Ōchi saku sotomo no kokage tsuyu ochite samidare haruru kaze wataru nari

English Translation

Where the bead-tree blooms
the dew falls from the tree's shade
outside of my house
and the long rain has cleared off
and a wind is going through

Meaning

Under the flowering bead-tree outside the house the drops come down, and a wind is passing: the long rain has cleared.

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 234

Headnote: from the time when he presented a hundred-poem sequence.
The subject is the moment when the long rain finally lifts. The headnote assigns the poem to a hundred-poem sequence.
The poet, given by his court title, is Fujiwara no Tadayoshi (1164-1225), a son of Fujiwara no Tadamasa who rose to Major Counsellor. He is also the poet of the two hundred and forty-first piece.
The time is a break in the long rains; the place is the shade of a tree outside the house.
The occasion was the presentation of the hundred-poem sequence.
The tree named is the bead-tree, which bears pale purple flowers in early summer.

The first line names the flower, a tree written of as belonging to summer.
The word in the second line means the outer side of a house, and shows that the poet is looking outward from indoors.
The third line has the water collected on the leaves falling. That the rain has stopped is never stated; the sound of the drops says it.
The fourth line means that the long rain is clearing.
The auxiliary at the close marks inference from sound. The passing of the wind is heard, and from that the lifting of the rain is known. The run of long-rain poems, running since the two hundred and twenty-seventh, turns here to clear weather, and the change is registered by dripping and wind rather than by anything seen.

Author

Fujiwara no Tadayoshi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other