by Donald Keene
TRANSLATED BY B. H. CHAMBERLAIN (MODIFIED)
KAIFOSŌ
The "Kaifūsō," or "Fond Recollections of Poetry," was the first anthology of poetry in Chinese written by Japanese. It was compiled in 751, and includes material written over a period of seventy-five years. The verses in the "Kaifūsō" sometimes give the effect rather of copy-book exercises than of true poetry—which is only natural considering that they were among the earliest attempts by Japanese writers, including emperors, to compose in Chinese. Even when the subject of a poem is Japanese—such as a visit to the Yoshino River—the main effort of the writer appears to be directed toward including as many allusions to Chinese literature and history as possible. Nevertheless, some of the poems reach a high level of competence, as is indicated in the following selection.
Approaching death
[Written when the Prince faced execution for attempted rebellion]
The golden crow1 lights on the western huts;
Evening drums beat out the shortness of life.
There are no inns on the road to the grave—
Whose is the house I go to tonight?
Prince Ōtsu (662-687)
The border official
Last year service in the eastern hills,
This, the marches of the western sea.
How often in the span of an official's life
Must he weary himself with these border wars?
Fujiwara no Umakai (694-737)
Watching fish in the water
By the southern woods I have built my hut;
I drop my hook from the north lake banks.
Sporting birds dive when I draw near;
Green duckweed sinks before my gliding boat.
The quivering reeds reveal the fish below;
By the length of my line I know the bottom's depth.
With vain sighs I dangle the tempting bait
And watch the spectacle of avaricious hearts.
Ki no Suemochi (Early Eighth Century)
Composed at a party for the Korean envoy
Mountain windows scan the deep valley;
Groves of pine line the evening streams.
We have asked to our feast the distant envoy;
At this table of parting we try the pleasures of poetry.
The crickets are hushed, the cold night wind blows;
Geese fly beneath the clear autumn moon.
We offer this flower-spiced wine in hopes
To beguile the cares of your long return.
Abe no Hironiwa (Early Eighth Century)
TRANSLATED BY BURTON WATSON
Footnote
1 Conventional term for the sun.
HEIAN
PERIOD
794-1185
KŌKAI AND HIS MASTER
[from Shōrai Mokuroku]
The outstanding religious leader of the Heian Period was Kūkai (774-835), who is also known by his title of Kōbō Daishi. He was enormously gifted in almost every art and science of his day, and was in particular distinguished as perhaps the first Japanese who could write literary Chinese which was not only accurate but elegant. He thus claims a place as a literary as well as a religious figure.
Kūkai sailed to China in 804 for study, returning in 806. The Buddhism which he learned and brought back to Japan was known as the True Words (Shingon in Japanese). In Shingon Buddhism the mysteries of the faith are transmitted orally and not written down in books. The relationship between master and disciple is thus of the greatest importance. Often a master would divulge all of his knowledge of the secret teachings to only one pupil. This was the case with Hui-kuo (764-805), whose chosen disciple Kūkai became.
In the text there is mention of the two Mandolas, representations of the indestructible potential aspect of the cosmos (the Diamond Mandala) and its dynamic aspect (the Womb Mandala). One important Shingon ritual requires the acolyte to throw a flower on both of the Mandalas. The Buddha on which his flower alights is the one he is particularly bound to worship and emulate. Kōkai's flower fell, in both cases, on Vairocana Buddha, the central and supreme Buddha.
During the sixth moon of 804 I sailed for China aboard the Number One Ship, in the party of Lord Fujiwara, ambassador to the Tang court. We reached the coast of Fukien by the eighth moon, and four months later arrived at Ch'ang-an, the capital, where we were lodged in the official guest residence. The ambassadorial delegation started home for Japan on the fifteenth of March, 805, but in obedience to an Imperial edict I alone remained behind in the Hsi-ming Temple.
One day, in the course of my calls on eminent Buddhist teachers of the capital, I happened by chance to meet the abbot of the East Pagoda Hall of the Green Dragon Temple. This great priest, whose Buddhist name was Hui-kuo, was the chosen disciple of the Indian master Amoghavajra. His virtue aroused the reverence of his age; his teachings were lofty enough to guide emperors. Three sovereigns revered him as their master and were ordained by him. The four classes of believers looked up to him for instruction in the esoteric teachings.
I called on the abbot in the company of five or six monks from the Hsi-ming Temple. As soon as he saw me he smiled with pleasure, and he joyfully said, "I knew that you would come! I have been waiting for such a long time. What pleasure it gives me to look on you today at last! My life is drawing to an end, and until you came there was no one to whom I could transmit the teachings. Go without delay to the ordination altar with incense and a flower." I returned to the temple where I had" been staying and got the things which were necessary for the ceremony. It was early in the sixth moon, then, that I entered the ordination chamber. I stood in front of the Womb Mandala and cast my flower in the prescribed manner. By chance it fell on the body of the Buddha Vairo-cana in the center. The master exclaimed in delight, "How amazing! How perfectly amazing!" He repeated this three or four times in joy and wonder. I was then given the fivefold baptism and received the instruction in the Three Mysteries that bring divine intercession. Next I was taught the Sanskrit formulas for the Womb Mandala, and learned the yoga contemplation of all the Honored Ones.
