Furinikeri mukashi o shiraba sakurabana chiri no sue o mo aware to wa miyo - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

古りにけり昔を知らば桜花
ちりの末をもあはれとは見よ

Roma-ji: Furinikeri mukashi o shiraba sakurabana chiri no sue o mo aware to wa miyo
English Translation: How old it has grown!
If you know the days of old,
O cherry blossoms,
look with pity even on
this last remnant of the dust
Meaning: How old it has all grown. If you remember the days of old, O cherry blossoms, look with pity even on this last of the line, scattered like the dust.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1071

Headnote: "Composed on visiting Hōjōji when the blossoms were at their height and seeing the flowers before the Golden Hall scatter"
This poem was composed when he visited Hōjōji at the height of the blossoms and saw the flowers before the Golden Hall scatter. How old it has grown; if you know the days of old, O cherry blossoms, look with pity on this last of the "chiri," he says. Hōjōji was the temple founded by Fujiwara no Michinaga, and though it still told of its former glory, it had now grown old. Shunzei was a descendant through Michinaga's son Nagaie, and he calls on the cherries that knew the glory of old to pity him too, a last offshoot fallen like dust. It is a poem that lays the decline of the temple and of his line over the falling blossoms.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. A son of Fujiwara no Toshitada, he served as master of the empress dowager's household, took the tonsure in Angen 2 (1176) and was called Shakua. He compiled the Senzai Wakashū and was the father of Fujiwara no Teika.
Where the preceding poem, 1070, sings of cherries glowing unchanged in the latter days of a sorrowful world, this poem sees the latter days in cherries falling at an old temple, and the two share "sue," the latter end.

First line, "furinikeri": "how old it has grown," describing the decay of Hōjōji. The poem pauses here.
Second line, "mukashi o shiraba": "if you know the days of old," the glory of Michinaga's time, with the irrealis and "ba" making a supposition.
Third line, "sakurabana": an address to the flowers falling before the Golden Hall.
Fourth line, "chiri no sue o mo": "chiri" is a pivot word joining "chiri," falling, and "chiri," dust, overlapping the end of the falling flowers with the poet himself, a remnant of the line as worthless as dust. It shares "sue" with "ukiyo no sue ni" in the second line of the preceding poem, 1070.
Fifth line, "aware to wa miyo": "miyo" is imperative, "look on it with pity."
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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