One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each Page 9
The Meiji poet Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) rejected this poem, asserting that it was a fabrication based on a lie (uso no shiko), but Heian courtiers loved the stylized and unlikely conflation of the first frost and chrysanthemums and praised the image as being of the most refined beauty.
Oshikochi no Mitsune (d. c.925). Although he had only a modest career in the imperial bureaucracy, Mitsune was one of the leading poets of his time, and his services were sought by friends and emperors alike. He was one of the compilers of the Kokinshū, and with Tsurayuki (poem 35), the best-represented poet in that collection; 196 of his poems were collected in the imperial waka anthologies after the Kokinshū, including a large number of byōbu-uta (poems on screens) and poems from uta-awase poem contests. He is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.
30
According to anecdotes in Ichijo Kanera’s Kokinshū dōmōshō (Glimpses of the Kokinshū; 1476) and in the setsuwa collection Kokon chōmonjū (Collection of Things Written and Heard Then and Now; c.1254), Teika and his fellow poet Ietaka (poem 98) were once asked which was the best poem in the Kokinshū, and they both had no hesitation in naming this poem by Tadamine. Teika explains his admiration for it in his Kensho mikkan (My Views on Kensho’s Commentary; 1221): ‘The wording and the conceit are so elegant and charming that if one can compose even a single poem like this, one’s fame will be guaranteed.’
The original poem in the Kokinshū (no. 625) was about returning home in the morning after having been refused audience by a cold-hearted lady. Teika, however, took the word tsurenaku (cold-hearted, indifferent) in line 2 to refer specifically to the moon at dawn, heralding the end of a much-awaited encounter, rather than to the lady’s attitude, and I have followed his interpretation in the translation. A translation closer to the original meaning of the poem would read:
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.
Though dating from the early tenth century, the poem shows some of the elements of the yōen style (see the Introduction, here) that was in vogue in the Shin-kokinshū period, including elegant imagery, romantic subject matter and a tale-like atmosphere.
Mibu no Tadamine (fl. 893–920) is one of the four compilers of the Kokinshū. Whereas the reputation of other great tenth-century poets somewhat declined in subsequent centuries, Tadamine’s remained consistently high. Kinto (poem 55) placed one of his poems in the highest of his Waka kuhon (Nine Levels of Waka; written after 1009), alongside a poem by the great Hitomaro (poem 3). He has eighty-two poems in the imperial waka anthologies, thirty-five of which are in the Kokinshū alone, as well as a private collection. His son Tadami (poem 41) was also a distinguished poet.
31
Poem 31 exemplifies the ‘elegant confusion’ (mitate) valued by poets of the era, as the poet struggles to distinguish between the snow covering Mount Yoshino and the light of the moon. Yoshino no sato in the original Japanese refers to Yoshino Village, rather that the old capital of Yoshino, though both were situated near Mount Yoshino and all three locations were often cited in poetry (see utamakura and commentary to poem 94). The mixture of dazzling visual imagery and evocation of the Yoshino name with its myriad associations gives the poem a timeless, elegiac beauty – precisely the combination that Teika and many of his contemporaries loved.
To see snow as moonlight is like seeing flowers as snow, and both metaphors were commonly used at that time. Both employ the technique of mitateru, which was very important in Japanese aesthetics (see mitate). This involved substituting one thing for another that had something in common with the original image. Here, the common link is the colour white. In the sixteenth century, this idea was harnessed by the tea master Sen no Rikyu, who would substitute many of the utensils in the tea ceremony for alternatives, to stunning effect (for example, a Korean rice bowl for a tea bowl, as they share the same shape). The literary origins of this was Chinese poetry (kanshi), as exemplified by the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai’s famous poem ‘Quietly Contemplating at Night’, which would have been well known in Japan at the time. I have translated it roughly:
I gaze upon the moonlight
at the foot of my bed,
like white frost,
then look up at the moon
above the mountain
and, lowering my head,
I remember my home.
