classic waka stream

春風の花の吹雪に埋まれて
ゆきもやられぬ志賀の山道
Roma-ji

Harukaze no hana no fubuki ni uzumarete yuki mo yararenu Shiga no yamamichi

English Translation
By the breeze of spring,
in a blizzard of the blooms
buried deep I stand,
and I cannot go ahead,
on the mountain road to Shiga.
Meaning
Buried in a blizzard of blossoms blown by the spring wind, I cannot go on along the mountain road to Shiga, as though shut in by snow.
Commentary
Spring Poems 113

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When composing many poems on falling blossoms"
Petals scattered by the spring wind swirl like a blizzard, and buried in that storm of blossoms, the poet cannot make his way along the mountain road to Shiga.
Likening the swirling petals to a snowstorm and playing on yuki as both going and snow, the poem paints a mountain road as if closed by snow. In 105 the falling blossoms on the Shiga pass were likened to first snow; here the fall has intensified from first scattering to a blizzard.

First line, “harukaze no”: of the spring wind.
Second line, “hana no fubuki ni”: in a blizzard of blossoms, petals swirling wildly.
Third line, “uzumarete”: buried.
Fourth line, “yuki mo yararenu”: yuki is a pivot word meaning both going and snow, associated with the blizzard; I cannot even go on.
Fifth line, “Shiga no yamamichi”: the poem closes on a noun, the mountain road from the capital to Shiga in Ōmi.
Author
Saigyō
Source
Sankashu
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