KKS 50
Text
題しらず
Topic unknown
よみ人しらず
Poet unknown
山高み人もすさめぬ桜花いたくなわびそ我見はやさむ
|
yama taka-mi |
The mountain is high |
又は里遠み人もすさめぬ山桜
Or, "The village is far, thus no one enjoys you, mountain cherries"
Notes
Analysis
This poem is on mountain cherry blossoms, which bloom before the ones in the village. The poet might be a resident of a mountain village where no one comes, or perhaps someone who has taken holy orders and separated themselves from the world. It also may represent a person who has discovered this cherry blossom in an unknown mountain location. The personification of the cherry blossom is similar to that of the last two poems.
The status of the note at the end is uncertain. A few manuscripts of the KKS swap the readings between the note and the main text. Clearly this represents two versions of the poem, but there is not enough evidence to know whether this note was added by the compilers, or an early copyist. As Matsuda(1968) notes, the main reading connects to the next poem while the alternate reading connects to the “house” of the previous. Takeoka even suggests that the compilers might have included the side note to provide such a link.
Some medieval commentaries also provide additional context for the poem, presumably later fictional settings. Since the poem is found in the apocryphal Sarumaru Collection (see poem 29), the notes of Fujiwara no Tamesuke say that the compilers had to conceal his name here due to Imperial sanction. The Kokinshū notes of 1287 say that this was written by Prince Koretaka’s younger sister after he took holy orders and moved to the Ono Palace – perhaps this legend arose from Koretaka’s involvement with the next poem, but it represents another example of medieval commentaries' secret teachings devising contexts for anonymous poems.
