Hitotose o kurenu to nani ka oshimu beki tsukisenu chiyo no haru o matsu ni wa - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ひととせを暮れぬとなにか惜しむべき
尽きせぬ千代の春を待つには

Roma-ji: Hitotose o kurenu to nani ka oshimu beki tsukisenu chiyo no haru o matsu ni wa
English Translation: Why should I grieve
that one year has come to its close,
when what I await
is the spring of a thousand ages
that will never end
Meaning: Why should I grieve that one year has drawn to its close, when what I await is the spring of a thousand ages that will never end?
Commentary: Book Five Celebration Poems 168

Turning the poetic convention of mourning the year's end on its head, the poem says that one for whom spring will come for a thousand ages need not regret the close of a single year, and so celebrates the honoree's long life. It is sometimes introduced as a poem written to accompany a screen painting of the year's end.
Rather than praying for long life outright, it offers the spring of a thousand ages as the reason not to grieve the passing year, and this understated turn shows the composed dignity typical of Kintō.

First line, "Why should I grieve," corresponds to hitotose, one year, a unit set against the following "thousand ages" as small and large measures of time.
Second line, "that one year has come to its close," marks the year's ending with the perfective nu and opens a rhetorical question with nani ka.
Third line, "when what I await," corresponds to oshimu beki, the attributive of beshi resolving the particle ka in a rhetorical question: there is no need to grieve. The poem breaks after the third line, in inverted order with the lower verses.
Fourth line, "the spring of a thousand ages," shows an endless span of years. It shares the word tsukise with 166, two poems earlier, and the two pair as celebrations of an unending spring.
Fifth line, "that will never end," reflects the inversion that places the reason last. Book Four closed with 160 on "the year's end"; here in the celebration book that mood turns into a heart that does not mourn the year but waits for a new spring.
Author: Fujiwara no Kintō
Source: Shika Wakashu
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