Sakanoue no Korenori (d. 930) had a modest career as a minor official, ending as Governor of Kaga (modern-day Ishikawa Prefecture). He won his greatest glory as a master of kemari football. He left a private collection and forty poems in the imperial waka anthologies, of which eight are in the Kokinshū. His son Mochiki (d. c.975) was one of the editors of the Gosenshū. Korenori is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.
32
The sense of wonder at nature’s beauty connects poem 32 to the previous one. Through devices such as personification and ‘elegant confusion’ (mitate), Heian poets blurred the boundaries between the natural and human worlds, achieving a harmonious synthesis. Like poem 29, this poem conflates two elements of the natural world – the built-up leaves and the fishing weir – which in reality are distinct. The auxiliary verb keri in the last line (which could be translated as ‘ah!’) expresses the observer’s delighted surprise at his discovery.
According to the preface (jokotoba) to the poem as it appears in the Kokinshū, the setting is the Shiga Mountain Trail (Shiga no Yamagoe). This was famous both as a topic for poems and as a place name (utamakura) that was widely invoked in classical poetry. The trail, which led over a mountain in Shiga in Omi Province (modern-day Shiga Prefecture), started from Kitashirakawa in Kyoto, passed through Hieizan and Nyoigatake, then Omi and Otsu, ending at Shiga no Sato. Emperor Tenji (poem 1) established a capital at Shiga no Sato and the place was also the setting or topic of many poems.
Ancient fishing weirs were built by planting large wooden posts into the riverbed and placing bamboo canes horizontally across the posts to help trap the fish.
Harumichi no Tsuraki (d. 920). Very little is known about his life. After graduating from the imperial university, he served as Greater Secretary of Dazaifu. He was appointed Governor of Iki Province in 920, but died before he could take up his new post. Tsuraki has three poems in the Kokinshū, and two in the Gosenshū.
33
In imperial court culture, cherry blossoms were a symbol of impermanence, and countless poems lament their swift departure, this one being an outstanding example. The scattering was a source of deep sadness for the sophisticated courtiers of Heian-period Japan, leading the great poet Narihira (poem 17) to famously exclaim (Kokinshū, no. 53; The Tales of Ise, Episode 82):
If only there were
no cherry blossoms
in this world,
what calm would reign
in the heart of spring.
(Yo no naka ni / taete sakura no / nakariseba / haru no kokoro wa / nodokekaramashi)
The reply poem in The Tales of Ise argues, however, that it is precisely because they scatter that they are so precious.
The literary dispute continued into the medieval period. The poet and memoirist Yoshida Kenko (1283?–1350?) argued in his highly popular Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness; c.1332) that the things that do not last are the most beautiful: ‘Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring – these are even more deeply moving’ (Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō, trans. Donald Keene (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 115). The Heian-period love of the frail cherry blossoms fluttering about in the spring still persists in Japan today, though the association with evanescence has diminished somewhat.
This poem also employs the ‘pillow words’ (makura kotoba) hisakata no, often paired with hi no hikari (the light
of the sun), here abbreviated to hikari ([sun]light), to heighten the rhetorical effect.
Ki no Tomonori: (d. c.905) was a cousin of Tsurayuki (poem 35). He helped with the compilation of the Kokinshū, but died shortly after its completion (an elegy in his memory appears in it, no. 838). He has forty-seven poems in the Kokinshū and over twenty more in later imperial waka anthologies. He is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.
34
Poem 34 depicts the sadness of old age through the well-loved metaphor of the pine tree. The pine was a symbol of long life, and was often used in auspicious poems to express a wish for longevity, though here the association is used negatively to craft a bitter lament on old age. Only the pine of Takasago, the poet notes, is as old as he is but, alas, he is no friend. The pines of Takasago in Harima (modern-day Hyogo Prefecture) and of Sumiyoshi (poem 18) were particularly famous and the location is often referred to in poetry (see utamakura). These pines trees are mentioned in the Kokinshū preface as the ‘paired’ (aioi) pines. In the Noh play Takasago by Zeami, they are portrayed as an elderly husband and wife, and symbolize unflinching love and devotion in spite of distance. It is possible, as Shimazu Tadao notes, that the seventy-four-year-old Teika saw his own heart in this poem (Hyakunin isshu, 2nd edn (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1999), p. 80).
