Title: Selected Poems from Kokin Wakashu
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Title: Selected Poems from Kokin Wakashu
Author: Lewis Cook
Electronic Text Center
Charlottesville, VA
2003
2003
Japanese
non-fiction
prose
LCSH
2003
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Lewis Cook
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March, 2003
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Matthew Gibson
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Selected Poems from Kokin wakashu by Lewis Cook
The following selection of poems in translation from Kokin wakashu (Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems) is designed to convey some sense of how the anthology was read during the six or seven centuries throughout which it was regarded by Japanese poets as the primary canon of waka poetry. The emphasis is on poems which were most often quoted and re-cited, and on samples of sequences of poems on the preeminent topics: cherry blossoms, autumn leaves, and love.
Many of the finest poems in the anthology draw their force from complex word-play and thus resist translation. This selection is biased in favor of poems the effects of which can at least be approximated in English verse. One of the dilemmas imposed by the translation of Japanese poetry is whether or not to attempt an imitation of the quantitative meter of the originals, based entirely on syllable count, or to accept the accentual-syllabic meters of English. I have had no qualms about choosing the latter course.
The text on which the translations and transliterations are based is the "Date Family" recension by Fujiwara Teika, available online at the Japanese Text Initiative.
I have generally followed the Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei edition (Arai and Kojima, eds.; Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,1989) for the identification of topics and topical sequences.
Macrons are omitted from the commentary. Long vowels are represented phonetically in the romanized transliterations.
First Book of Spring
No. 1
在原元方
としのうちに春はきにけりひととせをこぞとやいはむことしとやいはむ
toshi no uchi ni
haru wa kinikeri
hitotose wo
kozo to ya iwamu
kotoshi to ya iwamu
Ariwara no Motokata
Spring has come
before the year's turning:
Should I speak, now
of the old year
or call this the new year?
The poem plays on a discrepancy between the official lunar and the unofficial solar calendars. Risshun, the first day of spring by the solar calendar, always occurs on February 4 or 5th (by the Gregorian calendar). The New Year by the lunar calendar begins on the day of the the second new moon after the winter solstice, variably between mid-January and mid-February. Hence a little less than once every two years the (lunar) first day of spring preceded the (solar) New Year's day. The theme of "time out of joint" is pervasive in early classical waka, often (cf. Nos. 2 and 3, below) hinging upon a contrast between convention and perception. Some medieval exegetes took this poem as a compact allegory of the chiasmus of "old" and "new," alluding to the Kokinshu editors' apparent program of thoughtfully intercalating Old (late 8th and early to mid 9th c.)poems with New (late 9th to early 10th c.)
No. 2
紀貫之
袖ひちてむすびし水のこほれるを春立つけふの風やとくらむ
sode hijite
musubishi mizu no
kooreru wo
haru tatsu kyou no
kaze ya tokuramu
Ki no Tsurayuki
Waters I cupped my
hands to drink, wetting
my sleeves, still frozen:
Might this first day of
spring's wind thaw them?
The topic calls for anticipation of spring, never soon enough (compare poems on the coming of autumn, by contrast almost always arriving sooner than expected). The theme is an implied contrast between the calendar, which has announced the arrival of spring and its warm breezes (through an allusion, perhaps, to the Chinese Book of Rites), and the conceit of sleeves wet with water from the previous year's summer still frozen with winter's cold. The promise of spring remains unfulfilled but by taking the compass of three successive seasons the poet affirms his faith in the calendar.
No. 3
よみ人しらず
春霞たてるやいづこみよしののよしのの山に雪はふりつつ
harugasumi
tateru ya izuko
miyoshino no
yoshino no yama ni
yuki wa furitsutsu
Anonymous
Where are the promised
mists of spring?
In Yoshino, fair hills
of Yoshino, snow
falling still
The topic is lingering snow. The sequence has established the arrival, by the calendar, of spring.Yoshino, with mountains among the deepest in the Yamato region and the vicinity of the capital, was a "poem pillow" (utamakura) noted both for heavy snowfall and for cherry blossoms. The poet complains (complaint is among the prevailing moods of Kokinshu poetry) that despite the official arrival of spring, the mists (much less the flowers) of spring have yet to appear.
No. 35
よみ人しらず
梅花たちよるばかりありしより人のとがむるかにぞしみぬる
ume no hana
tachiyoru bakari
arishi yori
hito no togamuru
ka ni zo shiminuru
Anonymous
I lingered only a moment
beneath the apricot blossoms
And now I am
blamed for my
scented sleeves
In the context of its presumed source, the personal collection of Fujiwara no Kanesuke (d. 933), this is a love poem sent to a woman facetiously complaining that incense, redolent of apricot (or plum) blossoms, burnt to scent her robes, has infused his own, and that their relationship has thus been discovered by members of his household. That his complaint is facetious is attested by the evidence that he sent this poem to the woman (who knows better) by way of stating his intention not to be dissuaded. The editors of Kokinshu signal their intentions to reread this as a poem on "plum blossoms," not love, by placing it as an anonymous poem obliquely praising the seductive depth of the scent of the blossoms, in support of the poet's claim to have lingered only briefly.
