草しげる道刈りあけて山里は
花見し人の心をぞ知る
花見し人の心をぞ知る
- Roma-ji
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Kusa shigeru michi kariakete yamazato wa hana mishi hito no kokoro o zo shiru
- English Translation
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Where the grasses grow,
cutting open the pathway,
in this mountain home
those who came to view blossoms,
now I know their hearts indeed.
- Meaning
- Cutting open the path now overgrown with summer grasses, here in my mountain home I come to understand the hearts of those who came only to see the blossoms.
- Commentary
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Summer Poems 175
Headnote: "Among poems composed on summer"
The headnote shows that this is one of a group of poems composed on summer. The mountain path that so many travelled in spring to see the blossoms is overgrown with grass in summer, and no one comes any more. Cutting it open again, the poet comes to understand the hearts of people who visited only while the blossoms were at their height; this is the reflection of one who lives in the mountains.
Where the preceding poem said that though the robes were changed the heart still longs for spring, this poem observes how the hearts of others have already turned away from the spring blossoms, contrasting the poet's own feeling with that of the world.
First line, “kusa shigeru”: the grasses grow thick in summer, hinting that visitors have stopped coming.
Second line, “michi kariakete”: cutting back the overgrown grass so that the path can be used again.
Third line, “yamazato wa”: the poet's dwelling in the mountains; wa singles it out as a feeling peculiar to mountain life.
Fourth line, “hana mishi hito no”: shi is the attributive form of the past auxiliary ki, pointing to those who came in spring to see the blossoms.
Fifth line, “kokoro o zo shiru”: the emphatic particle zo is answered by the attributive shiru, stressing how keenly the poet now understands those hearts.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Sankashu
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Kagiri areba koromo bakari wa nugikaete kokoro wa haru o shitau narikeri
- Next Poem
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Tatsutagawa kishi no magaki o miwataseba iseki no nami ni magau u no hana