藤原の古りにし里の秋萩は
咲きて散りにき君待ちかねて
咲きて散りにき君待ちかねて
- Roma-ji
-
Fujiwara no furinishi sato no akihagi wa sakite chiriniki kimi machikanete
- English Translation
-
Fujiwara's own
village, now grown old and worn,
autumn bush clover
there has bloomed and scattered down,
tired of waiting long for you.
- Meaning
- The autumn bush clover in the old village of Fujiwara, now fallen into decline, has bloomed and scattered, weary of waiting for you.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Autumn Love Poems 2289
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Love Expressed Through Flowers"
This poem says the bush clover of the old village of Fujiwara has bloomed and fallen, weary of waiting for the beloved. The loneliness of Fujiwara, now a former capital, overlaps with the loneliness of waiting for a beloved who does not come. The personifying expression that the clover fell weary of waiting entrusts the speaker's own heart, which waited on and on.
The first line, "of Fujiwara," names the site of the Fujiwara capital of Empress Jitō's time.
In the second line, "furinishi sato no," "furu" means to grow old: of the village that has become a former capital.
The third line, "the autumn bush clover," marks the theme.
In the fourth line, "sakite chiriniki," "ni" marks completion and "ki" the past, and the poem breaks here.
The last line, "weary of waiting for you," gives by inversion the reason for the falling.
- Source
- Manyoshu
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Ishibashi no mama ni oitaru kaobana no hana ni shi arikeri aritsutsu mireba
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Akihagi o chirisuginubemi taorimochi miredomo sabushi kimi ni shi araneba