Ayashiku mo hana no atari ni fuseru kana oraba togamuru hito ya aru tote - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

怪しくも花のあたりに伏せるかな
折らばとがむる人やあるとて

Roma-ji: Ayashiku mo hana no atari ni fuseru kana oraba togamuru hito ya aru tote
English Translation: How strange it is
that I lie here stretched out
close beside the flowers;
I fear someone would scold me
if I broke off a branch
Meaning: How strange that I should lie stretched out beside the flowers, all for fear that someone would scold me if I broke off a branch.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1180

Headnote: "Composed while lying down beneath the blossoms"
He composed this poem lying down beneath a blossoming tree. How strange that I lie beside the flowers, for fear someone would scold me if I broke a branch, he says. He would like to break off a branch and take it home, but fearing someone might scold him, he lies beside the blossoms instead and will not leave them, and in laughing at himself for this odd figure lies the comic spirit of the humorous poem.
The author, "Dōmyō Hōshi," was a son of Fujiwara no Michitsuna. A monk of the Tendai school known for his beautiful voice in chanting sutras, he is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets of the middle ages.
From this poem through 1201 at the end of the book, humorous poems are lined up. The humorous poem is a playful poem taking in comedy, wit, colloquial words and novel conceits, and this is the first of them. The series first sets out seasonal poems in order, from spring blossoms to deutzia, irises, torch hunting, insects, bush clover, maidenflowers and the moon. The fourth line of the main text reads "oraba togamuru," which does not match "oraba togamemu" in the kana reading line; here the main text is followed.

First line, "ayashiku mo": "strangely," expressing his feeling that it is odd even to himself.
Second line, "hana no atari ni": "beside the flowers."
Third line, "fuseru kana": "fuseru" means lying down, with "ru" the attributive of the continuative "ri" and "kana" an exclamatory final particle. The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "oraba togamuru": "oraba" means "if I broke one off," and "togamuru" is the attributive of "togamu," to reproach.
Fifth line, "hito ya aru tote": "ya" is an interrogative binding particle closing with the attributive "aru," and "tote" means "thinking that," so that with the fourth line it gives, by inversion, the reason for the third.
Author: Dōmyō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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