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This is my version of the Hyakunin Isshu, a famous collection of Japanese poems compiled by the poet Fujiwara no Teika in the 13th century. So famous, I am given to believe, that if a contemporary Japanese is familiar with just one collection of classical poems, it is most likely to be this one. It contains 100 poems, all of the tanka form, by 100 different poets, who wrote over a period of a few hundred years. A tanka is like a haiku in form with an added two lines of seven syllables each. The tanka predated the haiku and led to it in a circuitous fashion. Teika drew the poems from various imperial anthologies collected over the previous several hundred years. That these collections were imperial anthologies is
significant here because poetry was ubiquitous among the nobility. It was a social grace much like playing the piano was for Victorian women above a certain station. Of course there were some who were more serious and better poets whose work is generally that which has been preserved.
A note on method. I am not a scholar of Japanese literature, indeed, I do not read Japanese at all. What I have done is to collect multiple literal and multiple literary translations along with what commentary I could find in English and work from these sources. Where interpretations have differed, I have weighed them using my own judgment, and, admittedly, my own esthetic. I have tried to be as accurate as possible in terms of paraphrasable content, neither adding nor subtracting meaning to the best of my understanding and ability. I also am perhaps more interested in reproducing poetic form than some translators, even though I'm not that good at some aspects of prosody, rhyme for example. (Luckily for me--and the reader--tanka do not rhyme.) However, these Japanese poems rely very heavily on a rather formalized kind of wordplay, so that meaning and form are more entangled than in most poetry. For the most part, I cannot reproduce in English the puns and other wordplay of the Japanese. But to not have any wordplay would very much misrepresent the originals. So I do what I can to play around with the English in a way that fits the poem.
A couple acknowledgements. My general approach to translation owes a lot to Douglas Hofstadter's Le ton beau de Marot. Also, my interest in translating Japanese poetry began with a gift from my son, Nat, of an old copy of The Uta by Arthur Waley, a collection of tanka oddly stuck between literal and literary translation.
1. EMPEROR TENJI (626-671)
In the autumn fields,
the hut made for the harvest
has thatching so coarse
that it lets the dampness in
to wet my sleeves like teardrops.
When something gets wet in Japanese poetry, it's very often sleeves. And it is often tears that do the wetting, most particularly tears over lost or unrequited love. So actually tears are not mentioned in the poem, but I added an overt mention to provide an association that would have been natural for a contemporary reader or listener. Tenji perhaps wrote this poem in sympathy with workers in the rice fields. (The most common interpretation.) Or to compare his love problems to the misery of a worker in the fields. Or both. Or maybe in sympathy with a wet, muddy, lovesick worker in the fields. Tenji bestowed the Fujiwara clan name on Teika's ancestors--perhaps the reason he choose this poem to begin his collection.
2. EMPRESS JITO (645-702)
Spring has passed, I see,
and summer's here already.
Spread to dry, they say,
the uncommonly white robes
on heaven's fragrant mountain.
The fragrant mountain is "kaguyama" or Mount Kagu, where the Empress's family came from "Kagu" means fragrant or perfumed. Tanka often rely on puns that can seldom be reproduced in English. But I can insert wordplay in English when the opportunity arises. The word I've translated as "uncommonly" means literally something like "delicate/mysterious" and is rendered as "strange, shining" by Frank Watson and as "pure" by Clay MacCauley. I chose "uncommonly" to denote the fineness of the white clothes and to suggest that the robes belong to the royal family and not to commoners.
3. KAKINOMOTO NO HITOMARO (662-710)
The copper pheasant
drags its long, long drooping tail
on the mountain slope.
And my own long night drags on
as I sleep alone again.
The word for "long" is actually used only once in the original. It is an often-used device called a "pivot word" that functions as the end of the first part of the poem and the beginning of the last part. It is often a pun, but doesn't have to be.
4. YAMABE NO AKAHITO (700-736)
Reaching Tago Bay,
struck by the sight of Fuji,
her peak already
clothed in purest white, and yet,
the snow persists in falling.
5. SARUMARU TAIFU (active circa 708-715)
A belling stag
treading through fallen red leaves
deep in the mountains.
Coming again with that cry,
the sadness of the season.
