春立ちて我が身ふりぬるながめには
人の心の花も散りけり
人の心の花も散りけり
- Roma-ji
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Haru tachite waga mi furinuru nagame ni wa hito no kokoro no hana mo chiri keri
- English Translation
-
Now that spring has come,
as I grow old in the rain
of my brooding gaze,
the flowers of that person's heart
have also scattered and gone
- Meaning
- Spring has come, and as I brood amid the long rains, growing old, even the flowers of that person's heart have fallen.
- Commentary
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Book One Spring Poems I 21
Headnote: "When she had been forgotten by someone, and the rain kept falling without end."
Forgotten by her lover, the poet gazes at the endless spring rain and laments both her own decline and his change of heart. Just as rain scatters the blossoms, she says, the flowers of his heart have fallen too.
According to the headnote, it was composed when she had been forgotten and the rain fell unceasingly.
The poet is listed as "anonymous," and the composer's name has not come down to us.
The play on "furu" and "nagame" recalls Ono no Komachi's poem in the Kokin Wakashū lamenting that the color of the flowers has faded while she grew old in idle brooding, and the phrase "the flowers of a person's heart" appears in another Komachi poem saying that what fades unseen is the flower of the human heart.
The first line, "Now that spring has come," contrasts the start of a new season with the poet's own decline.
In the second line, "furi" is a pivot word joining "growing old" and rain "falling."
In the third line, "nagame" is a pivot word joining "long rain" and "brooding gaze."
The fourth line, "of that person's heart," leads into the image of the heart as a flower.
In the last line, "keri" is exclamatory, voicing the grief of realizing that, as rain scatters blossoms, the flowers of the lover's heart have fallen too.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Gosen Wakashu
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Waga seko ni misemu to omoishi ume no hana sore to mo miezu yuki no furereba