Second Book of Spring
No. 69
よみ人しらず
春霞たなびく山のさくら花うつろはむとや色かはりゆく
harugasumi
tanabiku yama no
sakurabana
utsurowamu to ya
iro kawariyuku
Anonymous
On hills where mists of spring
trail, glowing faintly,
do the flowers' fading
colors foretell
their fall?
Mist and cherry blossoms are the preeminent images of spring. The placement of this poem at the beginning of the Second Book of Spring asserts that the imminent fading of the blossoms, perhaps showing through a screen of (faint pink, by Chinese poetic convention) mist, marks the passage beyond the midpoint of the season and thus appropriately opens the second movement of spring. This is the first of a sequence of 21 poems on the topic falling cherry blossoms. (Concerning the importance of topical sequences in Kokinshu, refer to the note on No. 223, below.)
No. 70
よみ人しらず
まてといふにちらでしとまる物ならばなにを桜に思ひまさまし
mate to iu ni
chirade shi tomaru
mono naraba
nani wo sakura ni
omoimasamashi
Anonymous
If saying "stay!"
would stop their
falling, could I hold
these blossoms
more dear?
In the context of Kokinshu the question is best taken rhetorically: It is because the blossoms are bound to fall soon that they are so admired (cf. No. 71). If one could command them, with a word, to last, their fragile beauty would be diminished. In an earlier context the (presumably late 8th or early 9th c.) anonymous poet's intention may have been, on the contrary, to suggest that if only the blossoms would stay, per demand, nothing could surpass their beauty. Such a reading, though grammatically less plausible, is accepted by some medieval and modern commentators. One early Edo period commentator, Kigin (d. 1705), suggests that an ideal reader might well hesitate to choose.
No. 71
よみ人しらず
のこりなくちるぞめでたき桜花ありて世中はてのうければ
nokori naku
chiru zo medetaki
sakurabana
arite yo no naka
hate no ukereba
Anonymous
It's their falling without regret
I admire
Cherry blossoms:
a world of sadness
if they'd stayed
"Without regret" (nokori naku), literally "leaving nothing behind," implies utter detachment from the world. This is a statement of what was to become the normative esthetic and ethos of the cherry blossom as symbol of the fragility of beauty (and the beauty of fragility): better to die early than linger in this world and suffer the consequences, among them an awareness of the vanity of human aspirations and of the futility of living on. (An implicit exception is that to have left a poem such as this one, if anonymously, is not to have lived in vain.)
No. 72
よみ人しらず
このさとにたびねしぬべしさくら花ちりのまがひにいへぢわすれて
kono sato ni
tabine shinu beshi
sakurabana
chiri no magai ni
ieji wasurete
Anonymous
I seem bound to sleep
in this village tonight:
Entranced by falling
blossoms, I've forgotten
my way home
Entranced by clouds of falling blossoms, a traveller has lost track of the way home and is resigned to spending the night in an unfamiliar village. The poem suggests that the beauty of the blossoms is not an altogether benign force. (Compare the verse by Izumi Shikibu, "...the [cherry] blossoms, indeed, are shackles to this world," or the hokku by Sobaku [d. 1821]: "All the cherry blossoms / I saw today / weighing me down.")
No. 73
よみ人しらず
空蝉の世にもにたるか花ざくらさくと見しまにかつちりにけり
utsusemi no
yo ni mo nitaru ka
hanazakura
saku to mishi ma ni
katsu chirinikeri
Anonymous
Are they not like
this fleeting world?
Cherry blossoms:
no sooner do they flower
than they fall
The phrase utsusemi no yo ("this fleeting world") in 9th century usage and after, with its image of the discarded shell of a cicada, refers to this world of (human) existence as empty and insubstantial, hence meaningless, or as mutable and ephemeral. The force of the simile in this poem draws on the second sense.
No. 103
ありはらのもとかた
霞立つ春の山べはとほけれど吹きくる風は花のかぞする
kasumi tatsu
haru no yamabe wa
tookeredo
fukikuru kaze wa
hana no ka zo suru
Ariwara no Motokata
The hills where
spring mists rise are distant,
yet the wind comes,
bringing the
blossoms' scent
A long sequence (41 poems) on cherry blossoms blooming and falling, extending from the latter part of the first book of spring through the beginning of the second book, is followed by two shorter sequences on the topics blossoming flowers and falling flowers. These are poems on late spring flowers (which may or may not include mountain cherries and late-blooming cherry trees). This poem concludes the sequence blossoming flowers. (Cf. No. 69 on the conjunction of images of spring mist and flowers.)
