植ゑて見る君だに知らぬ花の名を
我しもつけんことのあやしさ
我しもつけんことのあやしさ
- Roma-ji
-
Uete miru kimi dani shiranu hana no na o ware shimo tsuken koto no ayashisa
- English Translation
-
The name of a flower
that even you who plant it
and gaze do not know—
that I should be the one to give it:
how very strange a thing!
- Meaning
- That I, of all people, should give a name to the flower that even you, who planted it and gaze on it, do not know—how strange!
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Names of Things 361
Headnote: "Shimotsuke (spirea)"
The poet finds it strange that he, of all people, should name a flower whose name even the one who planted it does not know. While speaking of giving a flower a name, the poem hides the name "shimotsuke" given in the headnote in the run of sounds "ware shimo tsuken" in the fourth line. Fittingly for a book of poems hiding names, it is a witty poem that takes the very name of a flower as its subject. The headnote names the thing hidden in the poem.
First line, "uete miru," means "you who plant it and gaze."
Second line, "kimi dani shiranu," means "which even you do not know," with "dani" an adverbial particle naming a slight thing to suggest a heavier one.
Third line, "hana no na o," means "the flower's name." 403 of this book sings of forgetting a flower's name, while here the poet gives one, so the two form a pair.
Fourth line, "ware shimo tsuken," means "that I of all people should give," with "shimo" an emphatic particle. It hides the name "shimotsuke."
Final line, "koto no ayashisa," means "how strange it is," ending on a noun.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Shui Wakashu
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Murasaki no iro ni wa saku na musashino no kusa no yukari to hito mo koso mire
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Kawakami ni ima yori utamu ajiro ni wa mazu momijiba ya yoramu to suran