One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each Read online

  52

  Because it marked the moment of separation between lovers, the coming of dawn is lamented in countless love poems, including this one. The headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem in the Goshūishū (no. 672) says that it was ‘sent on returning home, having left the house of a lady on a day the snow was falling’, and although the snow is not mentioned in the poem, we can picture the elegant scene of a beautifully dressed courtier leaving the house of his beloved at dawn as the snow quietly falls.

  Fujiwara no Michinobu (972–94), son of the statesman Tamemitsu (942–92), was adopted by his powerful uncle Kaneie (see commentary to poem 53). Despite dying young, at the age of twenty-two, he was considered a brilliant commander of the Imperial Guard and had already established a reputation as a fine poet. Forty-nine poems of his are included in the imperial waka anthologies. He left a private collection of poems and was listed as one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period.

  53

  Of all the insensitive husbands at the Heian court, Fujiwara no Kaneie is perhaps the most notorious. The progressive deterioration of his marriage to the woman known to us as the Mother of Michitsuna, his affairs with other women and the suffering this caused his wife are described in wonderful detail in her Kagerō nikki (literally, ‘The Mayfly Diary’, also known as ‘The Gossamer Years’; c.974), a masterpiece of Heian prose literature. According to this work, poem 53 was composed when Kaneie returned home early one morning having spent the night at the house of another woman. Full of grief and resentment, the Mother of Michitsuna refused to let him in and sent him this poem with a faded chrysanthemum – a reference to the man’s change of heart – attached to it. The Shūishū, in which the poem was later anthologized (no. 912), tells a somewhat different story: when he returned home one morning, Kaneie waited for a long time for the gate to be opened, until he eventually sent word, saying, ‘My legs are sore from standing,’ to which his wife replied with this poem. Teika no doubt liked it for the straightforward yet powerful expression of grief.

  Mother of Michitsuna (937–95) was a Fujiwara lady noted for her exceptional beauty and mastery of poetry. Secondary consort of Kaneie (929–90), chancellor and regent, she is mainly remembered as the author of Kagerō nikki. Her real name is not known, though, somewhat ironically, her son Michitsuna is mostly famous for being related to her. Thirty-nine of her poems appear in the official waka anthologies and she also has a private poetry collection. She is listed as one of both the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period and the Thirty-Six Women Poetic Geniuses.

  54

  Happy endings are rare in Heian court romances, and even happy unions were expected not to last; thus lovers were cautious in the rare and short-lived moments of bliss. Poem 54 forecasts the ultimate failure of the romance, while simultaneously being a rare celebration of present happiness. The nervous, inarticulate phrasing of the original – the natural order of the words in Japanese is inverted in several places – is perfectly suited to expressing the passionate message the poem aims to convey.

  A similar sentiment can be found in this poem by Akazome-emon (c.960–c.1041) – a contemporary of the author of poem 54 and also a prominent poet – from the Goshūishū (no. 59):

  As I’m so sure

  I will be forgotten

  when tomorrow comes,

  let me die today

  before we have to part.

  (Asu naraba / wasuraruru mi ni / narinubeshi / kyō o sugusanu / inochi to mogana)

  Mother of Honorary Grand Minister (d. 996), Takashina no Takako, was the wife of the Grand Chancellor Michitaka (953–95). She had several illustrious children, including the future Empress Teishi (whom Sei Shonagon, poem 62, served as a lady-in-waiting) and Fujiwara no Korechika (974–1010), who after briefly holding the position of Minister of the Right was forced out of office by his uncle Michinaga, and given the grandiloquent but empty new title of Honorary Grand Minister.

  55

  Kinto was considered the best poet of his generation and poems such as this one help to explain how he earned his reputation. Although the water no longer ‘flows’ (nagare), the ‘reputation’ (na) of the place as a marvellous site is still ‘passed down’ (also nagare; rendered nagarete in the poem) from one generation to another. The repetition of na sounds in the second part of the poem and of ta – taki (waterfall) and tae (‘dry up’; rendered taete in the poem) – in the first two lines calls to mind the continuous falling water, which miraculously seems to flow in language even though the actual water has dried up. The translation employs a visual layout of short lines to express a sense of the flow of the waterfall. A five-line version would read:

  The waterfall dried up

  in the distant past

  and makes not a sound,

  but its fame flows on and on

  and echoes still today.