No. 104
みつね
花見れば心さへにぞうつりけるいろにはいでじ人もこそしれ
hana mireba
kokoro sae ni zo
utsurikeru
iro ni wa ideji
hito mo koso shire
Mitsune
When I gaze on
fading blossoms
this heart, too, would fade with them:
May my feelings not be seen
lest others come to know
This is the first in the sequence of poems on falling flowers. The speaker seems to fear something we are told Heian poets took some pride in: a reputation for extreme sensitivity.
No. 105
よみ人しらず
鶯のなくのべごとにきて見ればうつろふ花に風ぞふきける
uguisu no
naku nobe goto ni
kite mireba
utsurou hana ni
kaze zo fukikeru
Anonymous
To each meadow
where the warbler cries
I come and see
the wind blow
fading flowers
Under the topic falling flowers this is the first of a sub-sequence of 6 verses on warblers lamenting the blossoms. The speaker, visiting flowers in meadows where trees are in bloom, finds that in each meadow, warblers are crying, and the wind is blowing petals from the boughs, and infers the relation between the two events. The sense, ambiguous in the text as in the translation, is thus not that the speaker was drawn by the warblers' cries to seek their cause. As one late 15th century commentary ("Kobun") states the matter, the difference between these two readings is slight, but it is upon slight differences that the beauty (yugen) of such poems depends.
No. 107
典侍洽子朝臣
ちる花のなくにしとまる物ならば我鶯におとらましやは
chiru hana no
naku ni shi tomaru
mono naraba
ware uguisu ni
otoramashi ya wa
Naishi Ameneiko no Ason
If crying were
enough to stop
the blossoms' falling
would the warbler succeed
where I myself have failed?
Compare this to No. 70, above. On another reading, the poet would be asking whether, if crying were enough to stop the blossoms' falling, she would cry no less plaintively than the warbler.
Book of Summer
No. 135
よみ人しらず
わがやどの池の藤波さきにけり山郭公いつかきなかむ
wa ga yado no
ike no fujinami
sakinikeri
yamahototogisu
itsu ka kinakamu
Anonymous
Wisteria flowers
blossom in waves
on my garden pond:
Will the mountain cuckoo
come, then, and sing?
The topic is early summer. The flowers of the garden are mirrored in the surface of the pond, their reflection perhaps superimposed on waves raised by an early summer breeze. The mountain cuckoo, hototogisu, is the dominant image of the brief book of summer in Kokinshu, appearing in 25 of the 34 poems and associated, in Kokinshu and after, with the 5th and 6th months of the lunar calendar. Summer begins in the 4th month, and the cuckoo has not yet begun to sing. Wisteria blossoms are a late spring / early summer image. One Nijo School commentary of the late 15th century urges the reader to understand that "It's not now that the wisteria is in bloom, I'm longing for the cuckoo to complement the flowers with its voice,' but yes, now it's summer, and the wisteria is in bloom; might the cuckoo come before long and sing?'"
No. 152
みくにのまち
やよやまて山郭公事づてむ我世中にすみわびぬとよ
yayoya mate
yamahototogisu
kotozutemu
ware yo no naka ni
sumiwabinu to yo
Mikuni no Machi
Wait, Cuckoo
Take my message
to the mountains:
I too have learned
to weary of this world
The cuckoo was thought, like other birds in many traditional cultures, to act as a messenger between this and other worlds. The intended recipient of the message here may be one who has entered the afterworld, since the cuckoo was also believed to be an intermediary between the living and the dead, or a recluse who has departed from this mundane world to practice austerities in the mountains, the proper abode of the Mountain Cuckoo (yama-hototogisu) addressed in the poem.
First Book of Autumn
No. 172
よみ人しらず
きのふこそさなへとりしかいつのまにいなばそよぎて秋風の吹く
kinou koso
sanae torishika
itsu no ma ni
inaba soyogite
akikaze no fuku
Anonymous
Only yesterday
seedlings were planted:
So soon, now,
ears of grain tremble
as the autumn wind blows
The implied topic is autumn wind. One prevalent theme of early autumn poems, those of the opening of the first autumn book of Kokinshu and others later in the classical tradition, is surprise at how quickly and stealthily the season arrives. Surprise is registered here by hyperbole: only a day ago, so it seems, the rice seedlings were planted, yet today they are ready for harvesting. The word soyogite, (translated here as "tremble") is at least partly an onomatopoeia of susurration which lacks a good English equivalent.
