ARIWARA ANXIETY and Spring Sakura

#ariwara #narihira #sakura #waka #japanesepoetry #cherryblossom #spring #kks1:53

ARIWARA NO NARIHARA  
ANXIETY and Spring Sakura 

wrote a famous #waka on the topic of Spring Cherry Blossoms (KKS 1:53)

There have been various translations of these words

Yo no Naka ni / Taete sakura no / Nakariseba / Haru no Kokoro / Nodoke Karamashii

world/ life/ of in middle in at adverb never cherry blossom implied by mention of spring
 of possible pun on crying if not being a thing or if no tears for cherries
spring of heart (mood?) peace would be

Lets tidy that up and crossing fingers and hoping I did Not misunderstand the BUNGO
("Classical Japanese" of Heian literature so a thousand years of difference from Modern Japanese)
turn it into something poetic in English ?

Amidst this world if there were never tears for cherry (blossom)
Then one's heart in spring would have peace ?

or maybe

Living in this world
If there was never such a thing as cherry blossom
In  the midst of spring
Our hearts would have peace.

Consider the social pressure on a Heian courtier to produce a cherry blossom poem
EVERY SPRING that differed from all the existing hundreds of other poems !?

Consider the poor scholar and translator trying to find a balance between the parameters of two different syntactical systems and a 5 7 5 77 syllabic metre to a language with a fondness for epigrams and quatrains for short verse.