時雨降り降りなば人に見せもあへず
散りなば惜しみ折れる秋萩
散りなば惜しみ折れる秋萩
- Roma-ji
-
Shigure furi furinaba hito ni mise mo aezu chirinaba oshimi oreru akihagi
- English Translation
-
Should the showers fall,
and fall, before I could show
this to anyone,
it would scatter—so in regret
I picked this autumn bush clover
- Meaning
- If the autumn showers fall, it would scatter before I could show it to anyone—so, grieving at the thought, I picked this autumn bush clover.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Autumn Poems II 297
Headnote: "On picking bush clover flowers to send to someone."
The poet says that if the autumn showers fall, the bush clover would scatter before it could be shown to anyone, and so, grieving at the thought, the poet has picked it. Fearing the showers that scatter flowers, it expresses the wish to pick the bush clover at its height and send it to another.
According to the headnote, it was composed on picking bush clover flowers to send to someone.
The poet is listed as "anonymous," and the composer's name has not come down to us. The text gives the poet as "yomibito mo," which is treated here as "anonymous."
The first line, "Shigure furi," means "the showers fall," pointing to the on-and-off rain of late autumn and early winter.
In the second line, "na" is the irrealis form of the completive auxiliary "nu," and "ba" gives a hypothetical condition: "if they should fall." It repeats "furi" from the first line.
In the third line, "aezu" means "unable to finish": "before I could show it to anyone."
The fourth line, "chirinaba oshimi," means "regretting that it would scatter," repeating the same form as "furinaba" in the second line.
In the last line, "ru" is the attributive form of the continuative auxiliary "ri": "the bush clover I have picked." Ending on a noun, it closes by presenting the flower being sent.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Gosen Wakashu
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Aki no yo o madoromazu nomi akasu mi wa yumeji to dani zo tanomazarikeru
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Yukikaeri orite kazasamu asana asana shika tachinarasu nobe no akihagi