Contents
Poem Index
Poems 6-10
Poem 6
kasasagi no wataseru hashi ni oku shimo no shiroki o mireba yo zo fukenikeru
|
When I see the frost Lying white on a staircase That might have been formed By the outstretched wings of magpies, I know the night has grown deep. |
Comments
This waka appears in the "Winter" section of the Shin kokin wakashū. Yakamochi, the son of Ōtomo no Tabito, was one of the compilers of the Man'yōshū. That anthology contains more poems by him than by any other poet.
The poem relies for its effect on an implied metaphor signaled by a pun on the word hashi, which depending on the Chinese character used can mean either "bridge" or "(palace) staircase." In the former sense, the allusion is to the Chinese legend in which a bridge across the Milky Way is formed each year by magpies to allow the Herder to meet the Weaver (the Tanabata legend). In the latter interpretation (which is actually only conventional), the reference is to a staircase in the royal palace, no less "lofty" than the Milky Way by virtue of its association with the imperial court.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: magpies | as-for
- Line 2: stretched-out (="formed") | bridge | on
- Line 3: lies | frost | 's
- Line 4: whiteness | (accusative particle) | when-see
- Line 5: night | !| has-grown-late
Poem 7
ama-no-hara furisakemireba Kasuga naru Mikasa-no-yama ni ideshi tsuki kamo
|
Lifting my gaze to The broad expanse of the sky, I see the same moon That once rose in Kasuga Over Mount Mikasa! |
Comments
This waka first appears in the "Travel" section of the Kokin wakashū. As a youth, Abe was sent by the Nara court to study in China, where he spent 54 years (including a period as the Chinese governor-general of Vietnam) before dying in Chang'an.
This relatively straightforward poem, said to have been composed before Abe made an abortive attempt to return to Japan, is conventionally held to reveal both the strength of his affection for his homeland and a poignant awareness of the intervening years spent in China. Two place names are mentioned: Kasuga and Mount Mikasa. The former refers to an area in present-day Nara between Nara Park and Kasuga Shrine; the latter is a mountain located to the back of the same shrine, between Mount Wakakusa and Mount Takamado. The ending particle kamo in the last line is characteristic of Nara-period usage (Abe's dates are 698-770), adding the force of an exclamation to what has been said.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: the-heavenly-plain
- Line 2: when-gaze-far-away
- Line 3: Kasuga | in (naru is a particle derived from ni aru)
- Line 4: Mount-Mikasa | over
- Line 5: appeared | moon | !
Poem 8
wa ga io wa miyako no tatsumi shika zo sumu yo o ujiyama to hito wa iu nari
|
In a hut that stands Southeast of the capital, I live thus at peace; Yet people say I came to Mount Uji Out of despair at a callous world. |
Comments
This waka appears in the second ("lower") "Miscellaneous" section of the Kokin wakashū. The poet flourished in the second half of the ninth century and is considered one of the traditional Six Sages of Poetry, but other than the fact that he was a priest on Mount Uji, nothing is known of his life (Mount Uji itself is now called Mount Kisen).