No. 176
よみ人しらず
こひこひてあふ夜はこよひあまの河きり立ちわたりあけずもあらなむ
koikoite
au yo wa koyoi
ama no kawa
kiri tachiwatari
akezu mo aranamu
Anonymous
Longing and longing
tonight at last we meet:
May the mist rise thick
on the River of Heaven
and keep the day from dawning
The topic is tanabata, the festival of the Oxherd and the Weaver, lovers who were transformed into the stars Altair and Vega in the Milky Way (River of Heaven) and condemned to meet only one night in the year, the 7th of the 7th lunar month. Autumn mist, kiri, a strongly seasonal image, is the counterpart of spring mist or haze (kasumi). The implied speaker may be either of the two stars or both.
No. 222
よみ人しらず
萩の露玉にぬかむととればけぬよし見む人は枝ながら見よ
hagi no tsuyu
tama ni nukamu to
toreba kenu
yoshi mimu hito wa
eda nagara miyo
Anonymous
Should I pluck the drops of dew
to thread as jewels
they'd vanish:
Best see them as they are
set on boughs of clover
The mitate (visual metaphor) of dew drops as evanescent jewels is a familiar one. Dew is closely associated with the bush clover, hagi, a distinctive autumn flower.
No. 223
よみ人しらず
をりて見ばおちぞしぬべき秋はぎの枝もとををにおけるしらつゆ
orite miba
ochizo shinu beki
akihagi no
eda mo to-o-o ni
okeru shiratsuyu
Anonymous
If I were to bend a bough
to pluck it
they must surely scatter:
trembling drops of dew
on autumn bush clover
Sequences (shidai) of poems on the same topic, composed of subtle variations in thematic treatment, are the building blocks which make Kokinshu a coherent and readable text rather than a simple collection of poems arranged topically. Medieval commentators devoted considerable attention to the designs underlying the editors' composition of such sequences (prominent in the seasonal and love books), which come into view only when one poem is read as a response to a preceding poem or series of poems. In this instance, the reader is invited to reread No. 222 against 223 and weigh the differences between a conceit and a more literal treatment of the same topic, gem-like droplets of dew on leaves or petals of bush clover.
Second Book of Autumn
No. 256
つらゆき
秋風のふきにし日よりおとは山峯のこずゑも色づきにけり
akikaze no
fukinishi hi yori
otowayama
mine no kozue mo
irozukinikeri
Ki no Tsurayuki
From that first day
the winds of autumn sounded
the tips of trees on
Otowa Mountain's peak
were turning color
The name of Otowa Mountain, a pillow word, affords a pun on the word oto meaning "sound." This is the eighth of a series of 19 poems on the topic autumn leaves which opens the second book of autumn. Autumn leaves is also the dominant image of the latter part of the season, appearing in more than half of the poems in the book. The poem suggests (cf. No. 172), retrospectively, the idea of nature anticipating the calendar (cf. No. 3 and many other spring poems in which the season is perceived as falling behind the calendar).
No. 257
としゆきの朝臣
白露の色はひとつをいかにして秋のこのはをちぢにそむらむ
shiratsuyu no
iro wa hitotsu wo
ika ni shite
aki no ko no ha wo
chiji ni somuramu
Toshiyuki no Ason
White dew
all of a single color:
How then does it dye
the leaves of autumn
a thousand different shades?
The theory underlying this and the following poems is that dew drops (together with frost and raindrops of cold autumn showers) are the cause of the coloration of leaves. "White dew" is often a near synonym for "dew" but the specific association of autumn with the color white (following Chinese theories of the "five elements") is exploited here to underscore the paradox. The "thousand shades" is a conventional hyperbole. The primary colors of autumn foliage in classical poetry were red, yellow and rust.
No. 258
壬生忠岑
秋の夜のつゆをばつゆとおきながらかりの涙やのべをそむらむ
aki no yo no
tsuyu wo ba tsuyu to
oki nagara
kari no namida ya
nobe wo somuramu
Mibu no Tadamine
As the dew of autumn's night
settles in place,
Will the falling tears
of wild geese
dye the fields yet deeper?
Again the theory that dew causes the leaves to turn is invoked. The conceit is that because the wild geese, flying south in autumn, cry they must shed tears, and that since tears are a poetic homologue of dew, those (figurative) tears might combine forces with the dew to intensify the coloration of the grasses of the fields.
No. 259
よみ人しらず
あきのつゆいろいろごとにおけばこそ山のこのはのちくさなるらめ
aki no tsuyu
iroiro koto ni
okeba koso
yama no ko no ha no
chigusa narurame
Anonymous
Surely the autumn dew
must have its varied ways
to turn the mountain's leaves
so many shades
of color
This, a variation on the theme of No. 257, is also a tentative response to that poem's question: it must be something in the way that dew settles on the leaves that accounts for its varied effects: leaves of differing colors.