Autumn was conventionally regarded as sad. But many Americans who live in areas with hot summers and cold winters say that fall is their favorite season. It's not so hot, not so cold, and less raw than spring. Western literature, classified by correspondence with the seasons, is more in accord with Japanese sensibility. Autumn is for tragedy, winter for satire, spring for comedy, and summer for romance or pastoral. "Comedy" here means having a plot with a happy ending, not necessarily being funny. Taking that perspective then, notice how comedy tracks spring with its ascent to warmth and bounty and how tragedy tracks fall with its descent to cold and barrenness. The cry of the deer is associated with longing for an absent lover.
.
6. OTOMO NO YAKAMOCHI (718-785)
In the sky, the bridge
magpies have made of themselves
for lovers to meet
becomes a frosty white arc
as the night wears on towards dawn.
Actually the surface meaning of this tanka in Japanese is insufficient to fill out a tanka in English. However, it assumes a lot of background knowledge the most English-speaking readers may not have, So, in making a tanka, I have added some of that information to meet the form requirements and to make the poem somewhat more intelligible without background notes. Yakamochi refers to (not "references" please) a myth that originated in China about how once a year magpies lay themselves along the Milky Way to make a bridge for the separated lovers, Herder Boy and Weaver Girl, so they can meet again for that one night. Just from this much, it's easy to see how the poem might be remindful of a real-life potential meeting, but also "hashi," the word used for "bridge," can also mean "staircase," and so will nudge the reader closer to a palace tryst interpretation. The significance of the accumulating white frost is that time is passing and the likelihood of a meeting is shrinking. And also, it provides a visual image of the Milky Way. Anyway, all the overt information in the Japanese original can be packed into the shorter form of a haiku:
The bridge magpies make
becomes a frosty white arc
as the night wears on.
7. ABE NO NAKAMARO (701-770)
Here, as I look up,
the broad arching field of stars
becomes the same sky
seen again from Kasuga
with the new Mikasa moon.
Kasuga Shrine, near Mt. Mikasa, was where those embarking on a trip to China went to pray for a safe journey. In his youth, Nakamara was sent on an official mission to China and ended up spending several decades there, even serving for a time as the China's Governor-General in Viet Nam. Toward the end of his life, he attempted to return home, but his ship was wrecked. This poem was reputed to have been written before a second, and, again, ill-fated attempt. His ship was wrecked on the shore of Viet Nam. After that, he remained in China and never tried again. In this tanka, Nakamara uses the sky and moon to connect, across time and space, an old self, his present self, and a potential
future self that was never realized.
8. MONK KISEN
In my hermit's hut
southeast of the capital,
I do live in peace.
Though they say I fled the world
for Mount Gloom, it's just a name.
9. ONO NO KOMACHI (825-900)
Falling, the long rain,
the color from the flower,
the eye through the world.
As now my own beauty fades
from a life I've lived in vain.
Komachi is one of the most highly of the early poets. She was also a famous beauty who was reputed to be cruel to her lovers--although that may have been jealous gossip. The overall theme here is the notion of the transience of the things of the world worked out in parallel--by means of puns in the Japanese--in the fading color of flowers and the fading beauty of a human life.
10. SEMIMARU (fl. early tenth century)
Yes, here is the place
of parting and reunion,
coming and going.
Friends and strangers, all must pass
The Osaka meeting gate.
"Osaka" means something like "meeting hill." The Osaka Barrier Gate between two provinces roughly divided Japan into eastern and western halves.
11. ONO NO TAKAMURA (802-852)
Fishermen homeward bound,
please say to anyone who asks
that I've been rowed out
over the vast ocean plain
to one of eighty islands.
Takamura was exiled for a time to an island off the coast after he refused to go on a mission to China. Of course, he refused only after he was sent out three times on ships that didn't make it. "Eighty" here is not an exact count, but just a conventional way of saying "many." There was a particular area off the coast that held many islands. Compare the "Thousand Islands" area of the St. Lawrence River. By the way, a day or two ago, I heard a Shia imam explain that the 72 virgins promised by the Qur'an was also not an exact count, but also just meant "many," or even an endless supply (which makes some sense, virgins as virgins being a single-use item).
12. THE MONK HENJO (816-890)
Winds of heaven blow,
close the pathway through the clouds.
These divine maidens
may then stay a while longer
to keep dancing for us here.
For important festivals, young women of the court did a special dance. Here, Henjo is imagining them to be heavenly beings who will return when the dance is done.
13. RETIRED EMPEROR YOZEI (869-949)
From Mount Tsukuba's
twin peaks, the Minano falls
to make a deep river.
So my love gathers itself
into a deep, constant flow.
