KKS 73

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うつせみのよにもにたるか花桜さくと見しまにかつちりにけり

utsusemi no yo ni mo nitaru ka hanazakura saku to mi-si ma ni katsu chiri-ni-keri

This fleeting world It resembles indeed The cherry tree When I had just seen it bloom It so quickly scattered.

Notes

This fleeting world

The word utsusemi originally referred to the world of humans. Although it was originally unrelated to the word semi (cicada), by the early Heian period it had been reinterpreted that way, helped by the idea of the hollow shell that the cicada casts off. Here it seems to be used just a pillow word for yo (world) and probably has no connection to the cicada. The connection of the word to emptiness or the "fleeting" world also seems to be a later idea although one that seems to be present here.

The cherry tree

In most of the poems the cherry is represented as sakura or sakurabana. The use of hanazakura here is unusual, and there seems to be a division of opinion in both pre-modern and modern commentary. One theory is that this represents a certain kind of cherry tree, and the other is that it is simply a poetic term for a regular cherry. Keichū (Yozaishō) has a particularly lengthy analysis of the term but his conclusion is somewhat evasive.

Other sources:

• Teika hachidaishō

Analysis

This is the last of the five anonymous poems that open the second book. The poem's focus on human feeling at watching the falling cherry blossoms is similar to the preceding poems, and 71 has a similar feeling of sorrow. Takeoka notes the use of the shi suffix in the fourth line (which shows a personally experienced past) to emphasize the poet's connection to the scene.

Keichū gives a similar poem from the Man'yōshū (1459):

世の中もつねにしあらねば宿にある桜の花のちれるころかも　

The world is impermanent, thus the falling flowers in my garden.

Finally, a very similar poem appears in both the Shinsen man'yōshū and the Empress' Poetry Competition in the Kampyō era, although the first two lines are different. Katagiri again asserts that the poetry competition included both competitions by participants and also old anonymous poems, so here we may simply have two versions of the same poem. However, the difference in imagery may suggest two different poems on the same theme or idea, or one copying the other.

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