Omoe kimi moeshi keburi ni magainade tachiokuretaru haru no kasumi o

English Translation

Think of me, my friend—
not mingling with the smoke
that burned away,
the haze of spring that rises
left behind, lagging still.

Meaning

Think of me, my friend: not lost in the smoke that burned away, but left behind like the haze of spring that rises late and lingers.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 822

Headnote: "Reply."
This is the third poem of the sequence remembering the dead through smoke, a reply to the preceding poem. It answers by asking to be thought of as the spring haze that did not mingle with the smoke that burned away but was left behind. The headnote says "Reply," answering Ben no Menoto's poem before it.
The author was a lady-in-waiting of the mid-Heian period.
The scene is the same spring after Emperor Go-Suzaku's death as the preceding poem, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion is the reply to the poem sent by Ben no Menoto in the preceding poem.

In the first line, "omoe kimi," "omoe" is imperative, meaning "think of it." "Kimi" refers to Ben no Menoto. It replies by matching "omoe kimi" to "aware kimi," the first line of the preceding poem.
The second line, "moeshi keburi ni," means "with the smoke that burned," taking up "nobe no keburi" from the preceding poem. It refers to the smoke of Emperor Go-Suzaku's cremation.
In the third line, "magainade," "magau" means to be mingled so as to become indistinguishable. "De" is a negative connective, meaning "without being lost in the smoke."
In the fourth line, "tachiokuretaru," "tachi" is a pivot word meaning both for haze to rise and "tachiokureru," to be left behind when another goes first. It speaks of one who, left behind by the emperor, could not vanish with him and has survived.
In the last line, "haru no kasumi o," "o" marks the object of "omoe" in the first line. Through inversion, the figure of herself that she asks to be thought of is placed at the end. The emperor died in spring, and she likens herself, surviving, to spring haze that remains in the sky without mingling with the smoke. Where the preceding poem said that the emperor's smoke became a cloud, this reply shows herself as haze that remains without becoming cloud, so that the one who has gone and the one left behind form a pair.

Author

Gen no Sanmi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other