The twin peaks of Tsukuba were said to represent male and female. Many emperors retired relatively young. Much of an emperor's time was taken up with ceremonial duties and sometimes an emperor could be more important politically after he retired.
14. MINAMOTO NO TORU (822-895)
Tangled as the ferns
on silk Michinoku cloth,
my hidden passion.
She alone has muddled my heart.
Would I have done this myself?
The patterns on Michinoku cloth were made by staining it with wet ferns, leaves, or other foliage. There is a pun on "shinobu," which means both a particular kind of fern and "concealed."
15. EMPEROR KOKO
Only for you, Lord,
am I out here in spring fields
pulling early greens
with snow falling
thick on my sleeves.
It was fairly common for men to take on the persona of a woman for a poem. The poem was written to accompany a gift of spring greens, which were traditionally eaten to celebrate the New Year.
16. ARIWARA NO YUKIHIRA (818-893)
Although I'm leaving
for piney Mount Inaba,
if wind through the trees
whispers that you pine for me,
I'll come flying back to you.
Here is a rare instance where a pun works in Japanese and in English. The Japanese "matsu" means both "pine tree" and "long for" just as "pine" does in English. Yukihira uses "matsu" as a "pivot word," arranging the syntax so that using the word once activates both of the meanings.
17. ARIWARA NO NARIHIRA ASON (825-880)
In the Age of Gods,
even then, nowhere was known
a crimson so red
as the Tatsuta River
dyed by the leaves of autumn.
18. FUJIWARA NO TOSHIYUKI (died 907)
Even at night, waves
find the shore in Sumi Bay.
But you are afraid
of being seen coming here,
even on the dark path of dreams.
It was believed that lovers could visit each other in dreams.
19. LADY ISE (872-938)
Short as a segment
of Naniwa marsh reed,
not even that much
time for us to meet again
on the long passage, is there?
Naniwa was known as a place for lovers to meet. It was a famous poetic place, an "utamakura" or "pillow word," used in a poem for a standard set of cultural notions associated with it.
20. PRINCE MOTOYOSHI (890-943)
It's all exposed now
like a Naniwa tide gauge,
but I'm so desperate,
even though it destroys my life,
I have to see you again.
Some translations--actually, most of the translations I'm familiar with--say "channel marker" rather than "tide gauge." But I chose "tide gauge" because it seemed to better fit the notion of something that could be more or less exposed.
21. MONK SOSEI (died c. 910)
Depending only
on your word that you'd come soon,
I have waited through
fall's night of the longest moon,
still hanging there now at dawn.
The ninth month of the lunar calendar was called The Longest Month because of the increasingly long nights. Toward the end of the month, the moon was still visible in earliest morning.
22. FUN'YA NO YASUHIDE (died c. 885)
As soon as it blows,
autumn leaves begin to wither
and strong branches break--
mountain wind so justly then
means both gale and destroyer.
This poem depends so much on peculiarities of the Japanese language that it is difficult to translate intelligibly without being prosaically discursive. The character for "gale" or "tempest" is a combination of the characters for "mountain" and "wind." And the word it represents sounds almost like the word for "destroy."
23. OE NO CHISATO (active abt. 883-903)
Looking at the moon,
I think of a thousand things--
all melancholy.
Yet autumn, gloomy autumn,
has come not for me alone.
24. SUGAWARA NO MICHIZANE (845-903)
For this iteration
of giving a gift to the gods
to bless a journey,
what plain hemp streamers could match
this hill's brocade of autumn leaves?
In this poem there is a pivot word "tabi," used to mean both "journey" and "occasion."
This accounts for my choice of "iteration," which refers to a journey etymologically.
25. FUJIWARA NO SADAKATA (873-932)
"Vines of entangled sleep,"
with scarlet fruit on Meeting Hill,
if your name is true,
steal away and draw her here,
where we can lie in secret sleep.
"Scarlet" had approximately the same erotic connotation as it does for us. Generally men visited women in their residences, so this poem is a bit odd in having the woman coming to the man.
26. FUJIWARA NO TADAHIRA
Were you sentient,
maples of Mount Ogura,
you would think to hold
your leaves for the royal visit,
though their red be white with snow.
27.
FUJIWARA NO KANESUKE ( 877-933)
The River Izumi
over the plain of Mika
flows from many springs.
So I wonder from which source
my feeling for you has sprung.
"Many Springs River"
surges over Mika Plain,
cutting it in two.
