One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each Read online

  In Teika’s Kindai shūka, the arrangement of the poems is marked by his predilection for love poetry, especially the darker aspects of love, such as betrayal, abandonment, bitterness and despair. The same is certainly true of the One Hundred Poets, whose treatment of love tends to focus on its more sombre, unhappy aspects, though in a sense this is true of all waka poetry, which does not celebrate happy or fulfilled love. Teika’s understanding of poetic love was influenced by the poem-tale collection The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari; mid tenth century) and the romance novel The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari; early eleventh century), works which built on the tradition of poetic love and eventually became themselves a central part of it. Both Teika and his father regarded these works as mandatory reading for poets.

  Along with love, nature is especially prominent in the collection. As the table shows, autumn was a particularly popular theme, with poems on this season greatly outnumbering those on spring (fifteen, compared to six) and a scene of autumnal melancholia opens the collection. The autumn poems almost invariably paint a forlorn, melancholic image of the season, as in poems 5, 23 and 47. Important exceptions are poems 17 and 69, by Narihira and Noin respectively, which focus on the stunning beauty of the autumnal foliage. Rather than being a matter of individual taste, the emphasis on desolate, melancholic autumnal scenes was characteristic of the period in which Teika lived – a troubled time of warfare and profound political and social change. Beauty and sadness do not exclude one another in the collection, but work together to create a picture of restrained elegance.

  Two of the defining metaphors of Japanese classical poetry are the cherry blossom and maple. More than any other plants, cherry blossoms and maples embody the strong love of the Japanese for the four seasons, especially spring and autumn. Whereas maples are celebrated mostly for their beauty, the cherry blossom is more commonly associated with the evanescence of life. This beautiful poem on cherry blossoms by Ki no Tomonori (poem 33) hints at the profound way in which the short-lived blossoms moved the early poets:

  Cherry Blossoms,

  on this calm, lambent

  day of spring,

  why do you scatter

  with such unquiet hearts?

  The poet finds in the exquisite disquiet of the blossoms a mirror image of himself. The address to the cherry blossoms by Gyoson (poem 66), meanwhile, suggests that only they can fully understand the fragility of life:

  Mountain Cherry,

  let us console each other.

  Of all those I know

  no one understands my heart

  the way your blossoms do.

  Though maples are also short-lived, it is their visual beauty that is mostly celebrated, often in connection with the gods or the imperial family. For example, Sugawara no Michizane’s charming poem (no. 24) asks the gods to accept a maple brocade instead of the streamers that were usually offered:

  On this journey

  I have no streamers to offer up.

  Instead, dear gods, if it pleases you,

  may you take this maple brocade

  of Mount Tamuke’s colours.

  In poem 26, Fujiwara no Tadahira asks the maples of Mount Ogura to wait for the progess of the Daigo emperor so that he may see them in all their autumn finery:

  Dear Maples of Mount Ogura,

  if you have a heart,

  please wait for another visit

  so that His Majesty may enjoy

  your lovely autumn colours.

  Elsewhere maple leaves are associated with images of cloth, such as the famous brocades and tie-dyeing of poem 17.

  What many of the poems focusing on the natural world have in common is a celebration of the beauty of a single observed moment and an emphasis on the importance of the ability to be moved by it. This was a key characteristic of Japanese classical poetry, and the harnessing of this sensibility was later important in the creation of haiku, where the lens becomes even more microscope-like. Poem 93 is a good example of a verse that is affecting because of its precise, sharp focus on a single image:

  That such moving sights

  would never change –

  fishermen rowing

  their small boats,

  pulling them on to shore.

  In contrast, the poem on Mount Fuji, by Yamabe no Akahito (no. 4), is a notable exception in the collection in its celebration of the majesty and monumentality of the landscape:

  Coming out on the Bay of Tago

  there before me,

  Mount Fuji –

  snow still falling on her peak,

  a splendid cloak of white.