No. 266
よみ人しらず
秋ぎりはけさはなたちそさほ山のははそのもみぢよそにても見む
akigiri wa
kesa wa na tachi so
saoyama no
hahaso no momiji
yoso nite mo mimu
Anonymous
Let no autumn mist
rise this morning,
that I might at least from afar
see the colored leaves
of the oaks of Mount Sao
This is the penultimate poem in the sequence of 19 poems on the topic autumn leaves (momiji) which opens the second book of autumn. This sequence is followed by 13 poems on chrysanthemum flowers, but the topic of momiji is then resumed under the rubric falling leaves (rakuyo) in a 25 poem sequence which extends till nearly the end of the book. A parallel is thus established between the sequential arrangement of poems on cherry blossoms in the two books of spring, and these on autumn leaves.
No. 274
とものり
花見つつ人まつ時はしろたへの袖かとのみぞあやまたれける
hana mitsutsu
hito matsu toki wa
shirotae no
sode ka to nomi zo
ayamatarekeru
Tomonori
Looking at flowers,
waiting for my love
I took the blossoms
for the white
sleeve of his gown
An allusion to a verse by the Chinese poet Tao Qian (d. 427), cited by early Kamakura commentators, may have been intended here, but as Muromachi exegetes affiliated with the Nijo School (the renga poet Sogi and his teacher To no Joen) asserted, recogniton of the allusion adds nothing to an understanding of the poem within the Kokinshu context. The "figure" mentioned in the headnote is most likely a model placed on a tray of sand representing, in miniature, a landscape.
No. 284
よみ人しらず
たつた河もみぢば流る神なびのみむろの山に時雨ふるらし
tatsutagawa
momijiba nagaru
kamunabi no
mimuro no yama ni
shigure furu rashi
Anonymous
Tatsuta River is
flush with red leaves:
Autumn showers must be
falling on Mimuro Mountain
in Kamunabi
A variant text reads "Asuka River is flush with red leaves..."
Mimuro, a noun meaning "sacred grove" or "dwelling place of the gods," became the name of mountainous area which was the site of Tatsuta Shrine, above the Tatsuta River. Kamunabi (mountains "where gods dwell") refers to the same area, noted for autumn leaves. The poet speculates on the unseen cause of a very visible (and desirable) effect: a brocade of red and yellow leaves covering the Tatsuta River, downstream from Mimuro.
No. 289
よみ人しらず
秋の月山辺さやかにてらせるはおつるもみぢのかずを見よとか
aki no tsuki
yamabe sayaka ni
teraseru wa
otsuru momiji no
kazu wo miyo to ka
Anonymous
Does the autumn moon
cast its light so starkly
on the mountain's edge
that we may count
each colored leaf that falls?
A rhetorical question, perhaps: the speaker asks why the autumn moon casts its light so starkly (sayaka) and proposes an answer: that the moon's intention is to intensify our perception of the falling of leaves and thus of the passage of the season towards winter. It is not "fallen leaves" but "leaves (now) falling" which the speaker sees so clearly. Such distinctions (some of them obscured by the ambiguities of Heian grammar) often mark the differences which lend a poem its force.
No. 290
よみ人しらず
吹く風の色のちくさに見えつるは秋のこのはのちればなりけり
fuku kaze no
iro no chigusa ni
mietsuru wa
aki no ko no ha no
chireba narikeri
Anonymous
The gusting wind
shows itself
in a cloak of many colors:
a scattering of
autumn leaves
A familiar mitate (visual metaphor), autumn leaves seen as a cloak of brocade, dresses another well-worn trope, the wind making itself visible, to create something new. Many of the "New" poems of Kokinshu, those of the late 9th and early 10th c., are based on permutations and recombinations of rhetorical precedents rather than on the invention of unfamiliar conceits.
No. 291
ふぢはらのせきを
霜のたてつゆのぬきこそよわからし山の錦のおればかつちる
shimo no tate
tsuyu no nuki koso
yowakarashi
yama no nishiki no
oreba katsu chiru
Sekio
Warp of frost, weft of dew
these must be weak indeed:
No sooner are they woven than
the mountain's brocades
scatter in shreds
Frost and dew are taken to be the agents causing the autumn leaves to turn (cf. No. 257 above), and to weave from them a multicolored brocade. "Scatter" (chiru) refers to the falling of the leaves.
No. 297
つらゆき
見る人もなくてちりぬるおく山の紅葉はよるのにしきなりけり
miru hito mo
nakute chirinuru
okuyama no
momiji wa yoru no
nishiki narikeri
Ki no Tsurayuki
They must fall
with no one to see them:
Red leaves of autumn
deep in the mountains
brocade in the night
The poem alludes to a passage in the biography of Xiang Yu in the Han Shu ―― "to achieve wealth and glory, and not return to one's native village, is like wearing brocades by night" ―― which became proverbial for something done to no effect, or an advantage put to no good.