How has longing cleft my heart
from just that one sight of you?
This poem has a great deal of wordplay in Japanese--words doing double duty--that can't be reproduced in English. So I've rendered it as two separate tanka. These two English poems shouldn't be viewed as alternate translations, but as two facets of the same Japanese poem.
28. MINAMOTO NO MUNEYUKI (d. 939)
Winter, and sadness
and increases in the mountains.
Guests in the village
are sparse as the withered gras.
So I muse on loneliness.
A poem counterposed to the ambient notion that autumn was the saddest season.
29. OSHIKOCHI NO MITSUNE (859-925)
Fall, and the first frost
has covered everything.
So should I still try,
in the main just by guessing,
to pick white chrysanthemums?
30. MIBU NO TAKAMINE (fl. c. 900)
Your face was cold as
the waning, indifferent moon
in the dim predawn
when we parted--bitterness
now returns each day with dawn.
31. SAKANOUE NO KORENORI (died 930)
What had been moonlight
over Yoshino Village
toward the end of night
became in the next moment
a white haze of falling snow.
Momentary misperception was a common theme--snow is fallen petals, an unbreaking wave is a crane in the surf.
32. HARUMICHI NO TSURAKI (died 920)
How the wind has built
across the mountain stream,
look, a wicker dam!
Oh...only red maple leaves
that are snagged and can't flow away.
Another instance of momentary misperception.
33. KI NO TOMONORI (845-907)
As ever in spring
the sun spreads its gentle light
over everything.
What but an unquiet heart
could make blossoms fall and scatter?
34. FUJIWARA NO OKIKAZE
All whom I once knew
are gone now at my great age.
At Takasago,
the pines are even older,
but they've never been my friends.
35. KI NO TSURAYUKI (866?-945)
Never knowable,
the changing depths of the heart.
In my old village
the fragrance of plum blossoms
is now and always the same.
In this period, plum blossoms, known for their fragrance, were the flower mentioned most in poetry. Later, cherry blossoms, as symbols of the transitory, become more prevalent in literature.
36. KIYOHARA NO FUKAYABU (active abt. 908-930)
This summer night--
twilight so soon becoming dawn--
has passed so quickly.
Where in the clouds has the moon
ducked into hasty lodging?
The idea here is that the night has been so brief that the moon has not had time to make it to its usual destination.
37. FUN'YA NO ASAYASU (active abt. 892-902)
Glistening white dew,
droplets blown by constant wind
over autumn fields.
Pearls never strung together
scattering everywhere.
Beads on a string were a common metaphor for the ordering of the characteristics and events of one's life. And the breaking of the string and scattering of the beads a metaphor for incoherence and death. This tanka using that metaphor is a favorite of mine:
A couple acknowledgements. My general approach to translation owes a lot to Douglas Hofstadter's Le ton beau de Marot. Also, my interest in translating Japanese poetry began with a gift from my son, Nat, of an old copy of The Uta by Arthur Waley, a collection of tanka oddly stuck between literal and literary translation.
1. EMPEROR TENJI (626-671)
In the autumn fields,
the hut made for the harvest
has thatching so coarse
that it lets the dampness in
to wet my sleeves like teardrops.
When something gets wet in Japanese poetry, it's very often sleeves. And it is often tears that do the wetting, most particularly tears over lost or unrequited love. So actually tears are not mentioned in the poem, but I added an overt mention to provide an association that would have been natural for a contemporary reader or listener. Tenji perhaps wrote this poem in sympathy with workers in the rice fields. (The most common interpretation.) Or to compare his love problems to the misery of a worker in the fields. Or both. Or maybe in sympathy with a wet, muddy, lovesick worker in the fields. Tenji bestowed the Fujiwara clan name on Teika's ancestors--perhaps the reason he choose this poem to begin his collection.
2. EMPRESS JITO (645-702)
Spring has passed, I see,
and summer's here already.
Spread to dry, they say,
the uncommonly white robes
on heaven's fragrant mountain.
The fragrant mountain is "kaguyama" or Mount Kagu, where the Empress's family came from "Kagu" means fragrant or perfumed. Tanka often rely on puns that can seldom be reproduced in English. But I can insert wordplay in English when the opportunity arises. The word I've translated as "uncommonly" means literally something like "delicate/mysterious" and is rendered as "strange, shining" by Frank Watson and as "pure" by Clay MacCauley. I chose "uncommonly" to denote the fineness of the white clothes and to suggest that the robes belong to the royal family and not to commoners.
