Ume no hana sore to mo miezu hisakata no amagiru kono nabete furereba - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

梅の花それとも見えず久方の
天霧るこのなべて降れれば

Roma-ji: Ume no hana sore to mo miezu hisakata no amagiru kono nabete furereba
English Translation: The plum blossoms here
cannot be made out at all,
for, clouding over
the far heavens, this falls
everywhere upon the land.
Meaning: I cannot even tell the plum blossoms apart, for this, clouding over the whole sky, is falling everywhere.
Commentary: Book One Spring Poems 12

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Lost among what falls from a sky clouded over, the plum blossoms cannot be told apart. The poem depicts a scene in which white plum blossoms and heavy snow cannot be distinguished, offering a model of the snow-and-plum conceit.
The author, written as Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, is the Asuka-period poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. Active as a court poet chiefly in the reign of Empress Jitō, he was later revered as the saint of poetry and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
The poem appears among the winter poems of the Kokinshū as anonymous, with the fourth line "amagiru yuki no," and a left note records the view that it is by Hitomaro.
The fourth line of the main text reads "amagiru kono," which does not match "amagiru yuki no" in the kana reading line. Here the main text is followed.

First line, "ume no hana," first presents the plum blossom as the thing that cannot be made out.
Second line, "sore to mo miezu," means "cannot even be told to be plum blossoms," and the poem pauses here after the second line.
Third line, "hisakata no," is a pillow word for "ame" (sky).
Fourth line, "amagiru kono," means "this which clouds the sky as it falls," and as written in the main text it is a syllable short. In the Kokinshū version it reads "amagiru yuki no," making clear that what falls is snow.
Final line, "nabete furereba," means "because it falls everywhere," giving the reason for the second line by inversion. Whereas poem 9 of this book saw snow as blossoms, this poem takes the reverse view, with blossoms lost in the snow.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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