A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 96
96
NYŪDŌ SAKI DAIJŌDAIJIN
Hana sasou
Arashi no niwa no
Yuki narade
Furi yuku mono wa
Waga mi nari keri.
THE LAY-PRIEST, A FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF STATE
This snow is not from blossoms white
Wind-scattered, here and there,
That whiten all my garden paths
And leave the branches bare;
’Tis age that snows my hair!
The writer’s name was Kintsune; he retired from office to enter the church, and died in the year 1244, aged seventy-six.
Note the play upon yuki, ‘snow,’ and yuku, the verb ‘to go’; furi yuku means ‘going to fall’ (as snow), but furi also suggests the idea of ‘growing old’. He says it is really he himself that is fading and falling, rather than the petals of his garden flowers blown by the storm.
The picture does not seem to illustrate the verse very well; it is probably meant to show Kintsune on his verandah, lamenting over his increasing years; but in the original edition, from which the pictures were taken, fallen cherry blossoms are shown underneath the verse at the bottom of the page.