3. KAKINOMOTO NO HITOMARO (662-710)
The copper pheasant
drags its long, long drooping tail
on the mountain slope.
And my own long night drags on
as I sleep alone again.
The word for "long" is actually used only once in the original. It is an often-used device called a "pivot word" that functions as the end of the first part of the poem and the beginning of the last part. It is often a pun, but doesn't have to be.
4. YAMABE NO AKAHITO (700-736)
Reaching Tago Bay,
struck by the sight of Fuji,
her peak already
clothed in purest white, and yet,
the snow persists in falling.
5. SARUMARU TAIFU (active circa 708-715)
A belling stag
treading through fallen red leaves
deep in the mountains.
Coming again with that cry,
the sadness of the season.
Autumn was conventionally regarded as sad. But many Americans who live in areas with hot summers and cold winters say that fall is their favorite season. It's not so hot, not so cold, and less raw than spring. Western literature, classified by correspondence with the seasons, is more in accord with Japanese sensibility. Autumn is for tragedy, winter for satire, spring for comedy, and summer for romance or pastoral. "Comedy" here means having a plot with a happy ending, not necessarily being funny. Taking that perspective then, notice how comedy tracks spring with its ascent to warmth and bounty and how tragedy tracks fall with its descent to cold and barrenness. The cry of the deer is associated with longing for an absent lover.
.
6. OTOMO NO YAKAMOCHI (718-785)
In the sky, the bridge
magpies have made of themselves
for lovers to meet
becomes a frosty white arc
as the night wears on towards dawn.
Actually the surface meaning of this tanka in Japanese is insufficient to fill out a tanka in English. However, it assumes a lot of background knowledge the most English-speaking readers may not have, So, in making a tanka, I have added some of that information to meet the form requirements and to make the poem somewhat more intelligible without background notes. Yakamochi refers to (not "references" please) a myth that originated in China about how once a year magpies lay themselves along the Milky Way to make a bridge for the separated lovers, Herder Boy and Weaver Girl, so they can meet again for that one night. Just from this much, it's easy to see how the poem might be remindful of a real-life potential meeting, but also "hashi," the word used for "bridge," can also mean "staircase," and so will nudge the reader closer to a palace tryst interpretation. The significance of the accumulating white frost is that time is passing and the likelihood of a meeting is shrinking. And also, it provides a visual image of the Milky Way. Anyway, all the overt information in the Japanese original can be packed into the shorter form of a haiku:
The bridge magpies make
becomes a frosty white arc
as the night wears on.
7. ABE NO NAKAMARO (701-770)
Here, as I look up,
the broad arching field of stars
becomes the same sky
seen again from Kasuga
with the new Mikasa moon.
Kasuga Shrine, near Mt. Mikasa, was where those embarking on a trip to China went to pray for a safe journey. In his youth, Nakamara was sent on an official mission to China and ended up spending several decades there, even serving for a time as the China's Governor-General in Viet Nam. Toward the end of his life, he attempted to return home, but his ship was wrecked. This poem was reputed to have been written before a second, and, again, ill-fated attempt. His ship was wrecked on the shore of Viet Nam. After that, he remained in China and never tried again. In this tanka, Nakamara uses the sky and moon to connect, across time and space, an old self, his present self, and a potential
future self that was never realized.
8. MONK KISEN
In my hermit's hut
southeast of the capital,
I do live in peace.
Though they say I fled the world
for Mount Gloom, it's just a name.
9. ONO NO KOMACHI (825-900)
Falling, the long rain,
the color from the flower,
the eye through the world.
As now my own beauty fades
from a life I've lived in vain.
Komachi is one of the most highly of the early poets. She was also a famous beauty who was reputed to be cruel to her lovers--although that may have been jealous gossip. The overall theme here is the notion of the transience of the things of the world worked out in parallel--by means of puns in the Japanese--in the fading color of flowers and the fading beauty of a human life.
10. SEMIMARU (fl. early tenth century)
Yes, here is the place
of parting and reunion,
coming and going.
Friends and strangers, all must pass
The Osaka meeting gate.
"Osaka" means something like "meeting hill." The Osaka Barrier Gate between two provinces roughly divided Japan into eastern and western halves.
11. ONO NO TAKAMURA (802-852)
Fishermen homeward bound,
please say to anyone who asks
that I've been rowed out
over the vast ocean plain
to one of eighty islands.
