The scene: paradise. We have a very long sentence.
Sentence:
池の中に咲いている蓮の花は、みんな玉のようにまっ白で、そのまん中にある金色の蕊からは、何とも云えない好い匂いが、絶間なくあたりへ溢れて居ります。
いけのなかにさいているはすのはなは、みんなたまのようにまっしろで、そのまんなかにあるきんいろのずいからは、なんともいえないよいにおいが、たえまなくあたりへあふれております。
Vocabulary
- 池 means "pond"
- 咲く means "to bloom, to blossom"
- 蓮 means "lotus"
- 玉 has "ball, sphere" as its first meaning, but it has many meanings, including "pearl," which we'll see is a good fit here.
- まん中 means "middle, center, heart"
- 金色 means "(the color of) gold"
- 蕊 means "pistil" or "stamen," and if you don't know those words, you're in good company. This diagrams might help:
- 何とも云えない is a kanji variant of the more common 何とも言えない, which means "indescribably, inexpressible"
- 好い is also a kanji variant of the more common 良い, which is pronounced よい but is an old-fashioned way of saying いい, "good."
- 匂い means "smell" (as a noun).
- 絶間なく means "incessantly, without a pause." It's also often written 絶え間なく.
- あたり is a word we've come across with the meaning "about, around, approximately," but here it behaves as a noun (having the particle へ after it) and means more "neighborhood, vicinity, surroundings"
- 溢れる means "to overflow"
- 居る (pronounced おる) is a polite form of いる, "to be (for things with a heart)." Here, of course, it's a polite version of a ている ending.
Kanji
Grammar
While long and full of qualifiers and relative clauses, the sentence is fairly straightforward, but note that it has both a topic 蓮の花 and a subject 匂い. The only really new thing is the particle は after the particle から. This は is not a topic particle, but a contrastive particle, emphasizing what comes before.
Translation
To help you read along without scrolling, I'll repeat the sentence here:
As for the lotus flowers blooming in the pond, all of them pure white like a pearl: from the gold-colored pistils that were at their hearts, an indescribable, good smell overflowed incessantly to their surroundings.
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