Hototogisu ōchi no eda ni yukite iba hana wa chiramu na tama to miru made

霍公鳥楝の枝に行きて居ば
花は散らむな玉と見るまで

Roma-ji: Hototogisu ōchi no eda ni yukite iba hana wa chiramu na tama to miru made
English Translation: Hototogisu,
if you go to the chinaberry
and perch on its boughs,
its flowers will scatter down,
so that we take them for beads
Meaning: Hototogisu, if you go and perch on the branches of the chinaberry, its blossoms will surely scatter—so thick that we would take them for beads.
Commentary: Book Seventeen 3913

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "The oranges have begun to bloom and the hototogisu flits and calls. Facing such a season, how could I not give voice to my feelings? So I have made three tanka, merely to disperse the knots of gloom"
If the hototogisu perched on the chinaberry, its blossoms would scatter so that one would take them for beads—a poem of imagination. On the third day of the fourth month of 741, Yakamochi, serving as a palace attendant at the new capital of Kuni, wrote these three poems in reply to the hototogisu poems his younger brother Fumimochi had sent from the old house in Nara (3909 and 3910). Answering his brother's thought that planting chinaberry would bring the bird, he replies, with love for the flowers, that then the blossoms would fall.
The poet, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was the son of the Major Counselor Ōtomo no Tabito. Appointed Governor of Etchū in 746, he spent five years there, later serving as Junior Counselor and Governor of Inaba before rising to Middle Counselor. He is thought to have played a central role in compiling the Man'yōshū.
The left note reads, "The above were sent in reply on the third day of the fourth month by Ōtomo no Sukune Yakamochi, palace attendant, from the Kuni capital to his younger brother Fumimochi."

First line, "hototogisu": the same opening as the preceding poem, 3912, so the latter two of the three are both addressed to the bird.
Second line, "ōchi no eda ni": answering "if I planted the chinaberry at home" in Fumimochi's 3910.
Third line, "yukite iba": iru here means for a bird to perch; "if you went and perched," a hypothetical condition.
Fourth line, "hana wa chiramu na": "the flowers will scatter, surely," na being an exclamatory particle. The poem pauses here.
Fifth line, "tama to miru made": "so that we would take them for beads," likening the falling chinaberry flowers to beads. Through inversion the beauty of the strewn blossoms is added at the end, echoing "tama ni nuku" in 3910.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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