75
The context of this poem is explained in the headnote (kotobagaki) to it in the Senzaishū (no. 1023). The author, Mototoshi, had asked Fujiwara no Tadamichi (poem 76) to appoint his son Lecturer at the Yuima (Vimalakirti) Festival, which was celebrated annually at the family temple, Kofukuji (a well-known poetic location – see utamakura). As head of the Fujiwara family, Tadamichi had this prerogative. Tadamichi had initially agreed, and replied quoting a famous poem (later included in the Shin-kokinshū, no. 1916) traditionally attributed to Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, in which the Bodhisattva vows to help all those who place their faith in her:
Have faith in me,
I will remain in the world
and save you as long
as the mugwort of suffering
fills the fields of Shimeji.
(Nao tanome / Shimejigahara no / sasemogusa / waga yononaka ni / aramu kagiri wa)
The word sasemogusa (like sashimogusa in poem 51) is a variant spelling of the word for mogusa or mugwort. The poem could be paraphrased: ‘Believe in me: I will always help you for as long as I am alive, just as the mugwort that burns you continues to be grown in the fields of Shimegahara.’ It is based on the idea of mugwort, or moxa, being burned for treatment in moxibustion – a painful if therapeutic process – which is explained in the commentary to poem 51. It is thought the poem was originally written in reply to a woman in such straits that she wanted to end her life, the ‘mugwort of suffering’ being a reference to the pain felt by the young woman in particular and by humankind in general.
Tadamichi’s invocation of the poem in his reply to Mototoshi was meant to reassure him that he, like Kannon, would grant Mototoshi’s wish for his son. Mototoshi’s request was not granted, however. In his poem, Mototoshi alludes to Tadamichi’s reply and laments that, though he has had complete faith in him, time has passed and no help has been forthcoming: Tadamichi’s promises have proved as insubstantial as the dew on the mugwort. The image of the dew (tsuyu), a symbol of transience in classical Japanese culture, is reinforced here by the associative words (engo) chigiri-okishi (we had promised), based on the verb oku, used to describe dew resting on the grass. The word aware, meanwhile, like the contemporary Japanese word aa or ‘ah’ in English, is an exclamation of grief or sad resignation. It is expressed in the translation in the final exclamation mark.
Fujiwara no Mototoshi (1060–1142), son of Minister Toshiie, was sole Lieutenant of the Imperial Guard of the Palace Gates when he entered religion in 1138, aged nearly eighty, changing his name to Kakushin. A judge of many poetry contests, he was a highly respected poet and chief representative of the ‘old style’, in contrast to Toshiyori (poem 74), who championed the ‘new style’. A total of 105 of his poems are included in the imperial waka anthologies and there is a private collection of his poetry. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period.
76
This wonderful poem was much admired by its original audience. The eleventh-century chronicle Ōkagami (The Great Mirror) notes that it was ranked equally with a poem from the Kokinshū (no. 409), traditionally believed to be by Hitomaro (poem 3) and one of the most famous poems of the waka tradition:
So faintly on Akashi Bay
as dawn approaches
my heart is in the boat
disappearing behind an island
among the mists.
(Honobono to / Akashi no ura no / asagiri ni / shimagakure yuku / fune shi zo omou)
In poem 76, the comparison between waves and clouds per se is not novel, but by combining it with the image of a boat rowing out to sea, the poem goes beyond the cliché to conjure up a scene of real freshness and beauty. This is another example of a ‘white on white’ poem (see poem 29), or ‘elegant confusion’ (mitate), with the implied blue of the ocean providing a nice contrast.
Fujiwara no Tadamichi (1097–1164), one-time Prime Minister and Grand Chancellor, who entered religion and was known thereafter as the Hosshoji Buddhist Novice. The son of Grand Chancellor Tadazane, he was the father of Jien (poem 95) and elder brother of Yorinaga (see commentary to poem 77). Tadamichi is one of the principal characters in the Hōgen monogatari (The Tale of Hogen; completed c.1320) and poem 75 is addressed to him. He was reputed highly as a poet in both Chinese and Japanese and had fifty-eight poems in the imperial waka anthologies. He left an anthology of his poems and a collection of Chinese verse (kanshi).
