九重にうつろひぬとも菊の花
もとの籬を思ひ忘るな
もとの籬を思ひ忘るな
- Roma-ji
-
Kokonoe ni utsuroinu tomo kiku no hana moto no magaki o omoi wasuru na
- English Translation
-
Though you may be changed
moving to the ninefold court,
O chrysanthemum,
do not forget, in your heart,
the hedge where you used to bloom
- Meaning
- Though you move to the ninefold palace and your color changes, O chrysanthemum, do not forget the hedge where you once grew.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Autumn Poems II 508
Headnote: "Tied to chrysanthemums sent when the palace requested them in the reign of Emperor Toba."
This is the second poem of the chrysanthemum sequence. The poet calls to the chrysanthemum: even if you move to the palace and your color changes, do not forget your old hedge. According to the headnote, it was tied to chrysanthemums presented when the palace requested them in Emperor Toba's reign.
The author was the wife of Minamoto no Arihito, the Hanazono Minister of the Left, a son of Prince Sukehito who rose to Minister of the Left.
The scene is autumn with chrysanthemums in bloom, at the hedge of the author's house where they grew and the palace to which they were sent.
The direct occasion was a request from the palace for chrysanthemums in Emperor Toba's reign; the poem was tied to the flowers when they were presented.
In the first line, "kokonoe" is the imperial palace, to which the chrysanthemums are to be moved.
In the second line, "utsuroi" is a pivot word joining "moving" to the palace with the "changing" of the flowers' color. "Nu" is perfective and "tomo" concessive: "even if you are moved and changed."
The third line addresses the chrysanthemum directly, personifying it.
The fourth line means "the hedge of the house where you first bloomed." Taking up "chrysanthemums by the hedge" in 507, it makes the same hedge the flower's old home.
In the last line, "na" is a prohibitive particle: "do not forget." Amid the honor of sending flowers to the palace, the grower's reluctance to part with them is entrusted to two kinds of "changing"—of place and of color. Whereas 507 sang of chrysanthemums awaiting frost, flowers whose color is about to change, this poem looks ahead and asks them not to forget even after changing, pairing before and after the change.
- Author
- Wife of the Hanazono Minister of the Left
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Bearing on their wings the peak's clouds that autumn wind swirls about my sleeves, the wild geese too, as I go, can be heard crying above
- On chrysanthemums by the hedge that wait for frost, in the early night a color seems to settle— the moon on the mountain's rim
- From this time onward no more flowers will come to bloom, so I pray of you, do not settle quite so thick, dew upon chrysanthemums
- More than the flowers of the meadow wilting in the autumn wind's blast, the insects' voices have grown so withered and worn and hoarse