The poem relies for its effect upon the use of the word uji, which on the one hand stands for the place name Uji (a popular spot for aristocratic villas in the Heian period, and the location of the exquisite Phoenix Hall at the Byōdō-in Temple), and on the other is used as an adjective meaning "disagreeable," "unpleasant," or "unfeeling." Such a word is known as a kakekotoba, or "pivot word," one of the central devices of waka poetry from the time of the Kokinshū down to the present day. The pivot word serves to give the poem a double meaning by establishing an associative link between two linguistically unrelated homonyms, allowing the objective world of nature and the subjective sensibility of the poet to inform each other within the restrictive constraints imposed by the waka form (and not incidentally making concise translation very difficult indeed). Here the poet expresses a bemused consternation that people think his life at Uji is characterized by a feeling that the world is disagreeable, when in fact it is free of such concerns.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: I | 's | hut | as-for
- Line 2: the capital | 's | southeast (a word literally combining "dragon" and "snake," the former representing the direction ESE and the latter SSE in the Chinese "12-stem" directional system)
- Line 3: thusly | ! | live
- Line 4: the world | (accusative particle) | Mount Uji / callous (uji as a pivot word) | so(-say)
- Line 5: people | as-for | say-I-hear | I-hear (i.e., "I hear that people say")
Poem 9
hana no iro wa utsurinikeri na itazura ni wa ga mi yo ni furu nagameseshi ma ni
|
The cherry blossoms Have faded now in hue-- Gazing emptily Upon the long spring rains, I too know what it is to age. |
Comments
This waka was taken from the "Spring" section of the Kokinshū. Ono no Komachi, who flourished in the second half of the ninth century, is the only woman classed with the traditional "six immortals" of waka poetry (rokkasen; so called because of their mention in the preface to the Kokinshū, although there they are not praised without qualification). She is supposed to have been an incomparable beauty, and many legends sprang up around her name.
Two pivot words (furu and nagamesu, both in the last two lines) provide the key to interpretation here, one sets that results in the translation "the long rains that fall in the world," the other itself with a double meaning that joins "growing old" with "gazing on the world in a reverie." The poem makes use of the traditional association between the short time during which cherry blossoms are at their peak and the transience of human life. The conceit was already sufficiently established in Komachi's day for the reader to understand that "flower" (hana) referred specifically to cherry blossoms. Structurally, the poem is broken semantically after the second line (a technique called niku-gire), which is here combined with tōchi-hō ("grammatical inversion"; the first two lines would normally follow the last three) to increase dramatic effect.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: blossom | 's | color | as-for
- Line 2: has-changed | !
- Line 3: meaningless | -ly
- Line 4: I | 's | self | world | in | grow-old / falling (furu used as pivot word joining the idea of aging to the falling of the rain)
- Line 5: was-gazing / long-rains (nagame used as a pivot word to join the idea of gazing to the ceaseless rain) | period | in ("period in" = "during" or "while")
Poem 10
kore ya kono yuku mo kaeru mo wakarete wa shiru mo shiranu mo Ōsaka no Seki
|
This is a place where Many come and many go, Part to meet again, Some as friends, some as strangers: The Ōsaka Barrier. |
Comments
This poem appears in the first "Miscellaneous" section of the Gosen wakashū (a section dating from 1089). The semi-legendary poet Semimaru may have been a blind musician of the second half of the ninth century -- possibly of royal birth and skilled in playing the biwa (Japanese lute) -- who lived as a recluse in a small hut near the ōsaka Barrier.
The rather artless poem, serving to introduce a famous historical spot, is constructed around three sets of oppositions: the one between "come" and "go"; the one between "part" and "meet" (the latter contained as wordplay within the "ōsaka" of line 5); and the one between "friends" and "strangers." The barrier thus serves as the locus of a variety of activities associated with travel, which in turn suggests (in medieval interpretations, at any rate) the idea that one meets in order to part, and then parts in order to meet again. The barrier itself was located on the boundary between the provinces of Yamashiro (present-day Kyoto) and ōmi (Shiga Prefecture), and once past it the traveler was in the "east" of the country. ōsaka Barrier enjoyed a long life as an uta makura (a place name famous in literature, capable of creating powerful poetic overtones), and was often used as a kakekotoba (pivot word) because of its phonetic resemblance to the Japanese word for "meet" (au or ō).
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: this (nominative form) | ! | this (attributive form; in combination, the two forms mean something like "this is that oft-told place")
- Line 2: going-people ("people" is an understood omission) | also | coming-people | also
- Line 3: part | and-again (this line is usually interpreted to mean repeated parting and meeting)
- Line 4: known-people ("people" is an understood omission) | also | unknown-people | also
- Line 5: ōsaka (used as a kakekotoba incorporating a homonym for "meet" and thus tied semantically to the word "part" in Line 3) | 's | Barrier