桜花咲きてむなしく散りにけり
吉野の山はただ春の風
吉野の山はただ春の風
- Roma-ji
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Sakurabana sakite munashiku chirinikeri yoshino no yama wa tada haru no kaze
- English Translation
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The cherry blossoms
bloomed, and all in vain they fell,
scattering away;
on the hills of Yoshino
now there's only the spring wind.
- Meaning
- The cherry blossoms bloomed and scattered all in vain—now on the hills of Yoshino there is only the spring wind.
- Commentary
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Spring Poems 81
Headnote: "Spring wind"
The cherry blossoms bloomed and fell to no purpose, and now on Yoshino, the famous site for blossoms, only the spring wind blows. The poem captures the empty spring landscape left after the splendor of full bloom, placing the topic "spring wind" within the loneliness that follows the loss of the flowers.
In the Ruijū text the headnote reads "Composed on the spring wind." Some characters in the last line of the base text are hard to read, so the reading tada haru no kaze of the Ruijū and Teika texts has been adopted.
Line 1 names the blossoms that have fallen.
Line 2 means "blooming to no avail," lamenting the brevity of their life.
Line 3: keri expresses wonder, and the poem pauses here.
Line 4 names Yoshino, sung again and again in this section as the famed site of blossoms.
Line 5 ends on a noun, showing only the spring wind remaining on the flowerless hills. The wind, sung so far as the enemy that scatters blossoms, here becomes the emblem of loneliness after they are gone.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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Sakurabana chirikai kasumu haru no yo no oborozukiyo no kamo no kawakaze
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Sakurabana utsurou toki wa miyoshino no yamashitakaze ni yuki zo furikeru