Hyakunin Isshu: Meet the Poets
Ki no Tsurayuki

Meaning

I cannot know what is in your heart. But here in the old village, the plum blossoms still carry the same fragrance as before.

Commentary

According to the headnote in the Kokin Wakashū, Tsurayuki once revisited, after a long absence, an inn where he used to stay whenever he made pilgrimages to Hase. The innkeeper — with whom he had once been on close, familiar terms — gently rebuked him, saying, "The inn is still here, unchanged, just as it always was," for having stayed away so long. In response, Tsurayuki is said to have broken off a spray of plum blossoms growing nearby and composed this poem. The Tsurayuki-shū, his personal poetry collection, also preserves the innkeeper's reply.

Ki no Tsurayuki left behind a large body of waka poetry and criticism, including the kana preface to the Kokin Wakashū. In the Tosa Diary, he deliberately wrote — in kana script and from a woman's point of view — an account of his journey back to the capital after completing his term as a provincial governor, opening up new forms of expression for both waka and diary literature. His refusal to be bound by convention, and his careful, attentive portrayal of the movements of the heart, reveal a sensitive and deeply human personality.

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