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Kokinshu #337
Saturday, 24 November 2012 08:32 Written on seeing fallen snow.
When the snowflakes fell,
flowers did indeed blossom
on every tree.
How can I ever construe
the plum and so pluck it?
yuki fureba
ki-goto ni hana zo
sakinikeru
izure o ume to
wakite oramashi
When the snowflakes fell,
flowers did indeed blossom
on every tree.
How can I ever construe
the plum and so pluck it?
—8 November 2012
Original by Ki no Tomonori. The kanji for "plum" (梅) is a combination of those for "every tree" (木 + 毎). This visual pun, which was probably borrowed from Chinese examples, is even more untranslatable than the one in #249—for while physically snow might make us "read" every tree as a flowering plum, even the worst handwriting can't make us read "every tree" as "plum." Fortunately, unlike #249, the pun isn't all that's going on here, though without it this otherwise reads like another reuse of #335's conceit. Another thing lost in translation: this has the same last line as the previous poem. Another thing that's fortunate: this is the last of the late-winter plum-flower poems.yuki fureba
ki-goto ni hana zo
sakinikeru
izure o ume to
wakite oramashi