One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each
Translated with a Commentary by
Peter MacMillan
* * *
ONE HUNDRED POETS, ONE POEM EACH
A Treasury of Classical Japanese Verse
Contents
List of Illustrations
Note on the Translation
Introduction
ONE HUNDRED POETS, ONE POEM EACH
Commentary
Romanized Transliterations of the Poems
Maps
Further Reading
Glossary
Acknowledgements
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
ONE HUNDRED POETS, ONE POEM EACH
PETER MACMILLAN is a translator, poet and artist. His earlier version of the One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each (Hyakunin isshu) was awarded the Donald Keene Center Special Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature and the Special Cultural Translation Prize from the Japan Society of Translators, both in 2008. He has also published a collection of poetry, Admiring Fields, while his series of prints, Thirty-Six New Views of Mount Fuji, has been widely exhibited in Japan and other countries. His translation of The Tales of Ise was published in Penguin Classics in 2016. Peter MacMillan is Translator in Residence at the National Institute of Japanese Literature.
List of Illustrations
The illustrations in the book have been taken from Yasushi Yokoiyama’s complete series of the Hyakunin isshu’s one hundred poets. All images are courtesy of Peter MacMillan.
Emperor Tenji
Yamabe no Akahito
Ono no Komachi
Archbishop Henjo
Lady Ise
Mibu no Tadamine
Ki no Tsurayuki
Sone no Yoshitada
Fujiwara no Sanekata
Izumi Shikibu
Murasaki Shikibu
Sei Shonagon
Priest Noin
Minamoto no Toshiyori
Retired Emperor Sutoku
Priest Saigyo
Minamoto no Sanetomo
Retired Emperor Juntoku
Note on the Translation
This translation is based on the second edition of Shimazu Tadao’s Hyakunin isshu (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1999). The first translation of the Hyakunin isshu, by Frederick Victor Dickins, was published in 1866 and since then there have been over a dozen translations of this work in English alone. The work poses many challenges to the translator. These include how to render the conventions of waka expression and the multiplicity of possible interpretations allowed by the poems; the treatment of punning and wordplay; the role of the subject marker; and other matters of form. One of the difficulties of translating the Hyakunin isshu is that classical Japanese is full of long-established conventions that are not always accessible to the modern reader. A number of common literary conventions are defined in the Glossary. One example is utamakura or famous place names with poetic associations and alternative meanings based upon the sound of a word. The place name Osaka, for example, was often used to signify a place of meeting, especially in the context of lovers, as the long o at the beginning of the word was written in the same way as au (to meet). The mere mention of the word would cause such associations to immediately spring to mind for the educated Japanese reader of old, but not for contemporary Japanese, much less for non-Japanese.
Another challenge is that, at times, the poets capture an extremely simple scene so subtly that, when translated, it can seem little more than a physical picture or part of a longer verse rather than a whole poem. Sometimes these poems have clever rhetorical features that buoy up the verse in Japanese, but it is not always possible to convey that in English. The simpler poems on the seasons are especially difficult to translate while preserving the poetic delicacy of the original.
Yet another challenge is the number of different interpretations that are possible. A classic example is poem 99. The word ‘people’ (hito) in the poem can be taken to mean different people, some of whom are amiable and some of whom are not, or the same people at different moments in time. Another possible interpretation is that there are many sides to a person, only some of which are agreeable. Here are some of the ways in which the last two lines of the Japanese can be interpreted:
Some people are kind,
while others are hateful.
Some have been kind to me,
while others were hateful.
Sometimes people are kind,
sometimes hateful.
Sometimes I long for them,
sometimes I just hate them.
While it is unusual for there to be such a variety of different interpretations, two or three distinct interpretations are often possible, posing a considerable challenge to the translator.
Another reason for such ambiguity is that, at the time Teika was editing the collection, some of the poems preceded him by as much as five hundred years, which means that they came to him with variants and historical shifts in nuance and meaning. The way Teika read the poems is not always the way the poems’ original audience would have done. Poem 17 by Ariwara no Narihira is a good example:
Such beauty unheard of
even in the age of the raging gods –
the Tatsuta River
tie-dyeing its waters
in autumnal colours.
(Chihayaburu / kamiyo mo kikazu / Tatsutagawa / karakurenai ni / mizu kukuru to wa)
Because in classical kana orthography there were no vocalization marks, the last line of the poem can be read both as mizu kukuru to wa ([the maple leaves] tie-dye the water) and mizu kuguru to wa (water streams below [the maples leaves]). It is fairly certain that readers of the Kokinshū, from which Teika took the poem, read it kukuru (to tie-dye), whereas Teika and his contemporaries almost certainly read it kuguru (to flow beneath). I have generally tried to follow Teika’s interpretation, but in this instance I prefer the original reading.
