天の下めぐむ草木のめもはるに
限りも知らぬ御代の末々
限りも知らぬ御代の末々
- Roma-ji
-
Ame no shita megumu kusaki no me mo haru ni kagiri mo shiranu miyo no suezue
- English Translation
-
All under heaven,
the plants and trees now budding,
far as eyes can see—
knowing no bounds, stretching on,
the ages of this reign to come.
- Meaning
- All under heaven the plants and trees are budding, blessed and swelling as far as the eye can reach—so stretch the ages of this reign into a future that knows no bounds.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitation Poems 734
Headnote: "When I presented a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the first poem of the sequence on the buds of plants and trees in spring. As the buds of plants and trees swell all under heaven, so the reign stretches boundlessly far into the future. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented.
The author was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa and served as Kamo Priestess.
The scene is spring, when plants and trees bud, and the place is all under heaven, that is, the whole land.
The direct occasion is the presentation of a hundred-poem sequence called for by Retired Emperor Go-Toba in Shōji 2 (1200).
The first line, "ame no shita," refers to the whole land under heaven. It widens the reach of the felicitation to the entire realm.
In the second line, "megumu kusaki no," "megumu" is a pivot word meaning both that plants and trees put forth buds and that the realm under heaven is blessed. The blessings of the reign are laid over the budding of plants.
The third line, "me mo haru ni," is a pivot word joining "me mo haru," buds swelling, and "me mo haruka," as far as the eye can see. "Haru" also carries the echo of spring.
The fourth line, "kagiri mo shiranu," means "knowing no limit." The spread of budding is carried over into the boundlessness of time. Taking up "kagiri nakereba" in the preceding poem, 733, the boundless reign is sung once more.
The last line, "miyo no suezue," ends on a noun. It speaks of the reign far into the future, extending the budding of the present spring into a distant future. The next poem, 735, also sings of tree buds with "konome mo haru no," continuing the poems of budding.
- Author
- Princess Shokushi
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- To meet with the reign of my lord is to everyone a source of great joy, yet the blossoms in their colors have let it show so plainly.
- Though at the cost of life, I'll not grieve for the blossoms: in my lord's long reign the springs that we are to see are springs that know no limit.
- Everywhere alike buds swell on trees in springtime, a pale, tender green— but in the pine alone the hue of a thousand ages dwells.
- Shikishima's land, the islands of Yamato, too, since the age of gods— was it for your sake, my lord, that they were made firm and set?