  We know from information in Kinto’s private poetry collection that the poem was composed during an excursion to a famous recreational area west of Kyoto where Emperor Saga (r. 809–23) built a magnificent villa and garden in the early ninth century. The waterfall in the poem may refer either to a dried-up waterfall or to a ‘dry waterfall’ (karedaki) created in the garden. The latter is still visible today at the Ozawa pond of the Daikakuji Temple.

  Fujiwara no Kinto (966–1041) was the son of the Grand Minister Yoritada (924–89). He held the office of Major Counsellor, but after the death of his daughter he entered religion and retired to a valley in the hills to the north of Kyoto. His home became a Mecca for the best poets and minds of his day, who all deferred to his judgement in matters poetic. He was involved in the editing of the Shūishū and was the sole editor of the Wakan rōeishū (Collection of Chinese and Japanese Poems to Sing; c.1018?). He also wrote treatises on the art of poetry and drew up the first and most famous of the many lists of Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses (see also the Introduction, here). He left a considerable body of critical writings and poetry in both Chinese and Japanese. Eighty-nine of his poems were included in the imperial waka anthologies and he left a private collection of poetry.

  56

  Whereas the previous poem is calm, controlled and elegantly charming, poem 56 by Izumi Shikibu is spontaneous, passionate and deeply moving, as her best poems often are. The headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem in the Goshūishū (no. 763) states that it was composed when Izumi was ill. Although the reference to the poet’s imminent death may be a rhetorical exaggeration, it adds pathos to the poem and makes it more memorable.

  In the original Japanese, the powerful first line (Arazaran) is blunt and disconnected from the rest, providing a truly memorable opening to this poem, which may be translated thus:

  I will soon be gone –

  let me take one last memory

  of this world with me.

  May I see you once more,

  may I see you now?

  In the main translation, the caesura is moved from the end of the first line to end of the third, transferring the emphasis from the somewhat sentimental ‘I will soon be gone’ to the urgent immediacy of ‘May I see you once, / may I see you now?’

  Izumi Shikibu (b. c.976–8) was the daughter of Oe no Masamune, Governor of Echizen (present-day Fukui), and wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi (present-day Osaka Fu). Her daughter was Ko Shikibu (poem 60). She had an affair with Prince Tametaka, and then Prince Atsumichi. Like Murasaki Shikibu (poem 57), she served as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi (988–1074) and contributed to the creation of a lively literary salon. She is considered by many to have been the greatest woman poet of the Heian period, a time when supremely talented women flourished. Teika himself was a great admirer of her poetry and included thirty-seven of her poems in his Hachidaishō (Selection from the First Eight Waka Anthologies; 1215–16). A total of 250 of her poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies, and she has two private poetry collections. She is one of both the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period and the Thirty-Six
Women Poetic Geniuses.

  57

  Like Izumi Shikibu (poem 56), The Tale of Genji author Murasaki Shikibu belongs to a generation of women poets who laboured to find a personal voice within the conventions established by earlier poets. Poem 57 is ostensibly about the moon, but is in fact a message to a childhood friend the poet had not seen for a long time who had suddenly called for a short visit. The headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem in the Shin-kokinshū (no. 1497) reads: ‘On the tenth night of the seventh month, after the briefest of visits, a childhood friend she had not seen for years was about to leave as the moon shone brightly.’ In the original Japanese, only the moon is referred to, but the translation makes clear that it is the friend to whom the poem is actually addressed.