Takamura was exiled for a time to an island off the coast after he refused to go on a mission to China. Of course, he refused only after he was sent out three times on ships that didn't make it. "Eighty" here is not an exact count, but just a conventional way of saying "many." There was a particular area off the coast that held many islands. Compare the "Thousand Islands" area of the St. Lawrence River. By the way, a day or two ago, I heard a Shia imam explain that the 72 virgins promised by the Qur'an was also not an exact count, but also just meant "many," or even an endless supply (which makes some sense, virgins as virgins being a single-use item).
12. THE MONK HENJO (816-890)
Winds of heaven blow,
close the pathway through the clouds.
These divine maidens
may then stay a while longer
to keep dancing for us here.
For important festivals, young women of the court did a special dance. Here, Henjo is imagining them to be heavenly beings who will return when the dance is done.
13. RETIRED EMPEROR YOZEI (869-949)
From Mount Tsukuba's
twin peaks, the Minano falls
to make a deep river.
So my love gathers itself
into a deep, constant flow.
The twin peaks of Tsukuba were said to represent male and female. Many emperors retired relatively young. Much of an emperor's time was taken up with ceremonial duties and sometimes an emperor could be more important politically after he retired.
14. MINAMOTO NO TORU (822-895)
Tangled as the ferns
on silk Michinoku cloth,
my hidden passion.
She alone has muddled my heart.
Would I have done this myself?
The patterns on Michinoku cloth were made by staining it with wet ferns, leaves, or other foliage. There is a pun on "shinobu," which means both a particular kind of fern and "concealed."
15. EMPEROR KOKO
Only for you, Lord,
am I out here in spring fields
pulling early greens
with snow falling
thick on my sleeves.
It was fairly common for men to take on the persona of a woman for a poem. The poem was written to accompany a gift of spring greens, which were traditionally eaten to celebrate the New Year.
16. ARIWARA NO YUKIHIRA (818-893)
Although I'm leaving
for piney Mount Inaba,
if wind through the trees
whispers that you pine for me,
I'll come flying back to you.
Here is a rare instance where a pun works in Japanese and in English. The Japanese "matsu" means both "pine tree" and "long for" just as "pine" does in English. Yukihira uses "matsu" as a "pivot word," arranging the syntax so that using the word once activates both of the meanings.
17. ARIWARA NO NARIHIRA ASON (825-880)
In the Age of Gods,
even then, nowhere was known
a crimson so red
as the Tatsuta River
dyed by the leaves of autumn.
18. FUJIWARA NO TOSHIYUKI (died 907)
Even at night, waves
find the shore in Sumi Bay.
But you are afraid
of being seen coming here,
even on the dark path of dreams.
It was believed that lovers could visit each other in dreams.
19. LADY ISE (872-938)
Short as a segment
of Naniwa marsh reed,
not even that much
time for us to meet again
on the long passage, is there?
Naniwa was known as a place for lovers to meet. It was a famous poetic place, an "utamakura" or "pillow word," used in a poem for a standard set of cultural notions associated with it.
20. PRINCE MOTOYOSHI (890-943)
It's all exposed now
like a Naniwa tide gauge,
but I'm so desperate,
even though it destroys my life,
I have to see you again.
Some translations--actually, most of the translations I'm familiar with--say "channel marker" rather than "tide gauge." But I chose "tide gauge" because it seemed to better fit the notion of something that could be more or less exposed.
21. MONK SOSEI (died c. 910)
Depending only
on your word that you'd come soon,
I have waited through
fall's night of the longest moon,
still hanging there now at dawn.
The ninth month of the lunar calendar was called The Longest Month because of the increasingly long nights. Toward the end of the month, the moon was still visible in earliest morning.
22. FUN'YA NO YASUHIDE (died c. 885)
As soon as it blows,
autumn leaves begin to wither
and strong branches break--
mountain wind so justly then
means both gale and destroyer.
This poem depends so much on peculiarities of the Japanese language that it is difficult to translate intelligibly without being prosaically discursive. The character for "gale" or "tempest" is a combination of the characters for "mountain" and "wind." And the word it represents sounds almost like the word for "destroy."
23. OE NO CHISATO (active abt. 883-903)
Looking at the moon,
I think of a thousand things--
all melancholy.
Yet autumn, gloomy autumn,
has come not for me alone.
24. SUGAWARA NO MICHIZANE (845-903)
For this iteration
of giving a gift to the gods
to bless a journey,
what plain hemp streamers could match
this hill's brocade of autumn leaves?
