Hana min to ueken hito mo naki yado no sakura wa kozo no haru zo sakamashi

English Translation

To see its blossoms
he must have planted this tree,
now gone from this house—
the cherry should have bloomed
in the spring of the year before.

Meaning

The cherry tree at this house, where the one who must have planted it to see its blossoms is no more—it should have bloomed last spring instead.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 763

Headnote: "On seeing the blossoms bloom for the first time the following year, after someone had planted a cherry tree and died in the fourth month of that year."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence on partings by death in spring. It says that the cherry at a house where the one who planted it to see its blossoms is gone should have bloomed the spring before. According to the headnote, someone planted a cherry tree and died in the fourth month of that year, and the poem was composed on seeing it bloom for the first time the next year.
The author was a poet of the mid-Heian period who became Governor of Tsushima and died there. He is one of the Thirty-Six Later Poetic Immortals.
The scene is the spring of the year after the planter's death, set at the house of the deceased.
The direct occasion is seeing the cherry tree planted by the deceased bloom for the first time.

The first line, "hana min to," means "in order to see the blossoms." It places the wish of the one who planted the tree at the opening.
In the second line, "ueken hito mo," "ken" is past conjecture, meaning "the one who must have planted it."
The third line, "naki yado no," means "of the house where that person is no longer."
In the fourth line, "sakura wa kozo no," "kozo," last year, points to the spring when the planter was still alive. Since the planter died in the fourth month of that year, the spring before was a time when the blossoms were still awaited.
In the last line, "haru zo sakamashi," "mashi" expresses a counterfactual wish, meaning "it should have bloomed." It closes in the attributive form in response to the binding particle "zo." It is a lament that, had the tree bloomed in the spring when the planter lived, the blossoms could have been shown to him, and seeing them now only calls the absence of the dead to mind. Where the preceding poem likened falling blossoms to death, here it is the blossoming itself that brings grief.

Author

Ōe no Yoshitoki

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other