Ima wa mata chirade mo magau shigure kana hitori furiyuku niwa no matsukaze

English Translation

Now once again,
though no leaves are scattering,
something passes for the showers—
falling alone, growing old,
the wind in the garden pines

Meaning

Now, though no more leaves are falling, there is again something I mistake for the winter showers: the wind in the garden pines, falling alone like rain as the old trees grow older still.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 587

Headnote: "A winter poem for the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds."
This is the eighteenth poem of the winter-showers sequence. Now that the leaves have all fallen, something can still be mistaken for the showers even without falling leaves: the wind in the garden pines, which alone remain and grow old. According to the headnote, it was composed as a winter poem for the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.
The author, "Minamoto no Tomochika," is Minamoto no Tomochika. A son of Minamoto no Moromitsu and the elder brother of Go-Toba-in no Kunaikyō, he served as a fellow of Retired Emperor Go-Toba's Bureau of Poetry.
The scene is winter after the leaves have all fallen, and the place is a garden where pines stand.
The direct occasion is a winter poem for the Poetry Contest in Fifteen Hundred Rounds held by Retired Emperor Go-Toba.

The first line, "ima wa mata," means "now again, when the leaves have all fallen."
The second line, "chirade mo magau," means "mistaken even without scattering," with "de" as a negative conjunctive particle. When the leaves were falling, their sound was confused with the showers; now, even with no leaves falling, there is something that can be mistaken for them. The phrasing builds on the confusion of leaves and showers sung in 560 and 567 of this book.
The third line, "shigure kana," breaks the poem after the third line with the exclamatory particle "kana."
In the fourth line, "hitori furiyuku," "furi" carries both "falling" like the showers and the pines "growing old" with the years. "Hitori," alone, describes the pines left standing by themselves after the leaves have fallen.
The last line, "niwa no matsukaze," closes on a noun, revealing at the end what is being mistaken for the showers. The device is hearing the sound of wind in the pines as the sound of showers; where 573 in this book likened the dew beneath the pines to showers, this poem hears the pine wind as showers. Following "furihatenuru" in the preceding poem, the double meaning of "furiyuku" is set here.

Author

Minamoto no Tomochika

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other