Kimi koite yo o furu yado no ume no hana mukashi no ka ni zo nao nioikeru - Tosa Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

君戀ひて世をふる宿のうめの花
むかしの香にぞなほにほひける

Roma-ji: Kimi koite yo o furu yado no ume no hana mukashi no ka ni zo nao nioikeru
English Translation: Longing for its lord,
in this house that has grown old,
the plum blossoms still
breathe out the very fragrance
they gave forth in days gone by
Meaning: In this house that has passed the years longing for its lord, the plum blossoms still breathe out the fragrance of long ago.
Commentary: 48 The Ninth Day of the Second Month: Nagisa-no-in and a Mother's Lament

On the ninth day of the second month, impatient, they began towing the boat upstream before dawn, but the water was low and they could only creep forward little by little. At a place called the fork of the Wada anchorage, when people begged for rice and fish, they gave some. As they went on towing the boat upstream, they passed a place called Nagisa-no-in. Seen with the past in mind it was a charming spot; on the hill behind stood pine trees, and in the inner garden plum blossoms were in bloom.
Nagisa-no-in was the site of a villa of Prince Koretaka, in present-day Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture. Prince Koretaka was the eldest son of Emperor Montoku and was on close terms with Ariwara no Narihira and others. Ariwara no Narihira was a poet of the early Heian period and one of the Six Poetic Immortals.
Following "Chiyo hetaru matsu ni wa aredo inishie no koe no samusa wa kawarazarikeri," a certain person looked at the plum blossoms in the inner garden of Nagisa-no-in and composed this poem.
Composing poems in this way, the party went on upriver, rejoicing as the capital drew near. Among them, the mother of the lost child, seeing people carrying children in their arms on and off the boat, would compose "Nakarishi mo aritsutsu kaeru hito no ko o arishi mo nakute kuru ga kanashisa."

The first line, "Kimi koite," means "longing for its lord," expressing remembrance of the late Prince Koretaka. The second line, "yo o furu yado no," means "of this house that has passed the years," "furu" meaning to pass time. The third line, "ume no hana," is the plum blossoms in the inner garden.
The fourth line, "mukashi no ka ni zo," means "with the fragrance of old." In the final line, "nao nioikeru," the emphatic particle "zo" is answered by the attributive form "keru" in a kakari-musubi construction.
In a house that has lost its master, only the plum blossoms bloom with the same fragrance as of old: the poem contrasts the changeability of the human world with the constancy of nature. It shares the idea of recalling the past through the unchanging scent of blossoms with Ki no Tsurayuki's "Hito wa isa kokoro mo shirazu furusato wa hana zo mukashi no ka ni nioikeru" in the Kokin Wakashū.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Tosa Nikki
Prev Poem: Chiyo hetaru matsu ni wa aredo inishie no koe no samusa wa kawarazarikeri
Next Poem: Nakarishi mo aritsutsu kaeru hito no ko o arishi mo nakute kuru ga kanashisa