古今集 127 - Ôshikôchi no Mitsune
梓弓春立ちしより年月の射るが如くも思ほゆるかな
A birchwood bow
shooting away an arrow -
this is how I feel
about the passing of days
since springtime began.
Spring Evening at Inokashira Park, Hasui Kawase, 1931.
Notes
あづさゆみ = 梓弓 : this is a makura-kotoba, associated here with 射る (いる) which means “to shoot (an arrow)”.
より : from, since
年月 = としつき : years and months. When I read it I found it strange because the translation of Helen McCullough was only talking about months and days.
I asked Chat-GPT about that. I know, I know, we can’t always trust the AI, but it gave me an interesting answer. These two kanji are basically symbolic, to talk about time in a more general way, beyond the only season of spring. It’s a reference to the general cycle of the four seasons which is repeating every year. And it underlines the feeling that time is passing very quickly, even years.
It sounds coherent to me, it might be obvious when we say it like that but I was quite confused when I read it.
春立ちし : the beginning of spring
ごとく < 如し : like
おもほゆる < 思ほゆ : to think, to ponder something
I took some freedom with this translation. Some people may say it’s too much ; but I didn’t want to cut the poem with the first line, like saying “birchwood bow” and then full stop to the next line. The word “arrow” isn’t explicity written in the original, but it’s obviously implied.
This poem is interesting because it’s really an example of how hard it is to transcribe all the nuances from one language to another.