那波魯堂

詞書

本文

蘭桂高開風。
送清香入室。
竹梅并秀月。
移踈（疎）影横窓。

署名

魯堂

読み下だし

英訳

Orchids and cassias tall, blooming in the wind.
Their pure fragrance wafts into the room.
Bamboo and plum both elegant in the moonlight,
Casting scattered shadows through the horizontal window.

Line one: The orchid 蘭 is prized for its delicate scent, to which the breath of a woman is sometimes compared. This flower figures in love poetry, as a symbol of both romantic affection and female beauty. The image is often used as well in the context of enduring friendship.
　The cassia tree 桂 (Cinnamomun cassia), with its delightfully scented flowers, blooms in the eight month of the old calendar. A gigantic cassia, whose fruit are said to confer immortality, supposedly grows in the garden of the Palace of the Moon. According to tradition, the tree is said to bloom so lushly that it must be pruned back periodically to keep it from blocking the light of the moon.

Line three: The evergreen bamboo is a common motif in Chinese and Japanese art and poetry, representing at once youth and old age, strength, flexibility, virtue, and endurance. It is perhaps most closely associated with spring, when the bamboo shoots come up. The plum is considered a winter plant, one admired for its ability to withstand the chill of winter. It is also traditionally associated with pristine female beauty and sexual pleasure. Bamboo and plums together in paintings often are intended to represent husband and wife. They are also included among the traditional "Four Gentlemen," the other two being the orchid and the chrysanthemum. The plum tree is also grouped with bamboo and pine as the traditional "Three Friends of Winter."

Comment: This poem has been formatted in the Tanzaku shūei printed text as a four-line, five-word verse, and although superficially it appears to be a zekku, in fact it has no rhyme ( 室 is in the rhyme category chih 質, 窓 in the category chiang 江) and moreover does not follow even the most basic metrical dicta that define regulated verse forms. Given the lack of these features, it was suggested by Professor Mitsuta that the composition may well have been written to be read as a 4 - 6/4 - 6 prose couplet, which would be parsed and translated as follows:

蘭桂高開、風送清香入室。
竹梅并秀、月移踈影横窓。

Orchid and cassia, tall and in bloom; the wind sending their pure fragrance into the room.
Bamboo and plum elegant together; the moonlight casting scattered shadows obliquely through the window.

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