Ima yori wa mata saku hana mo naki mono o itaku na oki so kiku no ue no tsuyu

English Translation

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

Meaning

From now on there will be no more flowers to bloom, so do not lie too heavily, O dew upon the chrysanthemums.

Commentary

Book Five Autumn Poems II 509

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the third and final poem of the chrysanthemum sequence. Since no more flowers will bloom after this, the poet asks the dew on the chrysanthemums not to settle so heavily as to harm them. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author was a son of Major Counselor Fujiwara no Kintō who rose to Provisional Middle Counselor. He is one of the Thirty-six Poetic Immortals of the Middle Ages.
The scene is late autumn with chrysanthemums in bloom, in a garden where dew settles on them.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
It rests on the same idea as Yuan Zhen's lines included under chrysanthemums in the Wakan rōeishū—"It is not that among flowers I love the chrysanthemum alone, but that after it blooms there are no more flowers"—treating the chrysanthemum as the last flower of the year.

The first line, "ima yori wa," means "from now on," the same opening as 457; there it looked ahead to the cold autumn wind, here to a season without flowers.
In the second line, "mata" means "any further," showing that no flower will bloom after the chrysanthemum.
In the third line, "mono o" is a conjunctive particle with a note of lament: "since there are none."
The fourth line uses "na ... so" for prohibition: "do not settle so heavily," worrying that heavy dew will harm the flowers.
The last line is hypermetric with eight syllables and places the one addressed at the close. Cherishing the chrysanthemum as the year's last flower, the poet speaks to the dew that might harm it. Following 508, which called on the chrysanthemum not to forget its hedge, this poem too addresses a personified presence—the dew—and closes the chrysanthemum sequence. The word "itaku" echoes in the next poem, 510, which moves from flowers to insects.

Author

Fujiwara no Sadayori

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other