色も香も昔の濃さに匂へども
植ゑけむ人の影ぞ恋しき
植ゑけむ人の影ぞ恋しき
- Roma-ji
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Iro mo ka mo mukashi no kosa ni nioedomo uekemu hito no kage zo koishiki
- English Translation
-
Color and fragrance
glow as deeply as they did
in days gone by, yet
it is the one who planted them
whose form I long to see.
- Meaning
- Though the color and fragrance glow as richly as in days gone by, it is the figure of the one who must have planted this tree that I long for.
- Commentary
-
Book Sixteen Poems of Lament 851
Headnote: "Composed on seeing the plum blossoms at the house of one whose master had passed away"
This poem was composed on seeing the plum blossoms at a house whose master had died. The plum blooms with the same color and fragrance as before, but the master who likely planted it is gone. Contrasting unchanging nature with the person who has been lost, it expresses longing for the dead.
The preceding poem laments that the planter proved more fleeting than the blossoms, and both poems share the image of flowers that have lost the one who planted them.
The author, Ki no Tsurayuki, was the leading compiler of the Kokinshū and wrote its Japanese preface. He is one of the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry.
The first line, "color and fragrance," names both sides of the plum's beauty.
The second line, "as deep as of old," means as rich as in the days when the master lived.
The third line, "though they glow," uses niou, to shine with color, and the concessive domo. In 848 of this book the autumn leaves at a masterless house will not color, contrasting with the unchanged color of the blossoms here.
The fourth line, "of the one who must have planted," uses the past conjectural kemu.
The last line, "I long for the form," uses kage, figure or image, and closes in the attributive koishiki after zo.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Hana yori mo hito koso ada ni narinikere izure o saki ni koimu to ka mishi
- Next Poem
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Kimi masade kemuri taenishi Shiogama no ura sabishiku mo mie wataru kana