Kokinshu V1

Text

(From the 昭和切)

明日よりは 若菜摘まむと 片岡の あしたの原は 今日や焼くらむ

Translation

[Topic unknown] [Poet unknown]

From tomorrow / So that we can pick young shoots / in Kataoka / the Ashita Field / They seem to be burning it today.

Notes

片岡のあしたの原

[see 252]

Analysis

This poem is found between poems 20 and 21 in several fragmentary texts that are thought to represent earlier forms of the KKS. It is also in the Hitomaro Collection, a set of old, mostly anonymous poems from the MYS era or slightly later. From there it was put into the SIS as poem 18, with some textual variants. It would seem to be an old, traditional poem -- it seems to be along the lines of poem 17 (of the KKS).

There is a connection between 明日（あす） in the first line and the あしたの原 in the 4th, as well as the time phrase 今日 in the last line. It also is placed in a good position, coming after poem 20 which says that if only it will stop raining, we can go and pick shoots tomorrow. There is also a connection between the capital of poem 19 and the Ashita Field, near Nara Capital, in this one.

Because this poem only appears in a few early manuscripts, it was perhaps present in an early draft but then removed for an unknown reason.