祈りつつなほながつきの菊の花
いづれの秋か植ゑて見ざらん
いづれの秋か植ゑて見ざらん
- Roma-ji
-
Inoritsutsu nao nagatsuki no kiku no hana izure no aki ka uete mizaran
- English Translation
-
Praying all the while
for longer still, in the Long Month,
chrysanthemum blooms—
in which of all the autumns
would I not plant them to see?
- Meaning
- Praying all the while that life may last still longer, in which autumn would I fail to plant the chrysanthemums of the Long Month and gaze upon them? In every autumn I shall.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitation Poems 718
Headnote: "A screen poem from the reign of Engi."
This is the second poem of the chrysanthemum sequence. Praying for still longer life, the speaker declares that there is no autumn in which the chrysanthemums of the Long Month will not be planted and admired. According to the headnote, it was written for a screen in the Engi reign.
The author was one of the compilers of the Kokin wakashū.
The scene is the Ninth Month when chrysanthemums bloom, and the place is a scene of blooming chrysanthemums painted on the screen.
The direct occasion is a poem written for a screen prepared in the Engi reign.
At the Chrysanthemum Festival on the ninth day of the Ninth Month, people drank wine with chrysanthemum petals floating in it and wiped their bodies with floss that had absorbed the dew on chrysanthemums, praying for long life.
The first line, "inoritsutsu," means "while praying," with "tsutsu" expressing continuing action. What is prayed for is revealed as long life by "nao naga" in the second line.
In the second line, "nao nagatsuki no," "naga" is a pivot word joining "naga," longer, in the wish for still longer life, and "Nagatsuki," the Long Month, the Ninth Month. The content of the prayer and the season are bound in a single word.
The third line, "kiku no hana," is the flower of the Long Month, prized as bringing long life. Following the legend of the chrysanthemum water in the preceding poem, chrysanthemums are sung as a sign of longevity.
In the fourth line, "izure no aki ka," "ka" is a rhetorical particle: "in which autumn would I...?" A single autumn is widened into the autumns that return year after year.
The last line, "uete mizaran," means "would I not plant and see them?" and concludes with the attributive form of the conjectural "n." The rhetorical question that chrysanthemums will be planted and admired every autumn shows the prayer for long life renewed each year.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- The pine on the peak that has stood a thousand years— in the autumn wind its voice may change, it is true, but its color changes not.
- The mountain river, the stream beneath chrysanthemums— why is it, I ask, that while flowing, for us all it holds back the coming of age?
- The mountain dweller plucks them, fragrant on his sleeve, chrysanthemum dew— even while he brushes it off, a thousand years must pass by.
- In the Godless Month, on the evergreen that knows no crimson leaves at all, for ten thousand ages hang, O white clouds upon the peak.