  Murasaki Shikibu (c.978–c.1014) served as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi (988–1074). A prolific poet, she is most famous as the author of the prose masterpiece The Tale of Genji. She also left a diary, Murasaki Shikibu nikki, covering the years 1008 to 1010, and a private collection of her poems. She has fifty-eight poems in the official waka anthologies and is listed among both the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period and the Thirty-Six Women Poetic Geniuses.

  58

  Poem 58 was composed as a reply to a man who had accused the poet of having forgotten him (no. 709 in the Goshūishū). The word soyo in the fourth line means ‘that’s right’ or ‘I told you so’ (‘I swear of my love’ in the translation); it also sounds similar to soyo soyo, an onomatopoeic evocation of the gentle sound of the wind rustling through the leaves that accompanies the poet’s message to her beloved: ‘I have never stopped loving you!’ Though the focus of the poem is on sound (onomatopoeia and sibilance), the visual aspect is also well developed (the mountain, the wind blowing through the bamboo grove). The translation attempts to retain something of the aural qualities of the original in the use of the closely connected sounds in ‘low’, ‘wind’, ‘whispers’ and ‘swear’. Mount Arima and Ina are in the Province of Settsu and both are famous poetic locations (see utamakura).

  Daini no Sanmi (b. c.999), aka Fujiwara no Katako, was the daughter of Murasaki Shikibu (poem 57) and Fujiwara no Nobutaka, and the wet nurse of Emperor Go-Reizei (r. 1045–68). Some commentaries attribute to her the final ten chapters of The Tale of Genji but there is no evidence for this claim. Thirty-seven of her poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies and she also has a private poetry collection.

  59

  Whereas love poems expressing resentment (urami) usually focus on the suffering and dejection caused by the cold-hearted partner, this is a gentle poem that reveals the poet’s disappointment after waiting up all night for her lover to come. The scholar Ishida Yoshisada comments upon ‘the progression through the emotional stages – waiting, despair, resentment, sadness, exhaustion – combined with the inexpressible beauty of the moon sinking in the Western sky’ and how these ‘perfectly embody Teika’s aesthetic sense’ (quoted in Shimazu, Hyakunin isshu, p. 130).

  A similar poem was composed by Teika’s contemporary and close affiliate Fujiwara no Ryokei (poem 91) and appears as no. 130 in the Shokukokinshū, another of the imperial waka anthologies.

  Could one go straight to sleep?

  From behind the mountain,

  I wait anxiously

  for the moon to appear

  above the blossoms.

  (Yasurawade / nenamu monokawa / yama no ha ni / izayou tsuki o / hana ni machitsutsu)

  Akazome Emon (c.960–c.1041) was lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi (988–1074) at the same time as Izumi Shikibu (poem 56) and Murasaki Shikibu (poem 57). Murasaki gives a rather flattering account of Emon’s poetic prowess in her diary, Murasaki Shikibu nikki. She is believed to be the author or co-author of the historical tale Eiga monogatari (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes) from the first half of the eleventh century. Ninety-three of her poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies and she has a private poetry collection. Akazome Emon is one of both the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period and the Thirty-Six Women Poetic Geniuses.

  60

  Like the previous poem, poem 60 combines private events and cosmic imagery to achieve a majestic effect from inconsequential subject matter. According to the headnote (kotobagaki) in the Kin’yōshū (no. 550), Koshikibu no Naishi wrote this poem, one of the most brilliant in the One Hundred Poets, when teased that she could not write one without the help of her mother, the famous poet Izumi Shikibu (poem 56). It is a devastating retort, full of puns and word associations that firmly denies the allegations but somehow also manages to convey a poignancy regarding the great distance separating mother and daughter.

  The place name Ikuno puns on iku (‘to go’ or ‘to leave’) linking Mount Oe and the road: Ōeyama / Ikuno michi (‘The road that goes [via Ikuno] to Mount Oe’). A second pun revolves around fumi, which means both ‘letter’ and ‘to set foot in’. The fourth line in the Japanese therefore means both ‘I have yet to set foot in …’ and ‘No letter has come …’ All this helps to bring out the central message of the poem of ‘going it alone’, in the sense of the poet composing on her own, which is conveyed in the second line of the translation by ‘nor have I sought help with this poem’.

