この頃は花も紅葉も枝になし
しばしな消えそ松の白雪
しばしな消えそ松の白雪
- Roma-ji
-
Kono goro wa hana mo momiji mo eda ni nashi shibashi na kie so matsu no shirayuki
- English Translation
-
In these days of ours
neither blossoms nor bright leaves
remain upon the boughs—
do not melt away so soon,
white snow upon the pines
- Meaning
- These days there are neither blossoms nor crimson leaves left on the branches—so do not melt away just yet, white snow upon the pines.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 683
Headnote: "From a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the twenty-seventh poem of the snow sequence. Since there are neither blossoms nor crimson leaves on the branches in this season, the speaker calls on the white snow upon the pines not to melt away for a while. According to the headnote, it is one poem from a hundred-poem sequence.
The author, "the Retired Emperor," is Retired Emperor Go-Toba. A son of Emperor Takakura, he governed as retired emperor after abdicating, established the Bureau of Poetry, and commanded the compilation of the Shin Kokin Wakashū.
The scene is winter with snow lying on the trees, and the place is where pines stand.
The direct occasion is the composition of a hundred-poem sequence. The headnote does not record which hundred-poem sequence it was.
The first line, "kono goro wa," means "in this season."
The second line, "hana mo momiji mo," means "neither the blossoms of spring nor the crimson leaves of autumn."
The third line, "eda ni nashi," means "are on the branches," and the poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "shibashi na kie so," means "do not melt away for a while," with "na ... so" expressing prohibition.
The last line, "matsu no shirayuki," closes on a noun, addressing the white snow on the pines. Amid the loneliness of winter branches without blossoms or leaves, the poem cherishes the white snow on the evergreen pines as winter's own adornment in place of blossoms and leaves. Like 662 in this book, which sang of first snow lying white on the pines along a hill, it sings of snow on pines, but here it treasures that snow as something to be admired. Following the preceding poem, which commanded the snow to pile up, this poem asks the snow not to melt, and poems addressing the snow are set side by side.
- Author
- Go-Toba In
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Like the winter grass, the one who withered from my life— would that one now come treading through the snow to see me? Surely not
- No one will come seeking, struggling to force a path through the drifts— so pile up, fold on fold, white snow within my garden
- Grass and trees alike lost from sight in the whirling of the falling snow— yet there comes the fragrance of plum blossoms waiting for spring
- On the royal fields of Katano, where the hunt is held, the hail comes pattering— hush now! Lest too soon the birds take flight