Fujiwara no Okikaze (fl. late ninth century) was a prominent member of the literary circles of the mid Heian period. He participated in numerous poetry competitions and was a reputed koto player. He had seventeen poems in the Kokinshū and twenty-one in later imperial waka anthologies; he also left a private poetry collection. Okikaze is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses. The poet is the great-grandchild of Fujiwara no Hamanari (724–90), the author of the first treatise on poetry, Kakyo hyoshiki (The Rules of Waka; 772).
35
Comparisons between people and nature are often made in waka, but in poem 35 the focus is on the contrast between them: whereas people change, nature does not. According to the headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem in the Kokinshū (no. 42), Tsurayuki always stayed with a friend on his way to worship at Hasedera in Hatsuse (a poetic location – see utamakura and commentary to poem 74) and was visiting after a long break. Hasedera contained a famous sculpture of the Juichimen Kannon (the Bodhisattva of Compassion), and many people worshipped there in the Heian period; it appears often in the literature of the time, including The Tale of Genji, as in the scene where Hikaru Genji meets Tamakazura.
To his host’s sarcastic remark (‘There will always be room for you here’), Tsurayuki apparently responded with this poem. In the Japanese, a strong caesura separates the first two lines, focusing on human experience, and the last three lines, which deal with nature, but this is reflected more gently in the translation.
The plum blossom was especially popular as a poetic topic in the Man’yōshū period (seventh and eighth centuries). It continued to be used in the Heian period, but it was supplanted in popularity by cherry blossoms (sakura), which became the quintessential spring topic, as reflected in poem 33, for instance. Only the word for ‘flower’ (hana) appears in the original poem, but readers of the period would have understood it to mean plum blossom. One reason for this is that plum blossom, unlike cherry, is always associated with its fragrance. Cherry blossom, by contrast, is associated with its evanescence.
Ki no Tsurayuki (872?–945). One of the foremost poets of the Heian period, he was the chief compiler of the Kokinshū, and wrote its famous preface in Japanese. He led the battle to have Japanese poetry regarded as the equal of Chinese poetry (kanshi). In 930 he was appointed Governor of Tosa in Shikoku. Assuming the persona of a woman (see matsu onna), he wrote a famous diary, the Tosa nikki (Tosa Diary; 935), about his return journey from Tosa to the capital. A total of 452 of his poems appear in imperial waka anthologies, 102 of them in the Kokinshū alone. He has a private collection of poems and is one of Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses.
36
Under the influence of Chinese poetry (kanshi), mid Heian poets looked for elegant and witty ways to describe the beauty of nature, as in this poem that celebrates the moon. Summer nights were by definition short and left little time to admire the beauty of the moon. In the poem the moon is personified: the summer night is so short that it cannot reach the western horizon where it usually sets, leaving the poet to wonder behind which cloud it will spend the day. Traditionally the moon was used to express autumn, so its use here for summer is fresh and original, and there is a hint of humour in how it has been personified.
Kiyohara no Fukayabu (fl. ninth/tenth centuries) was a descendant of Prince Toneri, the founder of Nara, grandfather of Motosuke (poem 42) and the great-grandfather of Sei Shonagon (poem 62). The late-Heian poet and critic Kiyosuke (poem 84) ranked him a first-class poet, on a par with Kinto’s Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses. Forty-one of Fukayabu’s poems were included in imperial waka anthologies, including seventeen in the Kokinshū alone.
37
This poem deploys a particularly characteristic rhetorical device to add freshness and wit to its description of nature: ‘elegant confusion’ (mitate), or mistaking one thing for another (the dew for gems). A dew-covered field is imagined as being where gems from a necklace that had not been secured properly have scattered. The poem can be considered a variation on, or a companion poem to, Kokinshū no. 225, also by Asayasu:
Are those white dewdrops pearls
spread upon the autumn fields?