No. 305
みつね
立ちとまり見てをわたらむもみぢばは雨とふるとも水はまさらじ
tachitomari
mite wo wataramu
momijiba wa
ame to furu tomo
mizu wa masaraji
Mitsune
Let me pause to watch
before I cross:
Though they fall like rain
the red leaves
will not swell the river's waters
This is the last of a sequence of 25 poems on falling leaves, and one of three poems in that sequence which were composed for screen paintings (byobu-uta). As medieval commentators noted apropos such poems in Kokinshu, the poet was generally expected to assume the point of view of a figure in the painting when composing a poem such as this one.
No. 306
ただみね
山田もる秋のかりいほにおくつゆはいなおほせ鳥の涙なりけり
yamada moru
aki no kariio ni
oku tsuyu wa
inaoosedori no
namida narikeri
Tadamine
The dew that settles
on a makeshift hut
in this mountain field:
tears shed by the
Rice-bearing Bird
The topic is autumn fields. Cf. No. 258 for a similar troping of dew to the tears of birds. In this poem, the dew on the hut or its roof is a mitate for such tears. The "rice-bearing bird" (inaoose-dori), the identity of which was debated in early commentaries, became one of the "Three Birds" of the "Secret Teachings of Kokinshu," a knowledge of which was requisite to formal recognition as a waka poet throughout most of the medieval and early Edo periods.
Book of Travel
No. 409
よみ人しらず
ほのぼのと明石の浦の朝霧に島がくれ行く舟をしぞ思ふ
honobono to
akashi no ura no
asagiri ni
shimagakure yuku
fune wo shi zo omou
Anonymous
Into the mist, glowing with dawn
across the Bay of Akashi
a boat carries my thoughts
into hiding
islands beyond
Passage into Akashi Bay meant crossing the official gateway at Settsu from the Inner to the Outer Provinces, and the implied topic is border-crossing. This is one of the most often quoted and allegorically glossed poems of Kokinshu, and became one of a core of poems treated as having profoundly esoteric meanings within the "Secret Teachings of Kokinshu." Its reputation was enhanced, certainly, by the attribution to Hitomaro, venerated as one of the deities of the Way of Poetry. One Nijo School commentary suggests that the poem, generally taken as an allegory of the death of Prince Takechi, was deliberately placed by the editors in the book of travel rather than in that of mourning to free it from taboos attaching to poems of mourning.
Second Book of Love
No. 571
よみ人しらず
恋しきにわびてたましひ迷ひなばむなしきからのなにやのこらむ
koishiki ni
wabite tamashii
madoinaba
munashiki kara no
na ni ya nokoramu
Anonymous
If in despair of love
my soul should wander,
am I to be remembered
as one who left
a corpse in vain?
The speaker asks whether despair at unrequited love might cause her (or his?) soul to depart from her body, leaving a reputation for having lived for nothing more than vain affection. The auxilliary particle of causation, kara, imposes, in the context, an indecorous but irresistible pun on the noun kara meaning empty shell or corpse. Some medieval commentaries responded by suggesting that the reader should hold the double entendre in mind without letting it obtrude on the "surface" of the poem.
No. 572
紀つらゆき
君こふる涙しなくは唐衣むねのあたりは色もえなまし
kimi kouru
namida shi naku wa
karakoromo
mune no atari wa
iro moenamashi
Ki no Tsurayuki
If not for the tears
my loved one makes me shed,
this fine Chinese robe would be
singed round the breast
with the colors of passion
The topic, as in the previous poem, is unrequited love. The poem extends the familiar conceit that tears can quench the flames of longing. Within the scope of Kokinshu love poetry, the passion of unrequited love typically leads to resentment and tears of blood. This would appear to be an exception.
Third Book of Love
No. 635
をののこまち
秋の夜も名のみなりけりあふといへば事ぞともなくあけぬるものを
aki no yo mo
na nomi narikeri
au to ieba
koto zo to mo naku
akenuru mono wo
Ono no Komachi
Autumn nights, long
only in name:
Let's meet, we say
yet dawn comes to part us
before we've begun
In the vocabulary of classical poetry, which often (as in this case) conforms to the prescriptions of the calendar, autumn nights are defined as increasingly longer than those of summer. Not long enough for love, however: the complaint is that the reality fails to live up to the name (reputation).
No. 636
凡河内みつね
ながしとも思ひぞはてぬ昔より逢ふ人からの秋のよなれば
nagashi to mo
omoi zo hatenu
mukashi yori
au hito kara no
aki no yo nareba
Mitsune
For me, not long
enough at all:
Autumn nights have always
taken their measure
from the depths of one's love
Mitsune is quoted here as seconding Komachi's judgement in the previous poem, and makes explicit that the length of an autumn night is entirely relative.
