かぐはしき花橘を玉に貫き
贈らむ妹はみつれてもあるか
贈らむ妹はみつれてもあるか
- Roma-ji
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Kaguwashiki hanatachibana o tama ni nuki okuramu imo wa mitsurete mo aru ka
- English Translation
-
Of sweetest fragrance
blossoms of the orange tree
threading them as beads,
is my darling I would send them
worn and weary, pale with care?
- Meaning
- I will thread the fragrant tachibana blossoms like beads to send to my beloved—but has she grown thin and worn?
- Commentary
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Book Ten Summer Miscellaneous Poems 1967
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On Flowers"
This poem, while preparing to thread fragrant tachibana blossoms like beads as a gift for the beloved, worries whether she has grown worn. The heart that prepares a beautiful gift and the heart anxious that she has wasted away with longing during their separation overlap. Like 1939, which wished to thread the hototogisu's voice as a bead, it draws on the summer custom of stringing beads.
The first line, "kaguwashiki," means fragrant.
The second line, "the flowering tachibana," names the flowers.
The third line, "threading them as beads," describes the custom.
In the fourth line, "okuramu imo wa," "mu" expresses intention: the beloved I mean to send them to.
In the last line, "mitsurete mo aru ka," "mitsuru" means to grow thin and "ka" is a question, closing with concern for the beloved.
- Source
- Manyoshu
- Prev Poem
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Kaze ni chiru hanatachibana o sode ni ukete kimi ga miato to shinoitsuru ka mo
- Next Poem
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Hototogisu kinaki toyomosu tachibana no hana chiru niwa o mimu hito ya tare