Yamazato no kakine no ume wa sakinikeri kabakari koso wa haru mo niowame - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

山里の垣根の梅は咲きにけり
かばかりこそは春も匂はめ

Roma-ji: Yamazato no kakine no ume wa sakinikeri kabakari koso wa haru mo niowame
English Translation: By the mountain hedge
the plum tree has burst
into bloom already:
just so, I think, will it glow
when spring itself arrives
Meaning: The plum by the hedge of the mountain village has already bloomed; just so, surely, will it glow when spring has come.
Commentary: Book Six Winter Poems 468

Headnote: "Composed on seeing plum blossoms open before the year had ended"
Composed on seeing plum blossoms open before the year had ended, while spring had not yet come. The plum by the hedge of the mountain village has already bloomed, the poet says, and surely it will glow just so when spring comes. In a plum that blooms in winter he senses ahead of time the beauty of the spring to come.
The author, "Tendai Zasu Myōkai," was a Tendai monk of the mid-Heian period. Trained at Enryakuji, he became Chief Abbot of the Tendai school and later rose to Grand Archbishop. He was called the Nashimoto Archbishop.
457 of this book sang of the hedge of a mountain village, as this poem does, in "yamazato no kakine wa yuki ni uzumorete." Against the hedge buried in snow in 457, this poem sings of a hedge where plum has bloomed, a contrast of snow and plum. Set near the end of the winter book, between the snow poems and the poems on the year's end, it serves to herald the coming spring.

First line, "yamazato no": a village in the hills, away from the capital, the same first line as 457 of this book.
Second line, "kakine no ume wa": "kakine" is the hedge enclosing a house. With "kakine wa yuki ni" in 457 of this book, it sets snow and plum against each other on the same hedge.
Third line, "sakinikeri": the perfective "ni" and exclamatory "keri," "it has already bloomed," showing surprise. The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "kabakari koso wa": "kabakari" means "this much." The emphatic "koso" closes with "me" in the perfective form in the last line.
Fifth line, "haru mo niowame": "niou" is to bloom in radiant color, and "me" is the perfective form of the conjectural "mu," "it will glow like this in spring too," thinking of the spring to come.
Author: Myōkai
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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