KKS 51

Translation

[Topic unknown]

[Poet unknown]

yamazakura                      The mountain cherries
waga mi ni kure-ba              I have come here to see
harukasumi                      And the spring haze
mine ni mo o ni mo              On both the foot and the peak
tachi-kakushi-tsutsu            Keeps rising to hide them.

Mountain cherries

These are simply cherry trees in the mountains, not a particular type of tree.

--

This poem combines the spring images of the cherry blossoms and the haze -- as in the previous poem, we are concerned with the early blooming mountain cherries. The poem has an accusatory tone. Despite the lack of any explicit emotional words, the annoyance of the poet at not being able to clearly see the cherry blossoms comes through, especially in the final tsutsu which suggests that this has happened more than once. Katagiri says that the first two lines are also directed towards the cherries in annoyance, suggesting they are participating in the problem. He links this to a kind of "wandering around aimlessly in nature" poem that is found in mid-Heian era poetry.

The use of waga before a verb in the second line represents a style older than that of the early 10th century, indicating that this fits with the so-called "anonymous poet era" of the 9th century.

There is a close relation with this poem and the previous one: they are both anonymous poems on mountain cherries, and both contain a first-person pronoun that accentuates the role of the speaker in the scene.

Original text

山桜ざくらわが見身に来くれば春霞ゝるかすみ峯にも尾を(お)にも立たち隠かくしつゝ

• In the base text this poem is inserted in the upper margin above the preface for the next poem. No other text lacks this poem, so this was likely a copying mistake based on both 50 and 51 starting with 山.
• It is difficult to tell whether the use of 身 in the base text instead of 見 indicates a difference in interpretation by the copyist. I have not seen a commentary (ancient or modern) that interprets this as 我が身に来れば so I am inclined to think that the 身 is simply a 変体仮名 form.
• Takeoka notes that 山桜 is written without voicing in the 万葉集, but he thinks there is insufficient evidence to change the traditional voiced やまざすら reading.