KKS 36

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Text

梅の花を折りてよめる

He broke off a plum flower and read this

東三条の左の大臣おほいまうちきみ

Higashi Sanjō Minister of the Left (Minamoto no Tokiwa)

鶯の笠に縫ふてふ梅花折りてかざゝん老隠くるやと

uguisu no kasa ni nuu chō mume no hana ori-te kazasa-n oi kakuru ya to

They say the warblers Weave hats out of them Plum blossoms I'll break one off and attach it Perhaps to hide my age.

Notes

Minamoto no Tokiwa

源常 (812-854). He was a son of the Saga Emperor, made a commoner with the Minamoto surname. He attained the 2nd rank and the position of Minister of the Left. After his death at the age of 43 he was posthumously promoted to 1st rank. A good number of manuscripts label him in this poem as Minister of the Right, which was a position he held earlier in his life.

attach it

Specifically, put it in his cap.

Other sources:

• Kokin waka rokujō | Shūka daitai

Analysis

The plum poems move away from scent to their other aspects. This seems to be a jukkai poem (one that expresses the poet's feelings) about the poet's age. However, Tokiwa was only 43 when he died. Commenters such as Kaneko(1927) either say that he was starting to feel old age, that Heian people felt old age younger, or that spring was simply a time when everyone felt their age since you added one year in spring. Katagiri takes an entirely different viewpoint; he connects this poem to various okina (old man) dances -- thus Tokiwa was simply using this as a celebratory symbol of long life rather than a literal expression of his age. This idea gains support from the Kokin waka rokujō, which classified this poem in the "old man" category.

Takeoka notes the shift from the fantasy world of the first two lines to the reality of the last two lines, around the central pivot of "plum blossoms." The sentiment of the poem is based on KKS 1081 which is also a Saibara folk song. Fujiwara no Kiyosuke (Ogishō) says that the warblers jumping back and forth in the branches seems like weaving, and so they are said to "weave" branches. Since then, commentators both pre-modern and modern have variously supported this idea, or said that this is simply an evocative image because warblers spend time around plum trees and the plum blossoms can look like hats.

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