飽かでのみ帰ると思へば桜花
折るべき春ぞ尽きせざりける
折るべき春ぞ尽きせざりける
- Roma-ji
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Akade nomi kaeru to omoeba sakurabana oru beki haru zo tsukisezarikeru
- English Translation
-
Always unsated
I go home, and thinking so,
cherry blossoms,
the springs for breaking boughs
will never come to an end
- Meaning
- Since I always go home unsated by the blossoms, the springs in which to break off cherry boughs will never come to an end.
- Commentary
-
Book Five Celebration Poems 166
However long one gazes at the cherry blossoms one never tires of them, and always leaves with lingering regret. Therefore, the poem reasons, springs for breaking off blossoms will keep arriving without end, and so it celebrates an endless spring, that is, long life.
Turning an unending love of blossoms straight into a wish for longevity is deftly done, and the poem gracefully brings the splendor of cherry blossoms into the celebration book.
First line, "Always unsated," adds the negative de and the limiting nomi to aku, stressing that one is never satisfied.
Second line, "I go home, and thinking so," forms a definite condition with the realis plus ba, leading to the reasoning that follows.
Third line, "cherry blossoms," is the noun that the following "breaking" takes as its object, drawing seasonal beauty into the theme of celebration.
Fourth line, "the springs for breaking boughs," stresses "spring" with zo. In this book spring appears here and in 168, "the spring of a thousand ages," and the two pair as celebrations of a spring without end.
Fifth line, "will never come to an end," resolves zo with the attributive of the exclamatory keri. It shares the word tsukise with 168's "the unending thousand ages."
- Author
- Nakatsukasa
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
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