77
This is one of the finest of the many love poems in the One Hundred Poets: even if we are temporarily parted, the poet declares, the thrust of our passion will reunite us, much like a river that is temporarily divided by an island. The poem was composed for the Kyūan hyakushu (One-Hundred-Poem Sequence of the Kyuan Era; 1150–53) and was then included, with revisions, in the Shikashū. The earlier version of the poem, from the Kyūan hyakushu, reads ‘unable to flow on’ (Yuki nayami) in the first line (second line in the translation below), instead of Se o hayami (the force of the rapids), which changes the meaning quite significantly:
Like rushing water
unable to flow on,
we may be parted
by a rock, but in the end
we will be one again.
Some commentators consider the original version superior, but the change was probably made by the poet himself at the time the poem was included in the Shikashū.
Retired Emperor Sutoku (1119–64; r. 1123–41), seventy-fifth emperor, succeeded his father Emperor Toba (r. 1107–23), but was eventually forced to abdicate in favour of his brother, Konoe. When Konoe died, aged sixteen, Sutoku fomented the Hogen Rebellion (1156) with former Minister of the Left, Yorinaga (later known as ‘Yorinaga the Bad’ on account of this). He was vanquished and banished to Sanuki in Shikoku. A respected poet himself, he ordered Akisuke (poem 79) to compile the Shikashū. He has seventy-eight poems in the imperial waka anthologies.
78
Poem 78 alludes to a passage in the ‘Suma’ chapter of The Tale of Genji in which the voices of the plovers at dawn bring comfort to Genji in his solitary awakening. The hero of the tale is here compared to a guard keeping watch over the ancient barrier of Suma (near present-day Kobe), who awakens alone every morning to the sound of the plovers crying.
Teika’s father Shunzei (poem 83) was the first to stress the importance to poets of studying Genji, considered a monument of court culture. Some of Teika’s best-known poems are based on passages from the work, including this variation of poem 78:
As the road of dreams ends,
I awake from the journey of sleep
to hear the lamenting plovers
coming and going at Suma Barrier –
the voice of Dawn!
(Tabine suru / yumeji wa taenu / Suma no seki / kayou chidori no / akatsuki no koe)
In poem 78, Awaji puns upon the place name (a famous poetic location – see utamakura) and ‘[I] will not / cannot meet [you]’ in classical Japanese – the reason for the sad keening. An alternative translation could thus read:
Barrier Guard of Suma,
how many nights
have you been wakened
by lamenting plovers going to and fro
from the Island Where Lovers Cannot Meet?
The word kayou in line 2 of the original Japanese means ‘to commute’, translated above as ‘going to and fro’ and more simply as ‘returning from’ in the main translation.
Minamoto no Kanemasa (fl. early twelfth century) belonged to the poetry circle of Retired Emperor Horikawa (r. 1087–1107). He has seven poems in the imperial waka anthologies.
79
Poem 79 is another poem celebrating the beauty of the moon, a sight rendered all the more precious because the moon is soon to be hidden by the clouds. The technique of ending the poem with a nominal phrase (taigendome) – expressed by the use of a dash – which became especially popular in the medieval period, is used here to render the delight and surprise of suddenly seeing the moon appear through
a gap in the clouds. The translation attempts to achieve a similar effect by ending the poem with an exclamation of unexpected pleasure. According to the scholar Shimazu Tadao, the sixteenth-century samurai warlord Hosokawa Yusai wrote a note to Akisuke’s poem in which he quoted an old Chinese verse (see kanshi) about the moon shining clearly between gaps in the clouds and asserted that poem 79 has the ‘grace and elegance of Chinese poetry’ (Shimazu, Hyakunin isshu, p. 170).
Fujiwara no Akisuke (1090–1155), Master of West Kyoto, was a major figure in the literary world of the twelfth century. In 1144 he received an order from Emperor Sutoku (r. 1123–41) to compile the Shikashū, which he completed in 1151. He has eighty-four poems in the imperial waka anthologies.