  The ‘splendid cloak’ of Mount Fuji provides a good opportunity to mention what was clearly Teika’s favourite colour: white – referred to in poems 2, 4, 6, 15, 29, 31, 37 and 76. Just as we speak of ‘Rikyu grey’ in the Japanese tea ceremony or of ‘Issey Miyake black’ in contemporary Japanese fashion, for Teika – and for the Japanese aesthetic sensibility more generally – white was the colour of refinement, purity, elegance and sophistication. White is also a key element of Teika’s yōen aesthetics. Poems in this style often feature natural scenes in white or pale colours, such as the white moon of dawn, cherry blossoms, fog, mist and snow. There are at least ten poems in the collection that employ white imagery, including poem 2:

  Spring has passed

  and the white robes of summer

  are being aired

  on fragrant Mount Kagu –

  beloved of the gods.

  Here, whiteness is associated both with summer and the sacred gods of old. White can be used for autumn and winter too, as in poem 37, which compares white dewdrops to unstrung pearls:

  When the wind gusts

  over the autumn fields,

  white dewdrops

  lie strewn about

  like scattered pearls.

  Some of the best poems in the collection involve a kind of ‘elegant confusion’ (mitate) on the part of the onlooker by the appearance of white on white. Poem 76 describes the poet’s inability to distinguish between white waves and far-off clouds, while in poem 31 Sakanoue no Korenori confuses the snow with moonlight. Poem 96 humorously compares white blossoms to snow, only to reveal that in fact the whiteness is the white hair of old age. In poem 29 – one of the most beautiful in the collection and a favourite of Teika’s that he included in several other compilations – Oshikochi no Mitsune writes of his inability to pluck white chrysanthemums because they are indistinguishable from the first frost:

  To pluck a stem

  I shall have to guess,

  for I cannot tell apart

  white chrysanthemums

  from the first frost.

  This recurrence of white imagery is related to the aesthetic idea of setsugekka (literally, ‘snow, moon and flowers’). Originally a phrase in a poem by the Chinese poet Bai Juyi (772–846), it gradually developed into an important motif in Japanese poetry and art. Bai wrote to his friend the scholar Yuan Zhen that he missed him most when he saw the blossoms blooming, the moon at night and the snow in winter. All three of these are associated with the colour white, and white in turn came to be loved by the Japanese classical poets. The poems in One Hundred Poets reveal how central the colour was to Teika’s aesthetic and how widely it was employed in the poetry of the time.

  One additional characteristic of the collection particularly worth noting is the strikingly visual evocation of landscape and specific places. Perhaps Teika envisaged that illustrations would be later added to the poems, and so he deliberately chose intensely visual poems that lent themselves well to such use. Or maybe it was just a consequence of his own personal preference for poems with vivid pictorial imagery. Regardless, the One Hundred Poets is a highly visual anthology.

  Famous locations referred to in Japanese classical poetry are known as utamakura (literally, ‘poem pillows’) and have been highly popular since early times. They carried a convenient range of established associations that poets used to add wit and depth to their
verse. Places such as Naniwa, the Osaka Barrier, Tatsuta and Yoshino also carried political and cultural significance. (See the Glossary entry on utamakura for a list of the famous sites that crop up repeatedly in the poems.)

  Related to this emphasis on the visual is ekphrasis – poems about paintings or visual images or the combination of visual and literary depiction – which is an important element in the One Hundred Poets. Indeed, Japanese literature as a whole is intensely ekphratic because of the recurring tendency to pair poems and excerpts from works in prose with visual depictions in a great variety of media and genres. Examples include the poem-painting scrolls (shigajiku) of the Muromachi period (1336–1573) and the outstanding lacquerware of the Momoyama and Edo periods (1574–1868). In Japan, poems and paintings have been regularly paired since at least the Heian period (794–1185).

