出でて見る向ひの岡に本茂く
咲きたる花のならずはやまじ
咲きたる花のならずはやまじ
- Roma-ji
-
Idete miru mukai no oka ni moto shigeku sakitaru hana no narazu wa yamaji
- English Translation
-
When I go and look
on the hillside facing me,
thick down to the roots
blossoms bloom, and they will not
end without bearing their fruit.
- Meaning
- On the hill across from me, which I go out to see, the flowers bloom thickly down to their roots—surely they will not fail to bear fruit.
- Commentary
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Book Ten Spring Love Poems 1893
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Spring Love Poems"
This poem declares that just as the flowers blooming thickly to their roots on the facing hill will surely bear fruit, so too will this love be fulfilled. Likening the fruiting of flowers to the fulfillment of love, it expresses strong conviction and hope for love's future. Whereas the fruitless yamabuki of 1860 suggested a love never to be fulfilled, this poem entrusts love's fulfillment to fruit-bearing blossoms, standing in contrast to it.
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a court poet of the Asuka period, active under Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu. The left note records that this poem comes from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection, and it is uncertain whether it is Hitomaro's own work or a poem by someone else that he recorded.
The first line, "going out to look," shows the poet stepping outside.
The second line, "on the facing hill," shows a familiar scene gazed upon daily.
The third line, "thick at the roots," shows flowers blooming in abundance.
In the fourth line, "sakitaru hana no," "taru" is the attributive of the continuative auxiliary "tari."
The last line, "narazu wa yamaji," means will not end without bearing fruit, "ji" being a negative conjecture. It closes with conviction that love will be fulfilled.
- Author
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- Source
- Manyoshu
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