Kokinshu #59

Composed when the emperor commanded a poem be presented.

    The cherry blossoms
seem to have flowered at last:
    white clouds
seen in the steep-sloped gorges
of the foot-weary mountains.

—1-3 November 2010

Original by Ki no Tsurayuki. When Tsurayuki uses a stock epithet, he often makes it pull more weight than the merely decorative, and here ashibiki no (original meaning uncertain but generally understood as something like "foot-dragging" or "foot-weary") modifying the mountains does indeed add a general sense of "rugged" to the gorges, which are unmodified in the original. As for why pink cherry blossoms (sakura-iro is a light pink color) are seen as white, apparently mountain varieties are paler. In classical Japanese verbs of existence and copulas tended to be dropped, leaving just a noun phrase, even more than in modern usage, so this would probably have been understood as "(there are) white clouds" -- but since we understand that in English as well, I left it literal. Besides, I like the emphasis of the short line.


sakurabana
sakinikerashi na
ashibiki no
yama no kai yori
miyuru shirakumo

---L.