五月の花橘を君がため
玉にこそ貫け散らまく惜しみ
玉にこそ貫け散らまく惜しみ
- Roma-ji
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Satsuki no hanatachibana o kimi ga tame tama ni koso nuke chiramaku oshimi
- English Translation
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The orange blossoms
that bloom in the fifth month,
for your sake, my love,
I thread them into beads,
loath to see them fall away
- Meaning
- For your sake I am threading the fifth-month orange blossoms into beads, because it would be a pity to let them fall.
- Commentary
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Book Eight Summer Love Poems 1502
Headnote: "A poem by Lady Ōtomo no Sakanoue"
Regretting that the fifth-month orange blossoms will fall, the poet says she is threading them into beads for her beloved. The wish to hold the beauty of the flowers and her thoughts of him become one.
The author, Lady Ōtomo no Sakanoue, was a daughter of Ōtomo no Yasumaro and a half-sister of Ōtomo no Tabito. She was the aunt of Ōtomo no Yakamochi and later also his mother-in-law, and she left many poems in the Man'yōshū.
The first line names the fifth month, the height of the orange blossoms and also the month of the festival when beads were threaded.
The second line names the orange tree in flower.
The third line, "for your sake," shows her thoughts of him.
The fourth line closes in the perfective "nuke," answering "koso," stressing "it is into beads that I thread them." Just as 1465 of this book seeks to thread the cuckoo's voice into the fifth-month beads, threading beads is sung again and again in the summer poems.
The final line, in the pattern "... o ... mi," means "because I regret their falling," giving the reason at the end by inversion.
- Author
- Lady Ōtomo no Sakanoue
- Source
- Manyoshu
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