In the following poem (no. 30), one possible interpretation is that it is only the face of the moon that is cold, not the lover:
How cold the face
of the morning moon!
Since we parted
nothing is so miserable
as the approaching dawn.
Many scholars, however, think that ‘cold’ refers to both, in which case the translation would be:
Since I parted from you,
nothing is so miserable
as that time before dawn,
the look on your face then
cold as the moon at dawn.
Such complications have meant that the Japanese invariably have read the One Hundred Poets with the aid of countless commentaries written since the thirteenth century. English translations, by contrast, have tended to include as few notes as possible, on the assumption that it should be possible to understand a poem simply by reading it and that knowing about the historical reception and background of a literary work is not essential. However, this edition includes a commentary, which I hope will contribute to a deeper understanding of the background and context within which the poems were written and increase the reader’s enjoyment of the poems.
Japanese poetry avoids rhyme and depends more on rhythm (onritsu) than on metre, which is quantitative, not accentual. English free verse is thus a very natural choice when translating classical Japanese verse. Some believe that classical poetry as well as contemporary tanka – which uses the same form as classical waka – should be translated following the syllable count of waka and tanka, 5-7-5-7-7. According to this view, all translations of poems have the same number of syllables (thirty-one), but this makes for an unnatural and meaningless constriction in English. In order to give a sense of the form of the original, I have tended t
o use five lines for the poems. I have in general tried to stick as closely as possible to Teika’s interpretation of the poems, but on a few occasions I have followed the interpretation of the poem when it first appeared in a different anthology.
The abundance of punning and wordplay is perhaps the biggest challenge for any translator. Where possible I have incorporated the wordplay and punning of the original, which are all outlined in the Commentary. It should be noted, however, that whereas in English punning is seen as a form of light and sometimes naive wordplay, in classical Japanese it was admired as an expression of the poet’s skill. Unlike English, there are countless homonyms in Japanese, making punning very easy, but it is challenging to think of puns that could work in English for the numerous Japanese counterparts. Moreover, punning and wordplay of this kind is not popular in English poetry today, except for nonsense verse or children’s poems, so even in those rare circumstances when it is possible to convey the pun, it may not always be appreciated by adult readers of English poetry, so the translator is always torn as to how much one can reproduce puns without sounding bathetic. Incidentally, there is only one poem, no. 16, that happens to convey the same pun in both languages, based on the Japanese word matsu, which means both a pine tree and to pine for someone, as the word ‘pine’ does in English:
Though I may leave
for Mount Inaba,
whose peak is covered with pines,
if I hear that you pine for me,
I will come straight home to you.
Should imagery in Japanese traditional poetry be translated as similes or metaphors? Translations into modern Japanese in the contemporary commentaries tend to interpret the images as similes using the words yō or no gotoku (‘like’ or ‘as’). In the original, however, this information was often only implied, because the number of syllables was predetermined, and it was not always possible to include all grammatical information. Although the words for ‘like’ and ‘as’ are not explicit in the poem, it does not mean that they are not part of the meaning. Nor does it mean that the image should instead be interpreted as a metaphor. It is often preferable to translate such images as similes rather than metaphors, because similes are not as forceful as metaphors and are in keeping with the love of indirection that informs Japanese poetry. In some cases, however, a metaphor is preferable. The criterion I used in choosing between them was which would read best as a poem in English.
Many of the poems in this collection are highly visual, such as poem 3, for which I decided to do a word-picture translation:
The
long
tail
of
the
copper
pheasant
trails,
drags
on
and
on
like
this
long
night
alone
in
the
lonely
mountains,
longing
for
my
love.
The poet compares a long night spent alone to the long tail of the copper pheasant, and the translation is intended to convey visually the length of the tail. In the original, certain sounds are repeated, especially na and o, replicated in the translation by the repetition of ‘o’ and ‘n’ in words such as ‘on and on’, ‘alone’ and ‘longing’, to create a similar effect and make the night seem longer.
Another important issue in classical, and contemporary, Japanese is that the subject marker (such as ‘I’ for the speaker in a poem) is often left out, which means that when translating one would naturally use the passive rather than the active voice. In poem 5, for example, two different readings are possible depending on whether one takes as the subject of ‘making a path through the fallen leaves’ to be the deer or the poet, and this is part of the pleasure of reading such poems. For the main translation, I have used the passive voice without a subject marker, as in the original poem. If the subject marker is included, the translation might read:
Rustling through the leaves,
going deep into the mountains,
when I hear the lonely deer
belling for his doe,
how forlorn the autumn feels.
