冬枯れの野辺と我が身を思ひせば
もえても春を待たましものを
もえても春を待たましものを
- Roma-ji
-
Fuyugare no nobe to waga mi o omoiseba moete mo haru o matamashi mono o
- English Translation
-
If I could only think
of myself as a meadow
withered by the winter,
though burning, I might await
the spring when new shoots arise
- Meaning
- If I could think of myself as a field withered by winter, then even though I burned, I could wait for the spring when green shoots rise again.
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 791
Headnote: "At a time when she was lost in thoughts of love, on her way somewhere she saw a field fire burning, and composed this."
She composed this when, sunk in thoughts of love, she saw fields being burned on her way somewhere. A burned field sprouts again in spring, but for her, consumed by longing, no spring of renewal will come; the poem contrasts the field with herself. Following the burning reeds of the preceding poem, it continues the poems that link fires burning the fields with love.
Ise was the daughter of Fujiwara no Tsugukage, Governor of Ise, and served Onshi, empress of Emperor Uda. She bore Uda a prince and later, with Prince Atsuyoshi, bore the poet Nakatsukasa. One of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals, she has more poems in the Kokinshū than any other woman.
The first line names fields withered by winter, the dry meadow burned before early spring.
The second line joins the field and herself, flowing into the third line.
In the third line seba, the conditional of the past ki, sets up a counterfactual answered by mashi in the last line.
In the fourth line moe is a pivot word, meaning both "to burn" and "to sprout."
In the last line mashi is counterfactual and mono o concessive: I could have waited for spring. It holds the grief that for her no spring will come.
- Author
- Ise
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Toki sugite kareyuku ono no asaji ni wa ima wa omoi zo taezu moekeru
- Next Poem
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Mizu no awa no kiete uki mi to iinagara nagarete nao mo tanomaruru kana