Chihayaburu kamiyo no koto mo hito naraba towamashi mono o shiragiku no hana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

千早ぶる神代のことも人ならば
問はましものを白菊の花

Roma-ji: Chihayaburu kamiyo no koto mo hito naraba towamashi mono o shiragiku no hana
English Translation: If you were human,
I would ask you even of
the age of the gods,
who are mighty past all things,
O white chrysanthemum flower
Meaning: O white chrysanthemum, if only you were human, I would ask you even about the age of the gods.
Commentary: Book Ten Poems of Celebration 621

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed when, on the occasion of an imperial visit to the Hōkongōin in the second year of Hōen, he had poems composed on the topic 'Chrysanthemums Pledge Many Autumns'"
Composed on the same imperial visit as the two preceding poems. O white chrysanthemum, he says, if you were human I would ask you about the age of the gods. Treating the white chrysanthemum, which has lived through countless autumns since the age of the gods, as a long-lived being that knows the distant past, and calling out to the silent flower, the poem celebrates the long life of the chrysanthemum and the endurance of the reign entrusted to it.
The author, "the Hachijō Former Chancellor," is Fujiwara no Saneyuki. The son of Provisional Major Counselor Fujiwara no Kinzane, he rose to Chancellor, was called the Hachijō Chancellor, and was the founder of the Sanjō house.
This is the third poem in the sequence. Taking up "shiragiku no" in the third line of 619 with "shiragiku no hana" in its last line, it completes the three chrysanthemum poems from the imperial visit. Like 614 of this book, it calls up "the age of the gods" to suggest a long span of years.

First line, "chihayaburu": a pillow word attached to "god," here to "kamiyo" in the second line. Poems 616 and 635 of this book open with the same pillow word.
Second line, "kamiyo no koto mo": "even the things of the age of the gods." It shares its wording with "kamiyo yori" in the first line of 614.
Third line, "hito naraba": "if you were human," treating the white chrysanthemum as a person.
Fourth line, "towamashi mono o": "mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary, answering "naraba" in the third line, "I would ask you, yet," with "mono o" carrying an adversative sigh.
Fifth line, "shiragiku no hana": ending on a noun, it becomes an address to the flower. It shares the word with "shiragiku no" in the third line of 619.
Author: Fujiwara no Saneyuki
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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