Akisuke’s father, Akisue, raised by the wet nurse of Emperor Shirakawa (r. 1073–87), was close to the emperor and wielded authority in the court because of this. A poet himself, Akisue copied a portrait of Hitomaro (poem 3) held in the secret collection of the emperor. He also established the Hitomaro Eigu, a waka ceremony in honour of the great poet performed in front of the portrait at Akisue’s Rokujoke mansion. He gave the portrait of Hitomaro and his own poetry collection, of great size and value, to Akisuke in what is said to have marked the beginning of the hereditary system of poets of the Rokujoke clan. Akisuke himself had no power or influence, but became famous as a poet, and he was close to Toshiyori (poem 74). The portrait of Hitomaro was later passed to his son, Kiyosuke (poem 84).
80
This is another ‘morning-after poem’ (kinuginu no uta) in the sensual yōen style (see the Introduction, here) but of a decidedly different tenor to poem 50. The image of tangled hair indicates that the lovers have spent the night together, but it is also a metaphor for the poet’s complex feelings after the encounter. Whereas the lover in poem 50 is radiant with joy and wishes to go on living for ever, the one here worries about her partner’s level of commitment and the future of their relationship. Like many Shin-kokinshū-period poems, this one features a caesura at the end of the first and third lines of the Japanese (an effect captured by the dashes in lines 3 and 4 of the translation), which give it a measure of complexity and narrative development even in the limited space of a waka, enabling it to move from the level of pure description (tangled hair) to the poet’s state of mind (tangled emotions). Adding to the complexity is the way in which nagakaran (‘you will always be true’; literally, ‘continuing for a long time’) forms an associative word (engo) with kurokami (black hair) because of the implied length of the hair.
The theme of tangled hair in classical poetry was taken up by modern women poets such as Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) and also used to portray complex emotions, especially love.
Taikenmon-in no Horikawa (fl. mid twelfth century) was a lady-in-waiting first to the daughter of Emperor Horikawa (r. 1087–1107) who became Priestess of the Ise Shrine, and then to Taikenmon-in, the consort of Emperor Toba (r. 1107–23). In 1143 she entered religion with her mistress. Sixty-six poems of hers appear in the imperial waka anthologies and there is a private collection of her verse. She is one of both the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses of the Late Classical Period and the Thirty-Six Women Poetic Geniuses.
81
In poem 81, startled by the song of the cuckoo, the poet looks out, only to see the lingering moon of the dawn. Heian aristocrats eagerly listened out for the song of the cuckoo, which announced the arrival of summer. Here the joy of hearing the cuckoo is only the prelude to the even greater pleasure of seeing the moon in the summer sky at dawn. The dawn moon is also celebrated in poems 21, 30 and 31.
The interesting thing about this poem is that it links a world of sound to a world of sight. The headnote (kotobagaki) to the poem in the Senzaishū (no. 161) describes the setting, ‘hearing the cuckoo at dawn’, but what appeals to the eye is not the cuckoo but the moon of dawn. Though it seems slight in English, the original is a magnificent poem with a wonderful rhythm, and was highly praised in many of the old commentaries.
In The Tale of the Heike, Sanesada, the author of this poem, appears in a famous episode that also employs an image of the moon. When the capital was moved from Kyoto to Fukuhara in 1180, the poet went to the palace of his older sister, the Grand Empress Dowager Tashi, and composed a poem about the passing of the former capital:
Arriving at the old capital,
the moon shines clearly
over a wasteland of grasses
and only the autumn wind
pierces me to the core.
Fujiwara no Sanesada (1139–91) was the nephew of Shunzei (poem 83) and a cousin of Teika. His career suffered a temporary setback under the Taira clan, but he became Minister of the Left after the clan’s demise in 1189. Two years later, already ill, he took the tonsure and died shortly afterwards. Renowned as a musician as well as a poet, he left a diary and a private collection of poems, while seventy-eight of his poems appear in the imperial waka anthologies.
82
Although it appears in the ‘Love’ books of the Senzaishū (no. 817), poem 82 works best if read as a lament (jukkai) on the sorrows of living. An opposition is set up between the poet’s ultimately resilient self and his tears, which are presented as more sensitive and fragile and therefore unable to bear the pain. The key to the poem is the contrast between ‘life’ and ‘tears’, and the use of this technique was an orthodox method for appealing to an unsympathetic partner.
