Negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinan sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro

願はくは花の下にて春死なん
その如月の望月のころ

Roma-ji: Negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinan sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro
English Translation: This is what I wish:
that beneath the cherry blooms
I may die in spring,
in the second month of the year
at the time the moon is full.
Meaning: If I may have my wish, let me die in spring beneath the cherry blossoms, around the full moon of the second month.
Commentary: Spring Poems 77

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When composing many poems on cherry blossoms"
This is one of Saigyō's most famous poems. If he can have his wish, he would die in spring beneath the cherry blossoms in full bloom, and at that, around the full moon of the second month, the fifteenth day on which the Buddha is said to have entered nirvana.
Overlaying the cherry he loved all his life with the day of the Buddha's passing, the poem joins devotion to blossoms and to the Buddha in a single wish for the hour of death. Saigyō died on the sixteenth day of the second month of Bunji 6 (1190), and the fact that this wish was fulfilled almost to the letter deeply moved the poets of his day. This poem was included in the Shoku Kokin Wakashū.

First line, “negawaku wa”: what I wish is, showing that the whole poem is the content of a wish.
Second line, “hana no shita nite”: beneath the cherry blossoms.
Third line, “haru shinan”: n expresses intention or wish, may I die in spring, with a break after the third line.
Fourth line, “sono kisaragi no”: of the second month; sono points emphatically to the month of the Buddha's passing.
Fifth line, “mochizuki no koro”: closing on a noun, around the full moon on the fifteenth, drawing on the Buddha's passing on the fifteenth of the second month.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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