Contents
Poem Index
Poems 16-20
Poem 16
tachiwakare Inaba no yama no mine ni ouru matsu to shi kikaba ima kaerikomu
|
Although I depart For where Mount Inaba stands, Its peak covered with pines, Should I hear that you too pine, I am sure at once to return. |
Comments
This comes from the "Parting" section of the Kokinshū. The poet, Ariwara no Yukihira (818-893), was the half-brother of Narihira, one of the "six immortals" of classical Japanese poetry. The poem was composed as Yukihira was about to take up his post as governor of the province of Inaba (present-day Tottori Prefecture) in 855. Yukihira's later exile to Suma under Emperor Montoku provided the basis for the No play Matsukaze.
The waka depends on a fairly tricky use of kakekotoba (pivot words) ifor its meaning. "Inaba" refers to Inaba as both province and mountain and also serves as a verbal suffix meaning "go," so that tachiwakare Inaba means something like "part from you and go to the province of Inaba," while Inaba no yama no mine means "the peak of Mount Inaba (where pine trees grow)," requiring the reader to join the two thoughts in a way that combines both names with the idea of travel. Then there is matsu, meaning both the pines of Mount Inaba and the "pining" of those from whom the poet is taking leave. Because of the coincidence with the English "pine," matsu is frequently used as a convenient example to illustrate how a pivot word might function in English. In this case, it might also be said to illustrate how stale the convention sometimes comes to seem.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: (emphatic prefix tachi) | separating-from
- Line 2: Inaba (incorporating a place name and the idea of going there) | 's | mountain | 's |
- Line 3: peak | on | grow
- Line 4: pines / pining | of | if-hear
- Line 5: immediately | will-return
Poem 17
chihayaburu kamiyo mo kikazu Tatsutagawa karakurenai ni mizu kukuru to wa
|
A marvel unknown Even in the august age of gods-- The Tatsuta River Has dyed its waters into A crimson shibori pattern. |
Comments
The source is the second "Autumn" section of the Kokinshū. Ariwara no Narihira, the grandson of the Heizei Emperor and half-brother to Yukihira (see above), was one of the "six immortals " of classical Japanese poetry and traditionally regarded as the model for the romantic episodes related in The Tales of Ise.
The poem is a byōbu-uta; that is, a waka based on (and inscribed onto) a painting on a decorative screen. The painting would have depicted the red leaves floating in the Tatsuta River, which flowed through an area famed for its autumn splendor, and the poem's conceit (as interpreted here) is to anthropomorphize the river -- a technique known as gijin-hō. Grammatically, the first two lines would normally come after lines three to five (the final particle "to" is actually associated with the verb "kiku" used negatively in the second line). The poem thus also demonstrates the technique of tōchi-hō (grammatical inversion), a fact further reflected in the sentence-ending inflection of the negative particle "zu" (introducing a grammatical break like this at the end of the second line is known as niku-gire). In addition, comparing the leaves to the shibori (tie-dyed) pattern of cloth illustrates the metaphorical/allegorical technique of mitate. For me, the personification causes the effect to seem somewhat strained, although the comparison itself is evocative.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: august (pillow word conventionally used before "god")
- Line 2: age-of-gods | even | not-heard
- Line 3: Tatsuta River
- Line 4: Chinese crimson | into
- Line 5: water | shibori-dyes (transitive form, with Tatsuta River as the subject; i.e., "the Tatsuta River dyes its water into a shibori pattern of crimson") | for | !
Poem 18
Sumi-no-e no kishi ni yoru nami yoru sae ya yume no kayoiji hitome yoku ramu
|
The waves find their way To the shore at Sumi-no-e Even at night -- Perhaps it is the thought of prying eyes That keeps him from my nightly dreams. |
Comments
The source is the second "Love" section of the Kokinshū. The poet (?-901) served as governor of Inaba (currently eastern Tottori Prefecture), among other posts, and was known for his calligraphy as well as for his improvisatory waka on love and court life.
The headnote to the poem in the Kokinshū indicates that it was composed for a poetry contest, possibly on an assigned topic. The poet assumes the persona of a woman who is frustrated by the inability, or failure, of her lover to visit her. Sumi-no--e, the shoreline of what is now the Sumiyoshi district of Osaka, was famous for its pines, and thus (because of the conventional doubling of meaning with "wait" -- see Poem 16, above) an appropriate image for fruitless waiting. The poem relies for its effect on the repetition of the word yoru, which means "approach (the shore)" in the first instance and "night" in the second (the first two lines constitute an "introductory phrase," or jokotoba). The double duty performed in Japanese by the third line (which can be placed either with the first two or with the last two), together with the semantic gap between the fourth and fifth lines -- an implied but unstated equivalent to "that he does not travel (the meeting path of dreams)" -- makes concise translation surprisingly difficult. In any case, the third line adds a satisfying dose of emotional intensity to the otherwise conventional conception.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: Sumi-no-e | 's
- Line 2: shore | toward | approach | waves
- Line 3: night | even | !