Priest Doin (1090–c.1179), given name Fujiwara no Atsuyori, reached the fifth rank and the office of Lieutenant of the Imperial Stables of the Left. Famous for being mean, he is a poet about whom many tales are told. He was devoted to poetry, and according to the Mumyosho (Anonymous Fragments; completed before 1216), even in old age visited the Sumiyoshi Shrine each month to pray he would become a good poet. Doin entered religion late in life, in 1172. He took part in numerous poetry contests throughout his life and also staged his own. While his private poetry collection has not survived, forty-one poems of his feature in the imperial waka anthologies. After he died, Shunzei (poem 83) chose eighteen of his poems for the Senzaishū. Doin is said to have appeared to the poet in a dream, expressing his joy, but this only made Shunzei feel sadder, and he added two more of Doin’s poems to the collection.
83
Poem 83 subverts the quintessentially medieval idea that one can escape from the sorrows of life by retiring to the quietness of the mountains. Even there, the poet warns us, the deer emits its plaintive cry. There is almost certainly an autobiographical element to the poem, as many of Shunzei’s closest acquaintances chose to leave the world behind and lead a life of quiet retreat in the mountains. The most celebrated of all medieval recluses, Kamo no Chomei (1155–1216), also famously concludes the account of his life as a hermit, the Hōjōki (An Account of my Ten-foot Hut; 1212), with a confession of his failure to achieve the spiritual goals he had set for himself when he chose the path of seclusion.
This poem, composed in 1140 when Shunzei was twenty-six, was highly regarded by Teika. Composed in the same year that his close friend Saigyo (poem 86) became a monk, at the age of twenty-two, it is said to be influenced by poem 5.
Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204), aka Toshinari, the father of Teika and Master of the Empress Dowager’s Palace, was the great poetic arbiter of his time. He entered religion in 1176. A protégé of Emperor Toba (r. 1107–23), he adopted the ‘new style’ of Toshiyori (poem 74). He was a judge of many poetry competitions, and about two thousand of his judgements on individual poems survive. He compiled the Senzaishū and wrote several treatises on poetry, notably the Korai fūteishō (A Treatise on Poetic Styles Through the Ages; 1197–1201). He has a private collection of verse and some 450 poems in the imperial waka anthologies. Associated with him are the very important aesthetic concepts of sabi (loneliness), yōen (ethereal beauty) and yūgen (mystery and depth), which influenced the development of not only waka, but renga, Noh drama and haiku (see the Introduction, here). W. B. Yeats was attracted by yūgen and it influenced his own att
empts at Noh plays. Sabi was a major ideal in renga poetry and in haiku, which derived from renga’s opening stanza or hokku.
84
This is a deeply personal poem that gently mixes remembrance of the past and hope for the future. If time does heal all wounds, the poet asks, will I look back tomorrow with fondness even on the very unhappy times of today? The answer to the question, however, is not straightforward, as the old pains seem nothing compared to the present ones. Composed when Kiyosuke was in his late fifties or early sixties, the poem may be about the author’s disappointments, including a dreadful relationship with his father and the failure of the Shoku-shikashū (see here) to be classified officially. It is said to be influenced by a poem by the Chinese poet Bai Juyi in his collected works, Hakushi monju, which describes the fading joys of life as one ages and how unlikely it is that the future can recapture the joie de vivre of youth.
Fujiwara no Kiyosuke (1104–77) was one of the early great waka poet-scholars of the late Heian period. The second son of Akisuke (poem 79), he is said to have been in conflict with his father until his thirties. As leader of the Rokujo house of poetry founded by his grandfather Akisue (see commentary to poem 79), he took an active part in the literary debates of his time. A rival of Teika, he wrote poetic treatises (Ōgishō, Waka dōmōshō) and a major compendium of poetic lore, the Fukuro zōshi (Classic of Poetry; 1156–9?). In 1165, Emperor Nijo (r. 1158–65) ordered him to compile the sequel to the Shikashū, an honour to which every poet aspired, but since the emperor died before its completion, the Shoku-shikashū (Later Collection of Verbal Flowers; 1165) was never officially classed as an imperial waka anthology.
One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each Page 13