妹が見しやどに花咲き時は経ぬ
我が泣く涙いまだ干なくに
我が泣く涙いまだ干なくに
- Roma-ji
-
Imo ga mishi yado ni hana saki toki wa henu waga naku namida imada hinaku ni
- English Translation
-
Where my love once looked,
in the yard the flowers bloom
and the time has passed—
yet the tears that I am weeping
have not even dried as yet.
- Meaning
- In the garden my wife once looked upon, the flowers have bloomed and the season has passed—yet the tears I weep have not yet dried.
- Commentary
-
Book Three Elegies 469
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Another poem with tanka composed by Yakamochi" — "Envoy"
This is the third envoy to the long poem mourning his wife. In the garden she once looked upon, the flowers have bloomed and the season has moved on, yet his tears have not dried—contrasting passing time with unchanging grief. The flowering garden only heightens her absence.
This belongs to a sequence of elegies that Ōtomo no Yakamochi composed from the sixth month of summer into autumn in Tenpyō 11 (739), mourning his late concubine.
The poet, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was a son of Ōtomo no Tabito and a Nara-period official. He served as Governor of Etchū and of Inaba, among other posts, rose to Middle Counselor, and died in Enryaku 4 (785). He is thought to have been deeply involved in compiling the Man'yōshū.
First line "Where my love once looked" means what his wife once saw.
Second line "in the yard the flowers bloom" means flowers blooming in the garden.
Third line "and the time has passed": fu means for time to pass and nu is perfective; the sentence breaks here.
Fourth line "yet the tears that I am weeping" names his tears.
Fifth line "have not even dried as yet": hiru means to dry, and nakuni gives a sighing "though they have not dried."
- Author
- Otomo no Yakamochi
- Source
- Manyoshu
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