Ada ni koso chiru to miru rame kimi ni mina utsuroinitaru hana no kokoro o - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あだにこそ散ると見るらめ君にみな
うつろひにたる花の心を

Roma-ji: Ada ni koso chiru to miru rame kimi ni mina utsuroinitaru hana no kokoro o
English Translation: Fleeting, you must think,
scattering it seems to you—
yet wholly to you
has it moved, its color turned,
the heart of the flower
Meaning: You must think it has scattered in fickleness—yet the heart of the flower has faded only by passing wholly over to you.
Commentary: Book Nine Love Poems I 541

Headnote: "Reply."
The poet answers that he must think her heart has scattered fickly, yet the heart of the flower has wholly passed over to him. To the charge that her heart had drawn away, she retorts that it has rather moved entirely to him.
It is a reply to the preceding poem. Taking up "hana no kokoro" in the preceding poem, she closes with "hana no kokoro o," turning the "fading" of color into a heart "moving" to the beloved.
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, "Ada ni koso," means "fickly, in vain," with "koso" an emphatic particle.
The second line, "chiru to miru rame," means "you must see it as scattering," closing with the perfective "rame" in answer to "koso" in the first line and continuing with a concessive sense.
The third line, "kimi ni mina," means "wholly toward you."
In the fourth line, "utsurou" overlays a flower's color fading with a heart moving over to another.
The last line, "hana no kokoro o," means "the heart of the flower, though it is," taking up "hana no kokoro wa" in the second line of the preceding poem.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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