  One of the most common ways of pairing poem and picture was through ‘screen poems’ (byōbu-uta), in which poets based their compositions on images depicted on partition screens (byōbu), rather than on scenes from the real world, and word and image worked as an integral whole. In some cases, poets imagined themselves as figures in the painting and composed from that viewpoint. There are several theories as to how the poems were placed on the screens. One is that a space was left blank on the screens and the poems were written directly on to the screen; another is that the poems were written on a piece of paper and then affixed to the screen near the image. The landscape described in the poems is not always nature in its primal state; sometimes it may be an aristocrat’s manmade garden – the most famous being that of Minamoto no Toru – and other times the painted scene itself. In this collection, poem 17 by Narihira and poem 98 by Ietaka were specifically composed for partition screens. (See commentary to both these poems for further detail.)

  Connection to the Imperial Family

  An important aspect of the One Hundred Poets is its close connection to the imperial family and noble families of the court. Poetry composition and literary patronage have been essential activities of the imperial family for more than a millennium, and imperial patronage in turn has played a crucial role in the development of Japanese court poetry. In Teika’s world, lineage, status at court and poetic ability were all inseparable. The One Hundred Poets closely reflects this and can be seen as an encomium to the imperial institution. It is clear from reading the collection that, for Teika, in addition to being accomplished composers, imperials were also the spiritual patrons of waka; the collection opens and closes with poems by sovereigns (Emperor Tenji and Empress Jito at the beginning, and emperors Gotoba and Juntoku at the end). Emperor Tenji was Jito’s father and Gotoba was Juntoku’s father, so by placing them at each end of the collection, Teika is affirming both the centrality of the imperial family to poetry and the importance of heredity and lineage.

  The One Hundred Poets covers almost six centuries of Japanese history, from the reign of Emperor Tenji (r. 661–72) to Emperor Juntoku (r. 1211–21). The thirty-eighth emperor, Tenji, whose waka opens the volume, was not only the first emperor for whom a reliable historical record remains, but also the sovereign who first ennobled the Fujiwara family and gave it its illustrious clan name. Thus, the first poem simultaneously celebrates the imperial line, the beginning of waka and the beginning of the Fujiwara family. In his general layout of the One Hundred Poets, Teika can be seen to acknowledge a deep family debt to Tenji and his descendants. Emperor Tenji was a great patron of poets and poetry and was himself an accomplished poet. He was the first to establish the close links between the imperial court and the world of poetry that are faithfully fostered to this day.

  The second poet to appear in the One Hundred Poets is Tenji’s daughter Jito (r. 686–97), an empress who carried on her father’s patronage of poets and poetry. No doubt her inclusion in the One Hundred Poets is owing to her importance as a patron of poetry. She is especially noteworthy for her patronage of the great early poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (fl. late seventh century), who is the collection’s third poet. Since, as early as the tenth century, Hitomaro was revered as a deity of poetry, the collection would have probably opened with him, had Teika not wished to give precedence to poets from the imperial family. Hitomaro regarded Jito as a goddess in a way no other later poet regarded members of the imperial family, so his inclusion following two rulers may be seen as a tribute to him by Teika. The One Hundred Poets closes with Emperor Juntoku, preceded by his father Emperor Gotoba. Gotoba is himself preceded by Fujiwara no Ietaka, a fine poet and known for his unswerving loyalty to his sovereign even after his banishment to Oki Island. The great link between them was poetry.

  The remaining four emperors in the collection, Koko, Sanjo, Sutoku and Yozei, were chosen for their significance in the world of poetry. For example, Emperor Yozei (r. 876–84; poem 13), the fifty-seventh sovereign, came to the throne in childhood, but he was deposed after a mere eight years of reign because he showed signs of mental instability. After his abdication, he became an assiduous practitioner of poetry and a host of poetic contests. Regrettably, only one of his poems remains extant – the one in the One Hundred Poets.

