花の色は

移りにけりな

いたづらに

わが身世にふる

ながめせし間に

おののこまち

はなのいろは

うつりにけりな

いたずらに

わがみよにふる

ながめせしまに

Ono no Komachi

The blossoms’ colour

Has already wilt away.

A trick has been played

On my aged self on which

The long spring rains pour.

Hokusai

Ono no Komachi (c. 825 - c. 900) was a famous Japanese waka poet, one of the Rokkasen - the Six Waka Poet Laureates of the early Heian period. She was the adopted daughter of Ono no Takamura (poem 11). She was noted as a rare beauty and Komachi is still a symbol of a beautiful woman in Japan. She is also one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets. Komachi wrote complex poems, mostly about love themes.

作者略伝と語釈

In spring, while the cherry blossoms fall and are being swept away - as in the Hokusai woodcut, the poet is lamenting her own autumn. In Noh plays Komachi is pictured as having reached a very old age, poor and alone.

Iro means both ‘colour, complexion’ and ‘sensuality’. Furu can refer to rain falling or growing old. Then naga me is ‘gaze long’ and nagame means ‘long rains’. The old woman is gazing at the cherry blossoms.

Ono no Komachi

by Utagawa Kuniyoshi