Kamigaki no atari ni saku mo tayori are ya yū kaketari to miyuru u no hana

神垣のあたりに咲くもたよりあれや
木綿かけたりと見ゆる卯の花

Roma-ji: Kamigaki no atari ni saku mo tayori are ya yū kaketari to miyuru u no hana
English Translation: Near the sacred fence,
that they bloom here, is there not
some tie that binds them?
Seeming hung with offerings
of white cords, the deutzia.
Meaning: Is there some bond that makes them bloom here, by the fence of the shrine? These deutzia blossoms look as though sacred white cords had been hung upon them.
Commentary: Summer Poems 178

Headnote: "Deutzia by a shrine"
The topic asks for deutzia blooming beside a shrine. Is it some special bond, the poet wonders, that makes the deutzia bloom by the shrine fence? The white flowers look like yū, the white cords hung before the gods. Likening the whiteness of the flower to the cords used in Shinto rites, the poet sees it as a flower fit for sacred ground.
Following the white waves at the weir and the cloth bleaching by night, the whiteness of the deutzia is here likened to sacred cords, so three poems in a row compare the flower to white things.

First line, “kamigaki no”: the fence around a shrine, standing for its sacred precinct.
Second line, “atari ni saku mo”: mo means that blooming near the shrine fence, too.
Third line, “tayori are ya”: a line of six syllables; tayori means connection or bond, and ya asks whether there is some such tie, with a break after the third line.
Fourth line, “yū kaketari to”: yū is white thread made from paper mulberry bark, hung on sakaki branches as an offering to the gods.
Fifth line, “miyuru u no hana”: the poem ends on a noun, presenting deutzia that look white as if hung with sacred cords.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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