No. 637
よみ人しらず
しののめのほがらほがらとあけゆけばおのがきぬぎぬなるぞかなしき
shinonome no
hogara hogara to
akeyukeba
ono ga kinuginu
naru zo kanashiki
Anonymous
Just as the morning sky
is brightening to dawn
How sad that we must
sort our robes
and part
From the "night" of the previous poems the time advances to morning (shinonome refers to the moments just before dawn), and the topic here and in the following series of poems is parting at dawn (kinuginu). Kinuginu (literally, robes, with the sense of "these robes and those") refers to the custom of lovers sharing the clothes they were dressed in to use as bedding for the night, then separating their respective robes in the morning before parting.
No. 638
藤原国経朝臣
曙ぬとて今はの心つくからになどいひしらぬ思ひそふらむ
akenu tote
ima wa no kokoro
tsuku kara ni
nado iishiranu
omoi souramu
Fujiwara no Kunitsune no Ason
Dawn has come'
I resign myself to parting:
Why then must thoughts
I can t find words for
fasten to my heart?
This and the two poems below continue the theme of parting at dawn, which extends through a sequence of about 12 verses.
No. 639
としゆきの朝臣
あけぬとてかへる道にはこきたれて雨も涙もふりそぼちつつ
akenu tote
kaeru michi ni wa
kokitarete
ame mo namida mo
furisohochitsutsu
Toshiyuki no Ason
Dawn has come'
on the path home from love
I am drenched:
rainfall swelling
my falling tears
The confusion of tears and rainfall was a cliche, but the poet renews it with the use of uncommon diction, kokitarete ("drenched"), and a pivot making both rain and tears the subjects of the same verb, furisohochi (literally, to fall and soak through).
No. 640
寵
しののめの別ををしみ我ぞまづ鳥よりさきに鳴きはじめつる
shinonome no
wakare wo oshimi
ware zo mazu
tori yori saki ni
nakihajimetsuru
Utsuku
I cry aloud my
regret for parting
even before the rooster
crows the break
of dawn
The arrival of dawn, conventionally announced by the crowing of a rooster, means that the lover who has been visiting for the night must depart, all too early. Anticipating the bird's cry with her own, the speaker invokes a contrast between the implacability of time (and of convention) and the depth of her feelings.
No. 645
よみ人しらず
きみやこし我や行きけむおもほえず夢かうつつかねてかさめてか
kimi ya koshi
ware ya yukikemu
omooezu
yume ka utsutsu ka
nete ka samete ka
Anonymous
Did you come to me?
Did I visit you?
I cannot know.
Dream? Reality?
Was I asleep or awake?
No. 646
なりひらの朝臣
かきくらす心のやみに迷ひにき夢うつつとは世人さだめよ
kakikurasu
kokoro no yami ni
madoiniki
yume utsutsu to wa
yohito sadame yo
Narihira
I wandered, too
in heart-blinding darkness
Was it dream
or reality?
Let others decide
Fifth Book of Love
No. 797
小野小町
色見えでうつろふ物は世中の人の心の花にぞ有りける
iro miede
utsurou mono wa
yo no naka no
hito no kokoro no
hana ni zo arikeru
Ono no Komachi
Not changing color
yet fading all the same:
Such is the flower of
the heart of one who survives
this world of love
On an equally plausible affirmative reading of the ambiguous verb miete, the same poem might be translated:
All too visibly
its color fades:
The flower of the heart
of one passing through
this world of love
The wording of the poem affords two logically opposed readings, depending on whether the verb "to be visible" is taken affirmatively (miete) or negatively (miede), a question the script in which Kokinshu was recorded leaves undecided. A majority of commentators, medieval and modern, have preferred the direct irony of the negative reading reflected in the first of the two translations above. Others have argued in favor the more subtly ironic affirmative reading. A small minority suggest that the miete /miede crux is to be taken as a pun (kakekotoba), inviting the reader to suspend judgement between the two contrary readings and entertain the possibility that both may be true at once.
Book of Mourning
No. 832
かむつけのみねを
ふかくさののべの桜し心あらばことしばかりはすみぞめにさけ
fukakusa no
nobe no sakura shi
kokoro araba
kotoshi bakari wa
sumizome ni sake
Kamutsuke no Mineo
If cherry trees indeed
have feelings, may those
of the fields of Fukakusa
this year, at least
shroud themselves in black blossoms
The belief that cherry trees are animate and sentient beings, invoked frequently in classical waka (and in Noh drama), likely drew force from folk-religious cults of cherry trees as local deities (cf. the Druidic tree-worship cults which gave rise to Christmas tree rites) and further support from syncretic Tendai doctrines of universal Buddha-mind. The apostrophe in this poem, addressed to the cherry trees, can thus be taken literally; not, that is, as prosopopoeia. This does not diminish the extremity of the conceit of black blossoms, calculated to convey the burden of the speaker's grief.