  The poem is given added resonance by the reference to no less than three famous place names (utamakura) – Mount Oe, Ikuno and Ama no Hashidate. All three places must be passed through to reach the mother’s house in Tango (modern-day northern Kyoto Prefecture). Ama no Hashidate, one of the most scenic locations in Japan, literally means the Bridge to Heaven; I have translated it here to convey the sense of distance, metaphorical as much as physical, between the poet and her mother. (The map here gives some idea of the actual distance between the three locations.)

  Much of the meaning of the poem can only be understood with a knowledge of the context. Translated literally, the original runs something like this:

  As they are so far away

  I have not set foot on Mount Oe

  nor have I received a letter

  from the Bridge to Heaven.

  In other words, there is no mention of the accusation that the mother helped to write the poem, nor that, because of the distance between them, it would have been impossible.

  Koshikibu no Naishi (d. 1025) was the daughter of Tachibana no Michisada and Izumi Shikibu (poem 56), and, like her mother, a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi (988–1074). She had a son by the Grand Chancellor, Norimichi. Koshikibu died before she was thirty and has just four poems in the imperial waka anthologies.

  61

  Poem 61 amply displays the genius and wit of Ise no Taifu. The yaezakura, or eightfold cherry blossom, is a late-blooming variety for which Nara is famous. According to the headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem in Ise no Taifu’s Collected Poems an eightfold cherry blossom was presented to the imperial court by a bishop from Nara. The famous poet Murasaki Shikibu (poem 57) deferred to Ise no Taifu, who then accepted the blossom on behalf of the court. Thereupon the great Fujiwara no Michinaga, Chancellor of the Realm, insisted a poem must be written, so Ise no Taifu dashed off this stunning impromptu piece and thereby proved her genius. In classical Japanese, ‘eightfold’ is a code for ‘splendid’ and ‘ninefold’ for something surpassing even that. Kyoto (formerly Heiankyo, the ‘new capital’) is often referred to in classical literature as kokonoe no miyako, or ‘the nine-layered capital’ (a reference to the imposing size of its buildings). Kokonoe (literally, ‘nine’) is translated here as ‘nine splendid gates’ in reference to the palace of the Chinese emperor, which was said to have nine gates – nine being an auspicious number. The term ‘nine-layered’ could also be used to refer to the members of the court, in the sense that they themselves had been rendered auspicious by living within a figuratively ‘nine-gated’ palace. The poem thus pays a compliment to Michinaga and his daughter Shoshi, the then reigning empress.

  Ise no Taifu (fl. mid eleventh century), not to be confused with the Lady Ise (poem 19), was the granddaughter of On
akatomi no Yoshinobu (poem 49) and a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shoshi (988–1074). Fifty-one poems of hers appear in the imperial waka anthologies and she has a private poetry collection. She is one of both the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period and the Thirty-Six Women Poetic Geniuses.

  62

  This brilliant and witty poem first appeared in Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book; completed 1002), Sei Shonagon’s famous collection of miscellaneous musings, and alludes to a well-known story about the Lord of Meng-ch’ang (d. 279 BCE), who escaped through the barrier of Han Ku by imitating the sound of a cock crowing, whereupon the guards, thinking it was dawn, opened the gates.

  In Heian romance, the crowing of the cock announces the dawn and the mandatory parting of lovers. Convention ruled that the man must remain with the lady until dawn, but if the man found the lady disagreeable, he would sometimes leave in the middle of the night. In this poem, the poet’s lover imitates the sound of a cock crowing and then writes her a note the next day saying that he had wanted to stay longer, but the crowing of the cock had forced him to leave earlier than he wished. The point of the poem is that even though the Chinese guards may have been fooled into opening the Han Ku Barrier, the Osaka Barrier – a famous poetic location, translated here as ‘Meeting Hill’ (see also the commentary to poem 10 and utamakura) – will remain shut, and she will not see him again.