Hanazakura mada sakari nite chiriniken nageki no moto o omoi koso yare

English Translation

Cherry blossoms, still
in the fullness of their bloom,
must have scattered down—
beneath that tree of your grief,
my heart goes out to you.

Meaning

The cherry blossoms must have scattered while still at their height; I think with deep feeling of you, beneath that tree of grief.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 762

Headnote: "Sent to someone grieving after being left behind by a death, around the third month."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence on partings by death in spring. It expresses sympathy for a person grieving beneath a sorrow like cherry blossoms scattered while still in full bloom. According to the headnote, it was sent around the third month to someone lamenting the death of another.
The author was a monk of the Tendai school in the Heian period who crossed to Song China in Enkyū 4 (1072) and died there. He wrote San Tendai Godaisan ki, a record of his journey to China.
The scene is the third month, the season of cherry blossoms, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion is a message of condolence to someone grieving a death.

The first line, "hanazakura," means cherry blossoms. The blossoms at their height are laid over the person who has died.
The second line, "mada sakari nite," means "while still at their height." It suggests that the one who died was young.
In the third line, "chiriniken," "ken" is past conjecture, meaning "must have scattered." "Chiru," to scatter, likens a human death to falling blossoms, and the poem pauses after the third line.
In the fourth line, "nageki no moto o," "nageki" is a pivot word meaning "grief" while containing "ki," tree, and so evoking the cherry tree. "Moto" combines the foot of the tree with the place where the grieving person is. The line holds the image of a mourner at the foot of a tree whose blossoms have fallen.
In the last line, "omoi koso yare," the emphatic binding particle "koso" is inserted into "omoiyaru," to think of someone far away, and it closes with the perfective form "yare." The feeling of reaching out to the other's heart from afar is strengthened. Where the preceding poems entrusted grief for the late retired emperor to blossoms, this poem likens the fall of blossoms at their height to a young death. The next poem, 763, also sings of cherry blossoms at a house where the one who planted them is gone.

Author

Jōjin

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other