One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each Read online

  This pairing was very important for the Japanese and they loved to judge which was the best of the two. Incidentally, although poem 39 is similar in theme to nos. 40 and 41, the link is not as strong since it was not composed for the same poetry contest, and was not placed subsequently with these poems in other anthologies.

  Love is the theme of both poems, and both focus on the early stage of the romance, when the lovers are still trying to keep their love secret and rumours are just beginning to spread. Poem 40 is marvellously straightforward: despite the poet’s best efforts to conceal it, his love for an unknown mistress shows in his face.

  Taira no Kanemori (910?–990) was a descendant of Emperor Koko (poem 15) and a court official who ended his career as Governor of Suruga. He was also one of the most respected poets of his generation. When Kinto (poem 55) compiled his selection of poems by Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses, Kanemori was one of only six poets to have ten of their poems included, the other five being Hitomaro (poem 3), Tsurayuki (poem 35), Mitsune (poem 29), Ise (poem 19) and Kanemori’s contemporary Nakatsukasa (912–91). Eighty-seven of his poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies and three poems given as ‘anonymous’ in the Gosenshū are considered to be his.

  41

  This poem forms a pair with poem 40 and, like that one, focuses on the gossip that invariably grew around a love affair meant to be kept secret. There were a number of reasons to keep an affair secret in Heian times, the foremost being the difference in rank between the two lovers. Forbidden love with a woman of much higher status provides the main narrative motif for some of the most famous works of Heian-period literature, including The Tales of Ise and The Tale of Genji.

  Like the previous poem, this one was composed for the prestigious Poetry Contest of the Fourth Year of Tentoku at the Imperial Palace in 960. The judge of the event, Fujiwara no Saneyori (900–970), found it hard to choose between the two poems and only awarded the victory to Kanemori’s poem because the emperor was overheard reciting the poem to himself. Later critics, however, agreed in rating Tadami’s poem far superior. Indeed, the poem masterfully sets up a contrast in the first part between the outer world (society’s view of the lovers, the spread of rumours) and, in the last part, the inner workings of the poet’s mind at the beginning of the affair. In the translation, the order is reversed.

  According to an anecdote in the medieval collection Shasekishū (Collection of Sand and Pebbles; 1283), Tadami was so disappointed by his defeat at the Tentoku contest that he stopped eating and died shortly afterwards as a result.

  Mibu no Tadami (fl. mid tenth century), son of the famous Tadamine (poem 30), was a reputed poet in his own right. Little is known of his career other than that he was appointed Grand Controller of the Province of Settsu. Thirty-six poems of his appear in the imperial waka anthologies and there is a private collection of his verse. He is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.

  42

  Like poem 38, this one is also about broken vows. The association of the place name Mount Sue no Matsu (see utamakura) with everlasting love dates back at least as far as the early tenth century, as exemplified by this poem from the Kokinshū (no. 1093), which is credited with having started the trend:

  Though it would never happen,

  if my heart were so fickle

  as to leave you

  the waves would swallow

  the Mount of Vows …

  (Kimi o okite / adashi gokoro no / ware moteba / Sue no matsuyama / nami mo kosanan)

  The image is based on the idea that Mount Sue no Matsu was so high that it was impossible for the waves to rise high enough to cover it and equally for the lover to break his vows. Its name in Japanese, Sue no Matsuyama, literally means ‘Pine Tree Mountain Without End’. In the poem above, I have translated it as ‘Mount of Vows’ for its special association with the making of vows in love poetry; in poem 42 it is translated as ‘Mount of Forever-Green Pines’, punning on ‘loving forever’ and ‘ever-green’, with ‘ever’ acting as a pivot word in English (but not in the original Japanese).

  The last line of the translation is only implied in the original; the poem could otherwise be rendered with the final line left blank for the reader to fill in:

  Wringing tears from our sleeves,

  did we not pledge never to part –

  not even if the waves engulfed

  the Mount of Forever-Green Pines

  …………….?

