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Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
前大僧正行尊
もろともに
あはれと思へ
山桜
花よりほかに
知る人もなし
はなよりほ
かにしるひ
ともなし
もろ
- Poem 66
- もろともに
あはれと思へ
山桜
花よりほかに 知る人もなし
Author: Senior High Priest Gyōson (1055–1135)
Source: Kin'yō Wakashū, Miscellaneous
- English Verse Translation
- In lonely solitude I dwell, No human face I see; And so we two must sympathize, Oh mountain
cherry tree; I have no friend but thee.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- O mountain cherry — feel moved together with me. There is no one else here who knows me but you.
- Commentary
- According to the headnote in the Kin'yō Wakashū, this poem was "composed upon unexpectedly seeing cherry blossoms while in Ōmine." Gyōson was deep in the mountains of Ōmine, which stretch from Yoshino to Kumano, engaged in the austere training of a mountain ascetic. The solitary cherry tree blooming there may have seemed to mirror his own struggle through harsh training, and seeing it, he may have felt as though he had met a companion who truly understood him — a sentiment that echoes the feeling behind Ki no Tsurayuki's poem (Poem 35).
- About the Poet
- Gyōson was a great-grandson of Retired Emperor Sanjō (Poem 68). He lost his father at age ten, and at twelve entered the priesthood at Onjō-ji Temple (Mii-dera), where he studied Esoteric Buddhism and became a Tendai priest. After years of ascetic training as a mountain priest, he served as Chief Abbot of Mii-dera and as Superintendent of Tennō-ji Temple, and at the age of seventy-one, was named Senior High Priest.
- Senior High Priest Gyōson's Chart of the Heart
-
A chart and a modern-language reflection of the poet's inner feelings.
The Poet's Feelings (A Personal Interpretation)
Deep in the mountains, no one else is here.
Yet the wild cherry alone quietly welcomes me.No words are needed —
only this blossom understands my heart.
- Poem Illustration
-
This image is based on an illustration from William N. Porter's A Hundred Verses from Old Japan, his 1909 English translation of the Hyakunin Isshu published in England, colorized and reworked using Adobe Firefly (generative AI).