

Author

Minamoto no Michinari

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other