Hototogisu hanatachibana no ka o tomete naku wa mukashi no hito ya koishiki

English Translation

The cuckoo has found
the orange blossom's fragrance
and follows it, and
if it calls, is it longing
for someone it knew of old

Meaning

The cuckoo seeks out the scent of the orange blossom and cries: is it longing for someone it knew long ago?

Commentary

Book Three Summer Poems 244

Headnote: as in the preceding poem, topic unknown.
The seventh poem on orange blossom. The cuckoo is said to follow the scent, so that the bird too is given a memory. The original gives neither a fresh headnote nor a fresh attribution.
As before, the poet is recorded only as unknown.
The time is the orange season; no place is given.
The occasion of composition is not recorded.
The cuckoo and the orange both belong to the fifth month and are often paired.

The first line names the bird, which returns here inside the run on orange after filling the first half of this book.
The verb in the third line means to seek out, to look for, so that the bird is taken to be following the scent as it calls.
The fourth line means: the crying is of one long known, running down into the noun below.
An interrogative particle governs the attributive form at the close. The idea that the orange's scent recalls a person is applied not to a person but to a bird, and that is the conceit. As in the hundred and ninety-fourth poem, where the bird cried for its mate, a reason is supplied for the voice.
Since the two hundred and thirty-eighth poem the run has asked about human memory and the orange's scent; this poem moves the subject of that memory to a bird and widens the view.

Author

Unknown Poet

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

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