- Line 4: dream | 's | meeting-path
- Line 5: peoples'-eyes | (he) shuns | perhaps-for-the-reason
Poem 19
Naniwagata mijikaki ashi no fushi no ma mo awade kono yo o sugushiteyo to ya
|
Do you mean to say We must go through life not meeting Even for a time as short As the segments in the reeds That grow at Naniwa Bay? |
Comments
Taken from the first "Love" section of the Shinkokinshū. The poet (?877-?938) was the daughter of Fujiwara no Tsugukage, governor of Ise Province. Ise is considered a "representative woman poet" of her time, with the emphasis on a consuming passion taken to represent a particularly feminine point of view (it is still standard to classify women waka poets as joryūkajin, as opposed to the nongendered kajin, which in practice is normally taken to refer to men.
The reeds at Naniwa Bay, near present-day Osaka, were a popular image in classical Japanese poetry. Here, the first two lines of the Japanese function as a jokotoba, or "introductory phrase," that Ise uses as the basis for constructing a metaphor that associates the short segments of the reeds with the possibility of a brief meeting with a (potential) lover. Ma is a pivot word (kakekotoba) that refers to a "segment" of a reed on the one hand and a "brief period of time" on the other -- the meaning of the poem shifts from the outwardly descriptive to the personally relevant at this point. The wordplay then goes even deeper because the Chinese character for fushi can also be read as yo. In the former case, the character refers to the knots in reeds, bamboo and other plants; in the latter, the reference is to the segments between the knots, so that from one standpoint, fushi no ma and yo mean exactly the same thing. Thus, a combination of "related words" (engo) -- reed, segment, knot -- interact with the other meaning of yo ("world" or "life") to create a pleasing textural subtlety.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: Naniwa Bay (the Japanese suffix -gata actually refers to the normally submerged, marshy border of a shoreline that becomes fully exposed only when the tide recedes, so that "bay" is an exaggerated translation)
- Line 2: short | reed | 's
- Line 3: segment | 's | space / period-of-time | even
- Line 4: not-meeting | this | life | (accusative particle, so with the first word of the next line this means "must go through this life without meeting")
- Line 5: you-must-go-through | saying | ? (thus, "Are you saying that I must go through...?")
Poem 20
wabinureba ima hata onaji Naniwa naru mi o tsukushite mo awamu to zo omou
|
It cannot matter Now that all is in despair-- I must see you Though I expose myself to ruin Like the markers in Naniwa Bay. |
Comments
This is the fifth "Love" poem from the Gosenshū collection (compiled in 960). Prince Motoyoshi (890-943; shinnō is the title given to an imperial prince) was the eldest son of Emperor Yōzei (r. 876-884; see Poem 13), renowned for his elegant taste and also for his philandering.The headnote to the poem in the Gosenshū states that it was sent to Lady Kyōgoku, a consort of Emperor Uda (r. 887-897), once Motoyoshi's affair with her had come to light.
Cuckolding the emperor can be a serious matter (it is one of the major themes of The Tale of Genji), yet in the poem Motoyoshi tells the woman that he is willing to sacrifice everything to continue their relationship, revealing the sort of consuming passion more commonly associated with female poets in classical Japanese literature. The first two lines express the poet's awareness of having been placed in an untenable position, along with his grim what-have I-got-to-lose-now point of view. The next three lines complete the logic of the poem with the poet's assertion that he will meet the woman despite the heavy price he will have to pay (dividing a waka grammatically after the second line is a technique called nikugire). The main question from a reader's perspective may be whether miotsukushi ("channel marker") serves as an effective kakekotoba (pivot word) to represent the poet's willingness to sacrifice his reputation for the woman. If it is taken merely as clever wordplay, it runs the risk of mitigating the emotional intensity of the poem on the one hand (how can someone who has the presence of mind to devise a clever pun be regarded as sincere?) and exaggerating it on the other (how much desperation can really be attributed to a channel marker?). Granted that the use of miotsukushi as a pivot word is hardly original, the image nevertheless seems an apt way to suggest the future course of the couple's relationship while at the same time acknowledging the isolation and hardship that would result.
Literal rendition and notes
- Line 1: have-reached-an-impasse | since
- Line 2: now | again | the same (The first two lines constitute a grammaticallyl complete unit, so that the sense is "It is all one and the same now that things have come to this pass.")
- Line 3: Naniwa ("Bay" is interpolated) | in/at
- Line 4: oneself | (accusative particle) | exhausting | even (incorporating miotsukushi, the word for "channel marker")
- Line 5: will-meet | so | indeed | think