あしひきの山桜花日並べて
かく咲きたらばいたく恋ひめやも
かく咲きたらばいたく恋ひめやも
- Roma-ji
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Ashihiki no yamazakurabana hi narabete kaku sakitaraba itaku koime ya mo
- English Translation
-
Of the rugged hills,
O mountain cherry blossoms,
if day after day
you bloomed on just as you are,
would I long for you so much?
- Meaning
- If only the mountain cherry blossoms would stay in bloom like this day after day, would I long for them so desperately? Surely not.
- Commentary
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Book Eight Spring Miscellaneous Poems 1425
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Four poems by Yamabe no Sukune Akahito"
The poet laments the brief life of the blossoms, saying that if the mountain cherries would bloom on for many days, he would not long for them so much. It expresses a tender regret for the cherry: it is precisely because they soon fall that they move the heart so deeply.
The author, Yamabe no Akahito, was a court poet of the early Nara period. He excelled at pure, clear landscape poems and was later ranked alongside Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.
The first line, "ashihiki no," is a pillow word for "mountain."
The second line names the cherry blossoms of the mountains, presenting the subject of the poem as a noun.
The third line means "day after day," presupposing how short the peak of the blossoms is.
The fourth line is a supposition, "if you bloomed like this," with "kaku" pointing to the cherries in full bloom before his eyes.
The final line adds the rhetorical "ya mo" to the conjectural "me," asking "would I long so much?" only to deny it. Through this rhetorical question the poem brings out, by contrast, the feeling that he longs for them precisely because they fall.
- Author
- Yamabe no Akahito
- Source
- Manyoshu
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Haru no no ni sumire tsumi ni to koshi ware zo no o natsukashimi hitoyo ninikeru
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Waga seko ni misemu to omoishi ume no hana sore to mo miezu yuki no furereba