They are linked
by the silken threads
of a spider’s web.
(Aki no no ni / oku shiratsuyu wa / tama nareya / tsuranukikakuru / kumo no ito suji)
The poem above chiefly differs from poem 37 in that it also uses personification – the spider fabricating a necklace from the ‘pearls’ of dew.
Fun’ya no Asayasu (fl. ninth/tenth centuries) or Bun’ya no Asayasu/Tomoyasu, a low-ranking official, was the son of the more famous Yasuhide (poem 22), one of the Six Poetic Geniuses. Asayasu participated in many poetry competitions and three of his poems appear in imperial waka anthologies.
38
Poem 38 appears in Episode 84 of The Tales of Yamato as a poem sent to a man who had forgotten about the author despite his numerous promises. Though many tenth-century court romances are light in tone, the ‘how I fear for you’ in line 3 could be read as a veiled threat to the forgetful lover – people at the time believed that if you did not keep a promise made before the gods, you would incur divine wrath – or simply light sarcasm. Teika, however, seems to have found the idea of caring for someone even after having been hurt by them deeply moving. And indeed the poem is imbued with a complex mixture of love and hate. Teika composed a poem clearly based on this one in his Shūigusō (The Dull Musings of a Chamberlain; 1216), no. 2078:
For love I was ready
to give up my life,
so how I fear for you.
Don’t you remember
the vow that made us one?
(Mi o sutete / hito no inochi o / oshimu to mo / arishi chikai no / oboe yawa sen)
Ukon (fl. tenth century) was the daughter or younger sister of Suenawa, Captain of the Imperial Guard of the Left, who was said to be the model of a famous gallant in the no longer extant Katano no shosho (The Tale of Katano no Shosho). Ukon also had pronounced amorous proclivities and The Tales of Yamato recount several of her love affairs with Fujiwara nobles and others. She was a lady-in-waiting to Empress Onshi, consort to Emperor Daigo (r. 897–930). Nine of her poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies.
39
With the next pair of poems (40 and 41), poem 39 forms a triptych on concealed love. Courtly love in Heian-period Japan followed a predetermined pattern: it began with one of the two lovers secretly falling for the other, followed by exchanges of poems (zōtōka), the long wait for a chance to meet and a phase of secret encounters, and ended unhappily with the eventual estrangement of the lovers. This poem focuses on the early phase, when the lover has yet to reveal or is in
the process of revealing his feelings.
The first part of the poem is a preface (jokotoba), which is connected to the rest by the repetition of shino in shinohara (literally, the ‘plain of low bamboo’) and shinoburedo (I try to conceal my feelings). This is an example of a preface that is based on sound play (see also the commentary to poem 51). Prefaces are sometimes related semantically to the main meaning of the poem, though often, as in this example, they merely fulfil an ornamental function. Here, there is also a connection in terms of the imagery, with the reeds that are hidden in the low bamboo and the feelings that are too great to hide. This is reflected in the playful translation, where the bold letters spell ‘they show’. The repetition of the shi sound – shinohara, shinoburedo, koishiki – creates a beautiful aural effect.
Minamoto no Hitoshi (880–951) was the great-grandson of Emperor Saga (r. 809–23). After serving as governor of several important provinces, in 947 he was appointed counsellor of the fourth rank. Four of his poems appear in the Gosenshū.
40
Many of the poems in the collection form pairs. The reason is that the poems that eventually came to constitute the One Hundred Poems are thought to have been originally selected by Teika for the sliding doors of the country villa belonging to his father-in-law Rensho, and at least some of them were initially chosen to appear in pairs on the same panel or doors (see the Introduction, here). Poems 40 and 41 are one such pair. Both poems were composed for the Poetry Contest of the Fourth Year of Tentoku at the Imperial Palace in 960, one of the most prestigious contests of the Heian period. The event was hosted by Emperor Murakami (r. 946–67) in his living quarters, and became famous as the grandest event of its kind in the tenth century. Both poems also appear next to each other in the Shūishū (nos. 621 and 622), the third of the official waka anthologies.