宿近く花橘は掘り植ゑじ
昔を偲ぶつまとなりけり
昔を偲ぶつまとなりけり
- Roma-ji
-
Yado chikaku hanatachibana wa horiueji mukashi o shinobu tsuma to narikeri
- English Translation
-
Close to my dwelling
I will not dig and plant
the orange blossom—
for I find it has become
the cause of longing for the past.
- Meaning
- I will not dig up and plant orange blossoms near my home, for I have found that they only become a cause of yearning for the past.
- Commentary
-
Book Two Summer Poems 70
Drawing on the poetic tradition that the scent of orange blossoms brings back the past, the poet resolves, paradoxically, not to plant them near his house for that very reason. The pain of remembering seeps through.
Where the preceding poem, 69, follows the drifting scent of orange blossoms, this one seeks to keep the scent away, so the two poems form an inverted pair around the orange blossom.
First line, "close to my dwelling," refers to the area around his home.
Second line presents the orange blossom as the flower that recalls the past.
Third line uses ji for negative volition, and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "longing for the past," draws on the tradition of the Kokinshū orange-blossom poem.
Fifth line uses tsuma, "cause" or "clue," and keri for realization, giving the reason for the third line afterward.
- Author
- Retired Emperor Kazan
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
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