Katami tote mireba nageki no fukamigusa nani nakanaka no nioi naruran

English Translation

As a keepsake
I gaze, and grief grows deeper—
peony, deep-grief flower,
why must your radiance
only make the sorrow worse?

Meaning

When I look on it as a keepsake, it is fukamigusa, the peony that only deepens my grief—why should its beauty be such as to make things all the harder?

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 768

Headnote: "When, after the Rokujō Regent had passed away, a lady-in-waiting broke off a peony he had planted, which had bloomed, and sent it to me."
This is the first poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of summer. It says that, looked on as a keepsake, the fukamigusa only deepens grief, and asks why its beauty should make things all the harder. According to the headnote, it answered a lady-in-waiting who broke off and sent a peony that the Rokujō Regent had planted and that bloomed after his death.
The son of Fujiwara no Akisuke, Master of the Western Capital Office, the author became Senior Assistant Governor-General of Dazaifu and was a poet of the Rokujō Fujiwara house. The "Rokujō Regent" is Fujiwara no Motozane, son of Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadamichi; he became regent but died young in Nin'an 1 (1166).
The scene is the season of peony blossoms after Motozane's death, set in the capital.
The direct occasion is receiving from a lady-in-waiting the peony planted by the deceased.

The first line, "katami tote," means "thinking of it as a keepsake." The peony planted by the deceased is seen as something through which to remember him.
The second line, "mireba nageki no," means "when I look, my grief...," continuing into "fukamigusa" in the third line.
The third line, "fukamigusa," is another name for the peony. Its "fukami" is a pivot word also meaning "depth," so that the phrase reads "the depth of grief" from the second line while turning into the name of the flower.
In the fourth line, "nani nakanaka no," "nakanaka" means "all the worse for it" or "rather." It says that the beauty of the keepsake flower only increases sorrow.
In the last line, "nioi naruran," "nioi" is the lovely radiance of the flower. "Ran" expresses conjecture and, taking up "nani" in the fourth line, closes as "why should it be such a beauty that only pains?" Just as 763 of this book sang of cherry blossoms planted by the dead, here a peony planted by the deceased calls forth grief, and the seasonal image moves from spring blossoms to summer flowers. The next poem, 769, also sings of iris planted by one who has died.

Author

Fujiwara no Shigeie

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other