  The broken syntax of the poem adds immediacy and gives it a nice conversational quality. In the original, the break occurs at the end of the first line, which would read: ‘Did we not make vows –’ (Chigirikina); in the translation, the break occurs after the second line.

  Kiyohara no Motosuke (908–90), grandson of Fukayabu (poem 36) and father of Sei Shonagon (poem 62), was one of the most important poets of the tenth century. He served as an official in various provinces. In 951, he assisted in the compilation of the Gosenshū and transcription of the Man’yōshū. One of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses, he was the author of a voluminous private poetry collection and more than one hundred poems in the imperial waka anthologies.

  43

  Poem 43 is an example of a ‘morning-after poem’ (kinuginu no uta), sent by a man to reassure his beloved after a night spent together. Here the poet reassures the lady that his feelings are no less intense than they were before it (see also poems 50 and 80). Sending a morning-after poem was part of the complex code of conduct followed by Heian aristocratic lovers, and failure to send one, regardless of whether one intended to continue the relationship or not, would have been considered extremely impolite. Sometimes it was the woman who sent such notes, to express her feelings (as in poem 80), solicit a response or to chastise an inattentive lover.

  Fujiwara no Atsutada (906–43), third son of the powerful Fujiwara minister Tokihira (871–909), was a renowned musician and also known for his beauty. There are tales of his amorous escapades in many books, including The Tales of Yamato. Thirty poems by him appear in the official waka anthologies and he also has a private collection of poetry. He is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.

  44

  Like poems 40 and 41, this one was also composed at the Poetry Contest of the Fourth Year of Tentoku at the Imperial Palace in 960. The theme is also love, but the tone is much darker than in the previous poems. It is not clear, based on the original wording, if the encounter between the lovers has taken place or not, and the overall impression of the poem changes considerably depending on how one decides to read it. Judging from where Teika placed it in his digest of the first eight imperial waka collections (Hachidaishō; 1215–16), he probably read it as an ‘after-the-encounter’ poem, and so I have followed this interpretation in my translation. The underlying message of the poem is that the encounters that lovers so yearn for are in fact the cause of their suffering. The poem is often mentioned in medieval commentaries as a love poem that does not mention the word ‘love’ (koi), but this cannot be conveyed so easily in translation, hence I have included the word here.

  Nakanaka in line 3 does not mean ‘very’ or ‘considerably’, as it does in modern Japanese, but ‘on the contrary’ or ‘instead’. In the translation, it is rendered ‘If we had never’.

  Fujiwara no Asatada (910–66), aka Tomotada, was the fifth son of Sadakata (poem 25) and a Middle Counsellor. In his time, he was considered one of the finest poets of his generation, although his reputation somewhat declined over time. He was also a well-known gallant. Twenty-one poems of his appear in the official waka anthologies and he is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.

  45

  Although readers of classical Japanese literature may be more familiar with the topic of the heartbroken lady, men were also cast off by estranged lovers as often as women were. In poem 45 it is the man who vents his despair at having been forgotten by his beloved. The headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem as it appears in the Shūishū (no. 950) simply reads: ‘He composed the poem when a
woman with whom he had started an affair subsequently became cold and eventually stopped seeing him altogether.’ The author, Koremasa, was the archetypical ‘amorous gentleman’ (irogonomi) of the mid tenth century. His many romantic exploits are recorded in the Ichijō sesshō gyoshū (Collection of His Highness, the Regent of the First Ward; c.972), a heavily fictionalized collection of love stories based on his own poems that he is believed to have edited himself.

  Fujiwara no Koremasa (924–72), aka Fujiwara no Koretada, known posthumously as Kentoku-ko (Lord Humble and Virtuous), was a high-ranking courtier. The son of the prominent statesman Morosuke, he held numerous important offices, eventually becoming regent in 970. At the age of twenty-six, he was appointed superintendent of the editorial committee that compiled the Gosenshū. In addition to the Ichijō sesshō gyoshū, thirty-seven of his poems appear in the official waka anthologies.