Early in the seventh moon I entered the ordination chamber of the Diamond Mandala for a second baptism. When I cast my flower it fell on Vairocana again, and the abbot marveled as he had before. On the day of my ordination I provided a feast for five hundred of the monks. The dignitaries of the Green Dragon Temple all attended, and everyone enjoyed himself.
I later studied the Diamond Crown Yoga and the five divisions of the True Words teachings, and spent some time learning Sanskrit and the Sanskrit hymns. The abbot told me that the esoteric scriptures are so abstruse that their meaning cannot be conveyed except through art. For this reason he ordered the court artist Li Chen and about a dozen other painters to execute ten scrolls of the Womb and Diamond Mandalas, and assembled more than twenty scribes to make copies of the Diamond and other important scriptures. He also ordered the bronzesmith Chao Wu to cast fifteen ritual implements.
One day the abbot said to me, "Long ago, when I was still young, I met the great master Amoghavajra. From the first moment he saw me he treated me like a son, and on his visit to the court and his return to the temple I was as inseparable from him as his shadow. He confided to me, 'You will be the receptacle of the esoteric teachings. Do your best! Do your best!' I was then initiated into the teachings of both the Womb and the Diamond, and into the secret gestures as well. The rest of his disciples, monks and laity alike, studied just one of the Mandalas, or one Honored One, or one ritual, but not all of them as I did. How deeply I am indebted to him I shall never be able to express.
"Now my existence on earth approaches its term, and I cannot long remain. I urge you, therefore, to take the two Mandalas and the hundred volumes of the teachings, together with the ritual implements and these gifts which were left to me by my master. Return to your country and propagate the teachings there.
"When you first arrived I feared that I did not have time enough left to teach you everything, but now my teac
hing is completed, and the work of copying the Sutras and making the images is also done. Hasten back to your country, offer these things to the court, and spread the teachings throughout your country to increase the happiness of the people. Then the land will know peace and everyone will be content. In that way you will return thanks to Buddha and to your teacher. That is also the way to show your devotion to your country and to your family. My disciple I-ming will carry on the teachings here. Your task is to transmit them to Japan. Do your best! Do your best!" These were his final instructions to me, and he was kindly and patient as always. On the night of the last full moon of the year he purified himself with a ritual bath and, lying on his right side with his hands making the gesture of Vairo-cana, breathed his last.
That night, while I sat in meditation in the hall, the abbot appeared to me in his usual form and said, "You and I have long been pledged to propagate the esoteric teachings. If I am reborn in Japan, this time I will be your disciple."
TRANSLATED BY DONALD KEENE
THE TALES OF ISE
[Ise Monogatari]
"The Tides of Ise" is basically a collection of verse, by the nobleman and poet Ariwara no Narihira (823-880), but each verse is preceded by a prose passage indicating the occasion of its composition. It contains 125 chapters, varying in length from a few lines to two or three pages, depending mainly on the number of poems included. Some of these poems are by other contemporaries—and even by "Man'yōshū" poets—but the majority are by Narihira, and the work was apparently edited and enlarged by an unknown compiler not long after his death. Although the hero of most of the episodes is identified in the original only as "a man" the work in large part is clearly autobiographical. The arrangement of the chapters is, however, haphazard, and in the excerpts given in the present translations an attempt has been made to restore a chronological order.
In former times there lived a young nobleman named Narihira. Upon receiving the ceremony of initiation into manhood, he set forth upon a ceremonial falconry excursion, to review his estates at the village of Kasuga, near the former capital of Nara.
In that village there dwelt alone two young sisters possessed of a disturbing beauty. The young nobleman gazed at the two secretly from the shade of the enclosure around their house. It filled his heart with longing that in this rustic village he should have found so unexpectedly such lovely maidens. Removing the wide sleeve from the silk cloak he was wearing, Narihira inscribed a verse upon it and sent it to the girls. The cloak he was wearing bore a bold pattern of passionflowers.
Kasugano no Young maiden-flowers
Waka-murasaXi no Of Kasuga, you dye my cloak;
Surigoromo And wildly like them grows
Shinobu no mid are This passion in my heart,
Kagiri shirarezu Abundantly, without end.
The maidens must have thought this eminendy suited to the occasion, for it was composed in the same mood as the well-known
Michinoku no For whom has my heart
Shinobumojizurt Like the passionflower patterns
Tare yue ni Of Michinoku
Midaresomenishi Been thrown into disarray?
Ware naranaku ni All on account of you.
This is the kind of facile elegance in which the men of old excelled
(I)
. .
In former times there was a girl who, beloved of the Emperor Seiwa, served him in the court, and was allowed even to wear the Imperial purple. She was cousin to the Empress Dowager. Narihira was a very young man at this time. He too was serving in direct attendance upon the Emperor, and he fell in love and became intimate with this girl.
Now Narihira was allowed free access to the palace where the ladies of the court dwelt,1 and he would visit the chambcr of this girl and sit directly beside her. But she entreated him, "If you come to see me thus, His Majesty will hear of it, and we shall perish. Please do not come this way again."
