時雨れつつ枯れゆく野辺の花なれば
霜の籬ににほふ色かな
霜の籬ににほふ色かな
- Roma-ji
-
Shiguretsutsu kareyuku nobe no hana nareba shimo no magaki ni niou iro kana
- English Translation
-
Winter showers fall,
and the flowers of the fields
wither one by one;
so on the frost-covered fence
how brightly glows this color
- Meaning
- As the winter showers fall, the flowers of the fields wither one by one—and so, how brightly this color glows upon the frost-covered fence!
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 621
Headnote: "On the occasion of a chrysanthemum contest held by the courtiers."
This is the eleventh poem of the frost-and-withering sequence. Against the flowers of the fields that wither with each winter shower, it sings of the color of chrysanthemums glowing on a frost-covered fence. According to the headnote, it was composed on the occasion of a chrysanthemum contest held by the courtiers.
The author, given as "a poem of the Engi era," is Emperor Daigo. A son of Emperor Uda, his reign was praised as the Engi golden age, and he commanded Ki no Tsurayuki and others to compile the Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is the season of frost, and the place is a fence in the palace grounds where chrysanthemums bloom.
The direct occasion is a chrysanthemum contest, in which the courtiers brought chrysanthemums and competed over their merits.
The first line, "shiguretsutsu," means that the showers fall again and again, the same words as the third line of 583 in this book.
The second line, "kareyuku nobe no," means "of the fields that gradually wither," showing grasses and flowers withering with each fall of the showers.
The third line, "hana nareba," means "since they are flowers," with "ba" attached to the perfective form expressing an established condition. It sets out the premise that the flowers of the fields wither with each shower.
In the fourth line, "shimo no magaki ni," "magaki" means a loosely woven fence of bamboo or brushwood: "on the frost-covered fence."
The last line, "niou iro kana," means "how beautifully this color glows," closing with the exclamatory particle "kana." Through the contrast between the withering flowers of the fields and the chrysanthemums on the fence that keep their color amid the frost, the poem praises the chrysanthemums of the contest. Together with the next poems, 622 and 623, three poems on frost and chrysanthemums from the Engi era are set side by side here.
- Author
- Emperor Daigo
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- The white dew that lay in countless jewels upon the grasses winter now binds into frost on the lower leaves
- On the bridge that spans the sky, laid by magpies' wings, the frost has settled; when I see how white it lies, I know the night has grown late
- Chrysanthemum flowers— I will not pluck them to gaze on; with the first frost still lying upon them their color is all the finer
- Even their reflections, as if to say "It is time," the chrysanthemums fade— has the frost come to settle even beneath the waves?