Still a long way to go before spring, but in these bleak winter days I thought I would share this waka that I’ve read from quite a long time : the 64th poem of the Shûi wakashû (拾遺和歌集), written by the famous Ki no Tsurayuki :
桜散る
木の下風は
寒からで
空に知られぬ
雪ぞ降りける
The cherry blossoms
scatter under the tree with
a not so cold wind ;
but here it is ! falling…
…a snow unknown by the sky.
I wrote this translation but just like for the others, I had already read some other translations before trying to understand it on my own, so I already knew the meaning. But I still had to read the equivalent in modern japanese to see that 寒からで was the negative form of “cold”. I think the で is the negative suffix here ?
I think that 知られぬ is negative because of the ぬ that would be replaced by ない in modern japanese, and that the verb is in its passive form since it would be 知られない in MJ ?
And I guess ぞ places emphasis on 雪.
There are very few cherry trees where I live, but it still gives me joy to think about the moment when I will finally see them in bloom. And yet, at the same time, I feel already a little bit stressed and sad, knowing that they will disappear just as fast as they came into this world. But just like in the 70th and the 71th poems of the Kokinshû, we would surely not like them more if we could just say “wait” to make them stay… Separation from beings and things is inevitable… the universe itself will die one day. And long before that, we will have to say goodbye to loved ones, pets, happy memories, everything. But is it really so bad ? Would it be really better to live forever, never changing ? I don’t know… I guess some people would like that. With transhumanism, perhaps humans will live several centuries one day. But on the other hand, beauty resides in the ephemeral, and it’s impossible to imagine being awake forever, without ever going to sleep.