Narihira answered her:
Omou ni wa In love with you
Shinoburu koto go I have lost all sense of
Makenikeru Hiding from men's eyes.
Au ni shi kaeba If in exchange for meeting you,
Samo araba are Is death so great a price to pay?
When she returned to her own chamber after serving in the court, he would follow after her, without trying to hide his destination. The girl, much upset, returned to her native village.
Once at home, she thought that he would no longer trouble her; but Narihira was delighted at this turn of events, thinking this a wonderful way of meeting far from the sight of men. His visits to the girl were frequent, causing much merriment among her ladies-in-waiting. When he returned to the court in the early morning from the girl's village, he would remove his shoes at the gate and place them among the footwear of those who had spent the night in the palace, taking care that the morning garden-sweepers did not observe him. Then he would go and wait attendance on the Emperor.
As thus he passed his days in stratagems, becoming more and more deeply involved in this dangerous love, his health began to fail. He wondered what escape there might be for him, and prayed to the gods and the Buddha that he be delivered from this fatal love. But the passion only grew upon him, and all his prayers served" but to make him love her all the more.
Unable to drive her from his thoughts, he summoned exorcists and mediums, and had them set up by the Kamo River the divine symbols for deliverance from this love. However much he gave himself over to the chanting of the exorcists and dancers, he was never for an instant free from thoughts of her, and his passion instead became stronger even than before.
Koi seji to "Love not!" they chanted,
Mitarashigawa ni By the river's holy stream,
Seshi misogi Purifying me.
Kami wa ukeza zo But the gods listened not;
Narinilkerashi mo It was all, it seems, for nought.
Thus he recited, and left the riverside.
Now the Emperor was a person of beautiful countenance, and every morning when the girl heard him raise his fine voice fervendy and reverendy in prayers to the Buddha, she wept bitterly. "What a tragic stroke of Fate that I cannot truly serve this noble sovereign! Tied by the bonds of love to another man, only endless grief can be my lot."
It came to pass that His Majesty at last got word of the affair. He banished Narihira from the capital. As for the girl, her cousin the Empress Dowager had her expelled from the palace and locked up in a windowless tower in her village, and inflicted much torment on her.
Locked within the tower, the girl said in tears:
Ama no karu Like the warekara2
Mo ni sumu mushi no That lives among the seaweed
Warekara to Fisherwomen gather,
Ne wo koso nakame I cry none is to blame but me:
Yo wo ba uramiji I have no hatred for the world.
Thus did she cry, and each night Narihira would journey from his place of banishment to her, and playing upon his flute with great feeling, sing a doleful plaint in his melodious voice. Though she was locked up in a windowless tower, she recognized her lover's voice, but bound and tormented as she was there was no way to catch a glimpse of him.
Saritomo to My heart breaks that
Omouramu koso He visits here each night
Kanashikere In hopes of meeting me;
Aru ni mo aranu Little does he realize
Mi wo shirazu shite How hopeless is my plight.
Unable, despite all efforts, to meet his love, Narihira traveled back and forth between the tower and his place of exile.
Itazura ni All in vain, I know,
Yukite wa kinuru Are my goings and comings;
Mono yue ni So great, however,
Mimaku hoshisa ni Is my desire to see her
Izanawaretsutsu That I am ceaselessly drawn.
(LXV)
. .
In former times there lived a lady in East Gojō, in the Western Pavilion of the Empress Dowager's palace. Narihira visited her there, at first with no spe
cific intentions but later in great infatuation. About the tenth day of the first month, however, she concealed herself elsewhere. Although he heard where her refuge was, it was impossible for him to go to her, and he became increasingly depressed. In the first month of the following year, when the plum blossoms were in their full glory, he went again to the Western Pavilion, remembering with longing the happenings of the previous year. He stood and looked, sat and looked, but nothing seemed the same. Bitterly weeping, he lay on the deserted bare wooden floor until the moon sank in the sky. Recalling the happiness of the year before, he composed the poem:
Tsuki ya aranu Is not that the moon?
Haru ya mukashi no And is not the spring the same
Haru naranu Spring of the old days?
Wa ga mi hitotsu wa My body is the same body—
Moto no mi ni shite Yet everything seems different.
(IV)
. .
In former times a certain lascivious woman thought: "I wish I could somehow meet a man who would show me affection!" It was, however, impossible for her to express this desire openly. She therefore made up a most unlikely dream, called her three sons together, and related it to them. Two of them dismissed it with a curt reply, but the youngest son interpreted the dream as meaning that a fine man would certainly come along, and the old woman was delighted.
The son thought: "Other men are coldhearted—I wish that I could bring her together with Captain Narihira." One day he met the Captain while the latter was out hunting. He seized the bridle of the Captain's horse and told him of his request. The Captain took pity on the old woman, visited her house, and slept with her. He did not come again, and the woman went to his house, where she stealthily looked at him through an opening in the fence. The Captain, catching a glimpse of her, recited:
Momotose ni Someone a year short
Hitotose taranu Of a centenarian,
Tsukumogami Hair disheveled and white,