Uchinabiki haru sarikureba hisagi ouru katayamakage ni uguisu zo naku

うちなびき春さり来れば久木生ふる
片山かげに鶯ぞ鳴く

Roma-ji: Uchinabiki haru sarikureba hisagi ouru katayamakage ni uguisu zo naku
English Translation: All things gently bend
as springtime comes upon us;
where hisagi grow
in the shade of the hillside
there the warbler sings its song.
Meaning: As spring arrives and all the grasses bend, the warbler sings in the shade of the hillside where the hisagi trees grow.
Commentary: Spring Poems 4

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem on the beginning of spring"
The poet depicts the warbler beginning to sing in the shade of a hillside thick with hisagi trees as spring arrives. Drawing on many Man'yōshū expressions, such as haru sarikureba and hisagi ouru, it is a characteristically Man'yō-style poem. Kamo no Mabuchi noted that the Man'yōshū has uchinabiku haru, a different usage from uchinabiki, referring readers to his own Kanjikō for details.
In the Ruijū text this poem carries the title "A poem on the beginning of spring." One character in the closing line of the base text is hard to read, so the common reading uguisu zo naku has been adopted.

Line 1, uchinabiki ("all things gently bend"), means grasses bending everywhere and borrows the Man'yō pillow word uchinabiku, which modifies spring.
Line 2: saru means for a season to come round, so the line reads "as spring comes"; it is a frequent Man'yō phrase.
Line 3: hisagi is a tree thought to be the Japanese mallotus or the catalpa, also sung in the Man'yōshū.
Line 4: katayama is a hill sloping on one side, or one far from villages, and the line points to its shade.
Line 5, "the warbler sings": the particle zo with the attributive form naku creates a kakarimusubi that sets the warbler's voice vividly before us. Where the preceding poem, 3, longed to hear the warbler's first song, here its song actually rings out.
Author: Minamoto no Sanetomo
Source: Kinkaishu
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