仏には桜の花をたてまつれ
我が後の世を人とぶらはば
我が後の世を人とぶらはば
- Roma-ji
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Hotoke ni wa sakura no hana o tatematsure waga nochi no yo o hito toburawaba
- English Translation
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To the Buddha, please,
offer the cherry blossoms
as my gift to him,
if anyone should pray
for my life in the world beyond
- Meaning
- Offer cherry blossoms to the Buddha, if anyone should mourn me and pray for my life in the world to come.
- Commentary
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Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1067
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "From the time I composed many poems on blossoms"
This is one of many poems he composed on blossoms. Offer cherry blossoms to the Buddha, if anyone should pray for me in the world to come, he says. He asks that cherry blossoms be offered for his memorial after death, and by dedicating to the Buddha the cherries he has loved all his life, he seeks to join his love of flowers directly to the Buddhist path. It is known as a poem characteristic of Saigyō, lover of blossoms, and is also included in the Sankashū.
The author, "the monk En'i," is Saigyō. His lay name was Satō Norikiyo; he was a guardsman of the north quarters of Retired Emperor Toba, but took the tonsure at twenty-three. He traveled through the provinces and left many poems.
It shares a devotion to the cherry blossoms beyond death with 1155 of this book, in which the poet, seeing blossoms heaped at his late father's grave, wonders whether the heart that grieved for flowers still lingers beneath the moss.
First line, "hotoke ni wa": "before the Buddha," picturing the memorial service after his death.
Second line, "sakura no hana o": "the cherry blossoms" he loved in life.
Third line, "tatematsure": the imperative of "tatematsuru," "offer them." The poem pauses here, in inversion with the lower verse.
Fourth line, "waga nochi no yo o": "nochi no yo" is the world after death, the next life.
Fifth line, "hito toburawaba": "toburau" means to mourn and pray for the dead, and the irrealis with "ba" makes a supposition, "if anyone should pray for me."
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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Hana ni somu kokoro no ikade nokoriken sutehatete ki to omou wagami ni
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