卯の花の心地こそすれ山里の
垣根の柴を埋む白雪
垣根の柴を埋む白雪
- Roma-ji
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Unohana no kokochi koso sure yamazato no kakine no shiba o uzumu shirayuki
- English Translation
-
Deutzia in bloom,
that is just how it appears:
in the mountain village
burying the brushwood fence,
the white snow lying deep.
- Meaning
- It feels as though the deutzia were in bloom: the white snow burying the brushwood fence of the mountain village.
- Commentary
-
Winter Poems 541
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When composing poems on snow"
This is the fourth of six poems on snow. The white snow burying the brushwood fence of a mountain dwelling feels like the white deutzia flowers that bloom on fences in early summer. Likening the winter snow on the fence to the summer flowers on the fence, the poem catches the whiteness of the snow in a comparison that crosses the seasons.
Here the last line of the preceding poem, kokochi koso sure, is placed in the second line, giving the comparison first and then revealing the scene. The next poem also likens snow on a fence to deutzia, so the two carry the same comparison forward.
First line, “unohana no”: unohana is the deutzia, which bears white flowers in early summer and was often planted in hedges.
Second line, “kokochi koso sure”: koso is an emphatic particle binding with the perfective sure; the poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, “yamazato no”: of the mountain village.
Fourth line, “kakine no shiba o”: shiba is cut brushwood, here the brushwood fence.
Fifth line, “uzumu shirayuki”: the poem ends on a noun, setting last, in inversion, the white snow likened to deutzia.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Sankashu
- Prev Poem
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Aone yama koke no mushiro no ue ni shiku yuki wa Shirane no kokochi koso sure
- Next Poem
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Ori naranu meguri no kaki no unohana o ureshiku yuki no sakasetsuru kana