Kokinshu #34

(Topic unknown.)

    I'll never again
grow plum trees beside my house --
    I keep mistaking them
for the perfume of the one
I futilely await.

—21 October, rev 23 November 2010

(Original author unknown.) And following the erotic hint in #33, we get full romance with a woman waiting for her lover to visit. Spring is indeed in the air. It would, of course, be her lover's robes that are perfumed. Literally, she swears off growing "plum flowers," but in English we usually call the whole plant a tree. Despite having more room from appearing in the longer second line, which has an extra syllable no less, the flowers are still grammatically unmarked, but here clearly the direct object of "shall not plant."


yado chikaku
ume no hana ueji
ajikinaku
matsu hito no ka ni
ayamatarekeri

---L.