  46

  One of the loveliest poems in the collection, this is another example of a poem that employs imagery from the natural world to express a sentiment, using a famous place name, the Bay of Yura (see utamakura), to give added resonance. The first three lines form a preface (jokotoba) ending in a pivot phrase that connects the first part of the poem (‘The boat is adrift / not knowing where it goes’) with the second (‘not knowing where it goes / Is the course of love [also] like this?’). A view of the landscape is thus sketched which is then linked to the message of the poem: like the course of a boat that has lost its rudder, the way of love is filled with uncertainty.

  Sone no Yoshitada (fl. mid-to-late tenth century) was one of the most original poets of his time. Not much is known about him except that he was a secretary (jo) in Tango Province, hence his sobriquets Sotango and Sotan. Whereas most of his contemporaries preferred safe, manneristic compositions in the style of the Kokinshū, he is known for his daring, sometimes outrageous poems, in which he often employs archaic diction and imagery. He seems to have been an eccentric character and in time he became something of a comic figure, mocked in a wealth of anecdotes and stories dating from the late Heian period onwards. Eighty-nine poems of his appear in imperial waka anthologies later than the Shūishū. He also wrote the Yoshitada hyakushu (c.961), the first example on record of a one-hundred-poem sequence (hyakushu).

  47

  Like poem 35, this poem contrasts the fickle human heart with the unchanging cyclical rhythm of nature: although visitors have stopped coming, autumn never fails to visit. The arrival of autumn, however, brings little comfort to the poet and only makes the sense of loneliness and isolation from the world more acute. According to the headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem in the Shūishū (no. 140), it was composed on the theme ‘autumn comes to the ruined villa’, based on the ruins of the once-splendid Kawara-in residence built by Minamoto no Toru (poem 14). After Toru’s death it became a site of pilgrimage for poets, and poetry gatherings were often hosted there. Thus the melancholia evoked by the poem is not to be taken as the poet’s own, but rather as a poetic distillation of the theme of loneliness, which in many ways anticipates the medieval ideal of yūgen (see the Introduction, here). Yaemugura in the first line of the Japanese is a general term for creeping vines and weeds that overgrow an abandoned garden.

  Priest Egyo (fl. second half of the tenth century) often participated in poetry gatherings with fellow poets Motosuke (poem 42), Shigeyuki (poem 48) and Yoshinobu (poem 49). Fifty-six of his poems appear in the Shūishū and later imperial waka anthologies. He has a private collection of poems.

  48

  This is a love poem of rare power and inventiveness. Swept by strong winds, the waves furiously hit the rocks, only to be shattered by them, much like the heart of a suitor who pursues an unresponsive lover. Like the previous poem, it employs the device of a preface (jokotoba), in which a description of the landscape in the first part of the poem doubles up as a metaphor of the poet’s feelings. The word kudakeru is both a pivot word and a pun (kakekotoba) with the double meaning of ‘my heart breaks’ and the ‘waves crash’.

  The preface consists of the words up to ‘kaze o itami / iwa utsu nami no.’ Then the words ‘onore nomi’ separate it from the words it modifies, ‘kudakete mono o.’ We can see from this that the preface does not need to be directly attached to the words it modifies.

  Minamoto no Shigeyuki (d. c.1000) was a major poet of his time. Despite being a great-grandson of Emperor Seiwa (r. 857–76), he held mostly minor posts at court and in the provincial bureaucracy. He seems to have been the first to compose a one-hundred-poem sequence (hyakushū), which became a very popular format in subsequent times (see also the Introduction, here). Kinto (poem 55) listed him among his Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses. Sixty-seven of Shigeyuki’s poems were included in the imperial waka anthologies.

  49

  Poem 49 features a classic pun (kakekotoba) based on the word for ‘fire’ (hi), which also appears as the last two letters of the word for ‘love’ (omohi): the poet’s love is like the watchman’s fire that wanes by day but burns during the night. Societal rules were imposed to keep feelings hidden from view, but in the reassuring secrecy of the night one was free to give full expression to one’s emotions by sending passionate notes or visiting a lover. Though attributed to Yoshinobu, the poem does not appear in his collected poems and a version with only minor differences is listed as ‘anonymous’ in the Kokin waka rokujō (Old and New Waka in Six Volumes) from the latter part of the tenth century.

  Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu (921–91) was the son of the prominent Kokinshū-period poet Yorimoto (c.886–958). He was Hereditary High Official of the Department of Religious Affairs. As a member of the Bureau of Poetry, he participated in the transcription of the Man’yōshū and compilation of the Gosenshū. A total of 126 of his poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies. He also has a large private poetry collection and is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.

  50

  This is another example of a morning-after poem (kinuginu no uta). Its conceit – the willingness to die for love transformed, after meeting one’s beloved, into a wish to live for ever – is clever, though not to the point of making the poem feel affected or inauthentic. Its headnote (kotobagaki) in the Goshūishū (no. 669) reads: ‘He sent this poem upon returning home from the lady’s house.’ Love affairs between Heian aristocrats revolved around the exchange of poems (zōtōka). They often began with a poem dashed off in haste and could continue for some time until the much-anticipated meeting between the lovers arrived. According to the custom of the time, the visits would continue secretly for three nights. On the morning of the fourth day, the suitor would then reveal himself to the parents of the girl and the couple would be considered married.

  Fujiwara no Yoshitaka (954–74), son of Koretada (poem 45), was appointed Captain of the Imperial Guard of the Right. He was the father of the renowned calligrapher Yukinari (972–1027), who was born when Yoshitaka was only eighteen. Yoshitaka died of smallpox at the age of twenty, on the same day as his twin brother. A devout Buddhist, according to the Ōkagami (The Great Mirror; c.1119), his last wish was that he not be cremated, so that he could come back to life to finish reading the Lotus Sutra. His mother ignored his request, however, and his body was cremated, as a result of which he reappeared in a dream and reproached her: ‘You promised to bury me but burned me in the end; how could you have forgotten?’ After that, he is said to have lived in heaven for eternity, rather than coming back to earth, as he had wished. Twelve of Yoshitaka’s poems appear in the official waka anthologies; he also has a private collection and is counted among the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period.

  51

  As with poems 49 and 50, an image of burning passion lies at the heart of this poem. The poet is unable to express his feelings openly and so his love must burn secretly and slowly like the dried leaves of the moxa plant. Powdered Japanese mugwort or moxa (Artemesia princeps) was and is still used as a natural health remedy in East Asian medicine to treat a variety of ailments. Hea
ting certain areas of the body by applying burning moxa leaves (a process known as moxibustion) is believed to have therapeutic effects.

  A number of puns (kakekotoba) make the poem rhetorically intricate: the verb iu (‘to say’, spelled ihu in ancient kana) puns on Ibuki (rendered ‘Ihuki’ in the ancient style); Ibuki in Shiga Prefecture was a poetic location (see utamakura) known for mugwort; the word sashimogusa (another common name for the moxa plant) puns on sashimo (‘that much’ or ‘in this way’); omoi (love) puns on hi (fire), based on its original spelling of omohi; and moyuru (to burn) is an associative word (engo) for sashimogusa. The wordplay on sashimogusa and sashimo also constitutes a preface (jokotoba), linking the first and second parts of the poem. (See also commentary to poem 75 for a differing use of mugwort as an image.)

  Fujiwara no Sanekata (d. 998), great-grandson of Tadahira (poem 26), was Commander of the Imperial Guard. In 995, he was appointed Governor of Mutsu (present-day Aomori), where he died. He is cited as a lover of Sei Shonagon (poem 62). A story in the Kōjidan (Reminiscing on Old Times; 1212–15) relates that in 995 Emperor Ichijo (r. 986–1011) exiled Sanetaka to the northern province of Mutsu after an argument at court between him and the calligrapher Fujiwara no Yukinari (972–1027). Because Sanekata was well known as an accomplished poet, the emperor is reported to have quipped sarcastically to him, ‘Go and visit some poetic locations!’ Sixty-eight poems of his appear in the imperial waka anthologies. He also left a private poetry collection.