In this poem there is a pivot word "tabi," used to mean both "journey" and "occasion."
This accounts for my choice of "iteration," which refers to a journey etymologically.
25. FUJIWARA NO SADAKATA (873-932)
"Vines of entangled sleep,"
with scarlet fruit on Meeting Hill,
if your name is true,
steal away and draw her here,
where we can lie in secret sleep.
"Scarlet" had approximately the same erotic connotation as it does for us. Generally men visited women in their residences, so this poem is a bit odd in having the woman coming to the man.
26. FUJIWARA NO TADAHIRA
Were you sentient,
maples of Mount Ogura,
you would think to hold
your leaves for the royal visit,
though their red be white with snow.
27.
FUJIWARA NO KANESUKE ( 877-933)
The River Izumi
over the plain of Mika
flows from many springs.
So I wonder from which source
my feeling for you has sprung.
"Many Springs River"
surges over Mika Plain,
cutting it in two.
How has longing cleft my heart
from just that one sight of you?
This poem has a great deal of wordplay in Japanese--words doing double duty--that can't be reproduced in English. So I've rendered it as two separate tanka. These two English poems shouldn't be viewed as alternate translations, but as two facets of the same Japanese poem.
28. MINAMOTO NO MUNEYUKI (d. 939)
Winter, and sadness
and increases in the mountains.
Guests in the village
are sparse as the withered gras.
So I muse on loneliness.
A poem counterposed to the ambient notion that autumn was the saddest season.
29. OSHIKOCHI NO MITSUNE (859-925)
Fall, and the first frost
has covered everything.
So should I still try,
in the main just by guessing,
to pick white chrysanthemums?
30. MIBU NO TAKAMINE (fl. c. 900)
Your face was cold as
the waning, indifferent moon
in the dim predawn
when we parted--bitterness
now returns each day with dawn.
31. SAKANOUE NO KORENORI (died 930)
What had been moonlight
over Yoshino Village
toward the end of night
became in the next moment
a white haze of falling snow.
Momentary misperception was a common theme--snow is fallen petals, an unbreaking wave is a crane in the surf.
32. HARUMICHI NO TSURAKI (died 920)
How the wind has built
across the mountain stream,
look, a wicker dam!
Oh...only red maple leaves
that are snagged and can't flow away.
Another instance of momentary misperception.
33. KI NO TOMONORI (845-907)
As ever in spring
the sun spreads its gentle light
over everything.
What but an unquiet heart
could make blossoms fall and scatter?
34. FUJIWARA NO OKIKAZE
All whom I once knew
are gone now at my great age.
At Takasago,
the pines are even older,
but they've never been my friends.
35. KI NO TSURAYUKI (866?-945)
Never knowable,
the changing depths of the heart.
In my old village
the fragrance of plum blossoms
is now and always the same.
In this period, plum blossoms, known for their fragrance, were the flower mentioned most in poetry. Later, cherry blossoms, as symbols of the transitory, become more prevalent in literature.
36. KIYOHARA NO FUKAYABU (active abt. 908-930)
This summer night--
twilight so soon becoming dawn--
has passed so quickly.
Where in the clouds has the moon
ducked into hasty lodging?
The idea here is that the night has been so brief that the moon has not had time to make it to its usual destination.
37. FUN'YA NO ASAYASU (active abt. 892-902)
Glistening white dew,
droplets blown by constant wind
over autumn fields.
Pearls never strung together
scattering everywhere.
Beads on a string were a common metaphor for the ordering of the characteristics and events of one's life. And the breaking of the string and scattering of the beads a metaphor for incoherence and death. This tanka using that metaphor is a favorite of mine:
Should we never meet,
and entwine, threads making cord,
now this way, now that,
upon what line shall I string
all the jewels of my life?
--Sakenoe Korenori (my tr.)
38. UKON
Being forgotten,
I worry, not for myself,
but for you, who swore
on your life to never forget.
For you, I am sore afraid.
There is some debate about the tone of this tanka. I'm going with sarcastic.
39. MINOMOTO NO HITOSHI (880-951)
My hidden passion,
bamboo grass, so well concealed
in a field of reeds.
Why grow love to such excess
that it should not be seen?
40. TAIRA NO KANEMORI (?-990)
Unbidden, my passion
shows in my far-away look.
I'm so distracted
by thoughts of her that my friends
all ask if I'm truly here.
