Hyakunin Isshu #75

[lnhammer]

ETA: Posted this one too soon -- have revised to be more faithful to the original grammar.


    Your promises were,
like "dew on a moxa plant,"
    life itself to me --
alas, it seems that this year
even autumn has passed by.

—17-18 March 2010

Original by Fujiwara no Mototoshi, sent to regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi (#76) after his son was passed over for an appointment. Lots of erudite literarisms in this one. One difficulty is sasemo, which is more usually sashimo(gusa) (modern yomogigusa) = mugwort or artemesia, the main component of medicinal moxa. Tadamichi's promise included an allusion to an older poem, to the effect of being as constant as fields of moxa -- Mototoshi transformed this to refer to the plant itself. Despite line three not ending with a final verb form, I chose to break this into two sentences -- sounded better.


chigiri okishi
sasemo ga tsuyu o
inochi ni te
aware kotoshi no
aki mo inumeri

---L.