The Japanese language allows for much ambiguity, hence the absence of the subject marker does not necessarily mean that the poet wanted the reader to think it was either the deer or the poet that was moving forth into the woods, but rather to allow for the possibility of both interpretations. Not to clearly identify the subject in an English poem causes confusion, however, so in the main text I have tended to give a translation that follows the demands of English grammar, placing the more ambiguous version in the Commentary, where relevant. Such ambiguity in linguistic expression is one of the beauties and strengths of classical and even contemporary Japanese and is a special feature of waka poetry, perhaps reflecting the sensibility of poets whose relationship with nature is closer and more integrated, unlike their Western counterparts, who traditionally stand divorced and in opposition to nature.
A closer consideration of one poem, Ono no Komachi’s masterful no. 9 (see also the Introduction, here), will exemplify some of the issues outlined here:
I have loved in vain
and now my beauty fades
like these cherry blossoms
paling in the long rains of spring
that I gaze out upon alone.
(Hana no iro wa / utsurinikerina / itazurani / waga mi yo ni furu / nagame seshi ma ni)
In this extraordinarily dense poem, brilliantly conveyed in the thirty-two syllables of the original Japanese, almost every word has two or more meanings, some of which are listed below:
hana means ‘(cherry) blossoms’, but also ‘art’.
iro means both ‘colour’ and ‘sexuality/sensuality’.
utsuru (the infinitive of utsurinikeri) is to ‘pale’, ‘fade’, ‘change’ or ‘scatter’.
itazura ni means ‘in vain’, ‘come to nothing’ and ‘meaningless time passed by’. In the poem, it functions as pivot phrase (see commentary to poem 9) that modifies both what precedes and what follows it, helping to convey the overall sense that peerless beauty and youth and talent and love were all in vain.
waga mi yo ni furu means ‘I grow old’, ‘as I idled away’ and ‘I have (many) romantic relationships’.
yo means ‘world’, ‘life’ and ‘romantic/sexual relationship’.
furu means ‘to grow old’, ‘falling rain’ and ‘to pass through life’.
nagame means ‘lost in thought’, ‘long rains’ and ‘gaze upon’.
furu nagame is the ‘endless-falling rain’, the end of this phrase overlapping the following one: nagame seshi ma ni (literally, ‘while I gaze at it’).
Because of the polysemy, the first two lines, Hana no iro wa / utsurinikeri na, have two distinct and quite clear meanings:
(1) The literal meaning that the cherry blossoms are faded.
(2) The metaphorical meaning that the beautiful woman’s (hana no) charms, beauty and sensuality are gone.
At its simplest level, the poem can be read as a description of the blossoms blooming in vain and scattering in the prolonged rains, but from line 3 onwards, this seasonal imagery is superimposed on a narrative of personal decline. It is impossible to capture in English all of the nuances of the original without seeming terribly overloaded, but the many exclusions that are necessary mean that the translation conveys only part of the rich, suggestive quality of the original. Not only is there the problem of translating all of the plurality of meanings, there is also the problem of conveying what is unsaid.
If I were to compare poetry and translation to the visual arts, I would say that poetry writing corresponds to abstract or figurative painting and translation corresponds to coloured woodblock printing. In poetry, one either writes freely in bold strokes (or at least gives that impression), as in abstract painti
ng, or one uses venerable techniques to create figurative images that seem entirely fresh. In translating poetry, one may begin with a bold stroke to capture the essence of the poem, but then one has to keep returning to the original, each new application adding a different colour, as in the layering-up of a colour print. To execute the task properly, one must be methodical and precise, for any error would mean a loss of colour, or application of colour to an unintended part of the surface. I cannot claim that this translation is as exact and faithful to the original as a print in which each colour is rigorously applied to the matrix until a complete image forms. Rather, I would describe it as a combination of a painting and a print, not completely literal in every respect but faithful to the heart of the original. Teika himself advocated the imbuing of new sentiments into ancient words as a legitimate way of composing poems, and what better metaphor for the art of translation? Each new age has its own linguistic and emotional requirements but these energize rather than negate the process of translation.
A Note on Macrons
Macrons are used to extend vowel sounds in the romanized form of Japanese. I have tried to keep them to a minimum throughout this volume, omitting them from the names of people and places; exceptions are transliterated words and phrases in the editorial matter and in cases where it is part of the official English name of a company, such as the publishing firm Shinchōsha.
Introduction
What is the One Hundred Poets?
One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each (Hyakunin isshu) is a private compilation of poems dating to around 1230–40 and assembled by the renowned poet and scholar Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241). The best-loved and most widely read of all Japanese poetry collections, it was also the first work of Japanese literature to be translated into English – by Frederick Victor Dickins (1838–1915) – in 1866. There are three main reasons for its popularity. Firstly, its compiler, Teika, a scholar, theoretician and philologist, was the most admired poet of his time. Secondly, as a collection of one hundred of the best poems by one hundred representative poets, it provides a convenient introduction to the finest Japanese poetry from the late seventh to the early thirteenth centuries. Finally, it has endured thanks in part to the countless paintings, illustrated editions, commentaries and even a card game that have been inspired by it.1