Kokonoe ni arade yae saku yamabuki no iwanu iro o ba shiru hito mo nashi - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ここのへにあらで八重咲く山吹の
言はぬ色をば知る人もなし

Roma-ji: Kokonoe ni arade yae saku yamabuki no iwanu iro o ba shiru hito mo nashi
English Translation: Not in the ninefold,
but blooming eightfold, the kerria
has a hue unspoken—
and of what its color holds
there is no one who knows.
Meaning: Blooming eightfold, not in the ninefold palace, the kerria has a color that speaks no words—and no one knows what lies within it.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1481

Headnote: "Reply."
This is the ninth poem of the sequence on the things of late spring, Retired Emperor En'yū's reply to Fujiwara no Sanekata's poem in the preceding poem. The kerria blooming eightfold, not in the palace, has an unspoken color, he says, and no one knows the heart within.
The author, "the Poem of Retired Emperor En'yū," is Emperor En'yū. A son of Emperor Murakami, he succeeded to the throne on the abdication of his elder brother, Emperor Reizei, and later yielded it to Emperor Kazan.
Calling the kerria's color "a hue unspoken" comes from the fact that kerria yellow was also called gardenia color, and "kuchinashi," gardenia, was heard as "kuchi nashi," "without a mouth." The idea appears also in the priest Sosei's poem in the Kokin Wakashū: "Yamabuki no / hanairogoromo / nushi ya tare / toedo kotaezu / kuchinashi ni shite" ("Who owns this robe the color of kerria? I ask, but it does not answer, having no mouth—dyed in gardenia").

The first line, "kokonoe ni," takes up "kokonoe" in the fourth line of the preceding poem, keeping both meanings of the palace and ninefold.
The second line, "arade yae saku," means "blooming not ninefold but eightfold." It answers from the retired emperor's side the pairing of "eightfold" and "ninefold" in the preceding poem.
The third line, "yamabuki no," is the same line as the third line of the preceding poem.
The fourth line, "iwanu iro o ba," means "a color unspoken," from the idea of kerria yellow as the color of "no mouth." It overlays the unspoken heart of the abdicated emperor.
The last line, "shiru hito mo nashi," declares that no one knows that heart. To Sanekata's question it replies by not answering.
Author: Retired Emperor En'yu
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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