さりともと待ちし月日ぞうつりゆく
心の花の色にまかせて
心の花の色にまかせて
- Roma-ji
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Saritomo to machishi tsukihi zo utsuriyuku kokoro no hana no iro ni makasete
- English Translation
-
"Still, surely, someday,"
so I waited, and the months
and days slip away,
left to the changing color
of the flower of your heart.
- Meaning
- Thinking "still, someday," I waited, and the months and days slip past, left to follow the fading color of the flower of your heart.
- Commentary
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Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1328
Headnote: "From a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the eleventh poem of the sequence of love's grief sung through autumn imagery. The months I waited, thinking "still, someday," slip past, the speaker says, following the fading color of the flower of your heart. According to the headnote, it is one poem from a hundred-poem sequence.
The author, "Princess Shikishi," was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa and served in her youth as High Priestess of the Kamo Shrines. She studied poetry under Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The foundation poem is Ono no Komachi's poem in Love Poems V of the Kokinshū, "What fades without showing its color is the flower of the human heart in this world."
The first line, "saritomo to," means "thinking, 'still, someday.'"
The second line, "machishi tsukihi zo," means "the months and days I waited." "Zo" is answered by the attributive "utsuriyuku" in the third line.
The third line, "utsuriyuku," overlays the passing of months and days with the fading of a flower's color, and the poem breaks after it.
The fourth line, "kokoro no hana no," takes up the foundation poem's "the flower of the human heart," a phrase likening the heart to a flower whose color fades.
The last line, "iro ni makasete," means "left to its changing color," and runs back in inverted order to the upper lines. Taking up the foundation poem's heart that fades without showing its color, it says that even the months of waiting pass away along with that fading.
- Author
- Princess Shokushi
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Kokoro koso yukue mo shirane miwa no yama sugi no kozue no yūgure no sora
- Next Poem
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Ikite yomo asu made hito mo tsurakaraji kono yūgure o towaba toe kashi