雷雨

詞書

本文

獨尋秋意閑携杖。
古寺荒村旧水陂。
岸桂未開蓮落盡。
野山風露屬胡枝。

署名

雷雨題

読み下だし

英訳

Alone, in search of signs of autumn, strolling with my stick.
An old temple in an abandoned village by the banks of an ancient pond.
Osmanthus on the shore yet to bloom; lotus petals all fallen.
In fields and hills, wind and dew find their place with the bush clover.

Line three: The word 桂 usually designates either the Japanese katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum in the Katsura family) or the Chinese cinnamon (Cinnamomun cassia, in the Kusunoki or camphor family), both of which bloom in May. However, since this is an autumn poem the tree in question must instead be the autumn-blooming kinmokusei 金木犀 (Osmanthus fragrans var. aurantiacus, Ch. 丹桂, "sweet olive" or "orange osmanthus"). We are indebted to Professor Mitsuta for assistance with this botanical identification.

Line four: Bush clover, Jp. hagi, is here written with the Chinese word 胡枝, which we take to be an abbreviated form of 胡枝子, lespedeza (Morohashi, vol.9, p.295 ). Hagi is one of the traditional "seven autumn plants," a shrub that produces lavender butterfly-shaped flowers in the most commonly seen variety. Ozasa indicates that the small painting at the top of Raiu's tanzaku depicts this plant. See Teiran, vol.17, item 368.

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