Second Book of Miscellaneous Topics
No. 947
そせい
いづこにか世をばいとはむ心こそのにも山にもまどふべらなれ
izuko ni ka
yo wo ba itowamu
kokoro koso
no ni mo yama ni mo
madoubera nare
Sosei
Where might I find
distaste for this world?
In pastures and hills alike
my heart yearns
to stray
The poems gathered in the two Books of Miscellaneous Topics are indeed diverse. A few, at the beginning of the first book, are celebratory, but the majority dwell on themes of disappointment, mortality, and loss. The speaker in this poem by the eminent cleric and gifted poet Sosei complains of a double bind: the imperative to flee the corruptive influences of civilization and seek detachment in the purity of the pastoral' is undermined by the (eminently civilized) delights of nature――the motifs of the seasonal topics of waka are implied――which prove to be no less a distraction from the path towards ascetic withdrawal.
No. 981
よみ人しらず
いざここにわが世はへなむ菅原や伏見の里のあれまくもをし
iza koko ni
waga yo wa henamu
sugawara ya
fushimi no sato no
aremaku mo oshi
Anonymous
So be it, let me
live out my life
here in Sugawara Fushimi,
lest my old home go
sadly to ruin
This and the three following poems, on the topic dwellings, were treated within the medieval esoteric teachings as among a number of densely allegorical poems uttered by deities or immortals and framed as lessons based on syncretic Shinto-Buddhist and proto-nativist doctrine. In the sequence here, the poems were understood, on one level, as lamenting the moral corruption of society (metaphorically suggested here by the anticipated ruin of "my old home") which has forced the gods and their Buddhist avatars to manifest themselves in the world and set things right.
No. 982
よみ人しらず
わがいほはみわの山もとこひしくはとぶらひきませすぎたてるかど
waga io wa
miwa no yamamoto
koishiku wa
toburaikimase
sugi tateru kado
Anonymous
My house is
at the foot of Miwa Mountain:
Should fondness call
please visit the gate
where cedars stand
No. 983
きせんほうし
わがいほは宮このたつみしかぞすむ世をうぢ山と人はいふなり
waga io wa
miyako no tatsumi
shika zo sumu
yo wo ujiyama to
hito wa iu nari
Monk Kisen
Dwelling to the east
and south of the capital,
in Ujiyama I live:
Some say I've forsaken
their sad world
No. 984
よみ人しらず
あれにけりあはれいくよのやどなれやすみけむ人のおとづれもせぬ
arenikeri
aware ikuyo no
yado nare ya
sumikemu hito no
otozure mo senu
Anonymous
Ruined, alas
how many ages
has this house endured?
Not even the one who
once lived here now calls
Book of Miscellaneous Forms (Haikai)
No. 1015
凡河内みつね
むつごともまだつきなくにあけぬめりいづらは秋のながしてふよは
mutsugoto mo
mada tsukinaku ni
akenumeri
izura wa aki no
nagashi chou yo wa
Mitsune
Words, and acts
of love yet done
and now, too soon, it's dawn:
What of those "long
autumn nights"?
This was likely meant as a parody of Komachi's poem on the same topic (No. 635, above). Poets of the late Heian era and after were puzzled by the term haikai (by which the editors of Kokinshu probably meant "dissonant" poems using archaic or colloquial diction, or obtrusive, vaguely grotesque conceits), with good reason, since a fair number of poems not placed in the haikai section are similar to poems such as this one. What marks this poem as haikai is the somewhat colloquial diction, not the topic or its treatment.
No. 1038
よみ人しらず
おもふてふ人の心のくまごとににたちかくれつつ見るよしもがな
omou chou
hito no kokoro no
kuma goto ni
tachikakuretsutsu
miru yoshi mo ga na
Anonymous
If only I could creep
into each corner
of the heart of the one
who says she loves me
and keep watch
This could just as well be "the one who says he loves me." It is not the diction so much as the conceit which marks this poem as haikai. The premise is that promises of love invite suspicion and, too often, lead to resentment. The phrase "poems of resentment" (urami no uta) became a synonym for "poems of love" (koi no uta) early in the classical waka tradition. Compare the poem in the 15th episode of Tales of Ise for a somewhat more decorous variation on the same conceit:
I long to find a path
into the depths of Mount Shinobu
that I might fathom
the secrets
of my loved one's heart
"Shinobu," reputedly the name of a mountain in what is now Fukushima prefecture and a "poem pillow," is also a verb meaning to endure, conceal, long for, remember, and more.
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