我妹子が植ゑし梅の木見るごとに
心咽せつつ涙し流る
心咽せつつ涙し流る
- Roma-ji
-
Wagimoko ga ueshi ume no ki miru goto ni kokoro musetsutsu namida shi nagaru
- English Translation
-
The plum tree she planted,
my dear wife, with her own hands—
every time I look,
my heart is choked with sobbing,
and my tears come streaming down.
- Meaning
- Every time I look at the plum tree my wife planted, my heart chokes with sobs and my tears flow.
- Commentary
-
Book Three Elegies 453
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Three poems composed at once on returning to the house in the old home"
This is the last of the three poems composed on returning home, closing the sequence. Each time he sees the plum tree his wife planted, his heart chokes and his tears flow—grief welling up at what she left behind. Narrowing the focus from the garden made together in the preceding poem to the plum she planted herself, it deepens the sorrow.
The three poems composed on returning home are a sequence in which Tabito, back at his house in Nara, grieves at the home and garden without his wife. The headnote gives no author's name, but they continue the preceding five poems and are Tabito's work.
The poet, Ōtomo no Tabito, was a son of Ōtomo no Yasumaro. He served as Middle Counselor and Governor-General of Dazaifu before rising to Great Counselor, and died in Tenpyō 3 (731). Steeped in Chinese letters, he was at the center of a poetic circle with Yamanoue no Okura and others while serving in Tsukushi.
First line "my dear wife" refers to her.
Second line "The plum tree she planted" has become a keepsake of her.
Third line "every time I look" means whenever he sees it.
Fourth line "my heart is choked with sobbing": musu means to be choked with tears.
Fifth line "and my tears come streaming down": shi is emphatic.
- Author
- Ōtomo no Tabito
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
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Imo to shite futari tsukurishi waga shima wa kodakaku shigeku narinikeru kamo
- Next Poem
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Hashikiyashi sakaeshi kimi no imashiseba kinō mo kyō mo wa o mesamashi o