  As well as the eight emperors, there are four children of emperors (including Princess Shokushi), four grandsons of emperors and two great-grandsons. There are twenty-five named Fujiwaras, as well as priests or women who were of Fujiwara stock. There are many pairs of parent and child (poems 1 and 2, 12 and 21, 13 and 20, 25 and 44, 30 and 41, 40 and 59, 42 and 62, 45 and 50, 55 and 64, 56 and 60, 57 and 58, 71 and 74, 74 and 85, 76 and 95, 79 and 84, 83 and 87, 83 and 97, 99 and 100), and one pair of brothers (16 and 17). Teika lived in an age when descent from a family of poets was of the utmost importance, and he himself was the head of one of the most important houses of poetry (the Mikohidari house). This, then, is a thoroughly blue-blooded, elitist and exclusive group.

  Nevertheless, it is important to understand that Teika was not simply practising family favouritism. It is unsurprising that so many members of the Fujiwara clan are included, given that it produced so many outstanding poets. Furthermore, Teika clearly wanted to pay tribute to others who had compiled selections of great poetry before him. Notable is his inclusion of twenty-five of the thirty-six reputed poets that his distant ancestor Fujiwara no Kinto (see poem 55) included in his Sanjūrokuninsen (Selected Poems by Thirty-Six Poets; 1009–11?), an important precursor of the One Hundred Poets. It also evident that he chose some poets for their historical importance, rather than for the beauty of their poems. For example, Teika did not include poems 13, 25, 50 and 55 (by Yozei, Fujiwara no Sadakata, Fujiwara no Yoshitaka and Kinto respectively) in any other of the numerous selections of excellent examples that he compiled in his lifetime. He included them here because these poets represented important stages in the history and development of waka.

  Waka poetry continued to be written throughout the centuries, and in 1879 the Emperor Meiji (r. 1868–1912) opened the utakai hajime New Year Poetry Reading Ceremony – an annual waka contest held at the palace based on a topic chosen by the Imperial Household Agency – to the general public. Today, the contest welcomes waka submissions from commoners all over Japan and overseas and even from non-Japanese, and the tie between waka and the imperial family remains strong. All members of the imperial family still continue to write waka throughout the year and their waka are read at the ceremony, along with ten waka selected from contributions by the general public. The reading is held as part of the New Year celebrations at the palace. The present empress, Michiko, is an excellent poet, as is her daughter, Sayako Kuroda.

  Poems by Women

  There were many outstanding female poets in Heian times and this is reflected in the number of poems by women in the collection. Apart from Jito, who was an empress, there are twenty women, many of them ladies-in-waiting to imperial consorts. The most rhetorically complicated and emotionally intense poems in this collection are mostly by women. Poems 60 and 62 are especially impressive, as is no. 9, by Ono no Komachi (fl. mid ninth century):
<
br />   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.

  The poem is striking for its technical brilliance: almost every word is embroidered with many layers of meaning. Many commentators have written of it as the cri de coeur of an old woman who was in her heyday a very great beauty, blessed with exceptional talent, sensually alive, and feted and loved by many. Now her beauty has faded, her lovers are dead or gone, and her poetic talent is weakening. I do not disagree with this interpretation, but additional considerations must also be taken into account. Ono no Komachi is like many Japanese women of talent. In Japanese culture, women have traditionally taken roles subservient to men, which has meant that they have had less freedom and have had to overcome greater challenges in expressing themselves. One of the principal modes of expression employed by women was negation. When praised, the first response was (and to some extent still is) to negate. In this poem, Ono no Komachi employs the classical device of negation to produce what is ostensibly a lament for her fading beauty and talents. But it is important to see what the poem affirms. It is hard to imagine that Komachi was unaware of her achievement and stature as a poet. In other words, the poet is saying something like: ‘Yes, I am growing old and am less beautiful than I once was. Maybe you superficial (especially male!) readers will no longer find me attractive, but if you have a minimum of discernment, you will be able to see under my disguise and realize that the sadness of life has only sharpened my genius. Fade away, those of you who can only see the surface; and even those of you who can see beyond the surface, approach gingerly, for the profundity of my emotion has made me as formidable as ever.’ (See the Note on the Translation for further discussion of this poem.)