And everybody kept saying, "Earth to Kanemori."
41. MIBU NO TADAMI (active abt. 954-960)
Already by dawn,
rumors of my new passion
are going around.
I barely know what all can see
now that love has colored me.
42. KIYOHARA NO MOTOSUKE (908-990)
Pledging with ourselves,
with tears we wrung from our sleeves,
not ever to part--
not ever until sea waves
crest Sue's Evergreen Mountain?
43. FUJIWARA NO ATSUTADA (906-943)
What I held to be
my deep feeling before
our night together
now seems so shallow next to
this overwhelming passion.
44. FUJIWARA NO ASATADA (910-967)
Readers interpret this tanka in two different ways, so I've done two translations. I think the first is more likely to be correct, although I rather like the second better.
Our assignations,
If they'd just stop completely,
I would not curse her so
bitterly for her coldness
or despise myself so much.
Had we never met,
then I wouldn't have to curse you,
though cold, cold you are.
And I wouldn't hate myself
for a folly not fallen into.
45. FUJIWARA NO KOREMASA (924-972)
No one, no friend,
and certainly not she,
will spare a kind word
for me in my folly,
dying of love, as I must.
46. SONE NO YOSHITADA (active abr, 989)
Crossing Yura Strait,
a boat with its rudder lost,
the binding broken,
on the sea directionless
as love's tortuous course.
47. EGYO HOSHI (active abt. 962-986)
Overgrown with vines,
the long-abandoned villa,
alone, with no one
within to see that autumn
is its only visitor.
About a dilapidated house. Although it was no longer inhabited, poets liked to gather there.
48. MINAMOTO NO SHIGEYUKI (died abt. 1000)
Raging love, the wind
that drives the waves upon the rocks--
heart's blood bursting
on cold and hardened stone
as thoughts of her pulse through me.
38. UKON
Being forgotten,
I worry, not for myself,
but for you, who swore
on your life to never forget.
For you, I am sore afraid.
There is some debate about the tone of this tanka. I'm going with sarcastic.
39. MINOMOTO NO HITOSHI (880-951)
My hidden passion,
bamboo grass, so well concealed
in a field of reeds.
Why grow love to such excess
that it should not be seen?
40. TAIRA NO KANEMORI (?-990)
Unbidden, my passion
shows in my far-away look.
I'm so distracted
by thoughts of her that my friends
all ask if I'm truly here.
And everybody kept saying, "Earth to Kanemori."
41. MIBU NO TADAMI (active abt. 954-960)
Already by dawn,
rumors of my new passion
are going around.
I barely know what all can see
now that love has colored me.
42. KIYOHARA NO MOTOSUKE (908-990)
Pledging with ourselves,
with tears we wrung from our sleeves,
not ever to part--
not ever until sea waves
crest Sue's Evergreen Mountain?
43. FUJIWARA NO ATSUTADA (906-943)
What I held to be
my deep feeling before
our night together
now seems so shallow next to
this overwhelming passion.
44. FUJIWARA NO ASATADA (910-967)
Readers interpret this tanka in two different ways, so I've done two translations. I think the first is more likely to be correct, although I rather like the second better.
Our assignations,
If they'd just stop completely,
I would not curse her so
bitterly for her coldness
or despise myself so much.
Had we never met,
then I wouldn't have to curse you,
though cold, cold you are.
And I wouldn't hate myself
for a folly not fallen into.
45. FUJIWARA NO KOREMASA (924-972)
No one, no friend,
and certainly not she,
will spare a kind word
for me in my folly,
dying of love, as I must.
46. SONE NO YOSHITADA (active abr, 989)
Crossing Yura Strait,
a boat with its rudder lost,
the binding broken,
on the sea directionless
as love's tortuous course.
47. EGYO HOSHI (active abt. 962-986)
Overgrown with vines,
the long-abandoned villa,
alone, with no one
within to see that autumn
is its only visitor.
About a dilapidated house. Although it was no longer inhabited, poets liked to gather there.
48. MINAMOTO NO SHIGEYUKI (died abt. 1000)
Raging love, the wind
that drives the waves upon the rocks--
heart's blood bursting
on cold and hardened stone
as thoughts of her pulse through me.
I confess that the heart theme is my own addition.
49. ONAKATOMI NO YOSHINOBU (921-991)
At the palace gates
the watchmen's fires blaze all night
and during the day
die down to ashes and grief.
My circadian passion.
50. FUJIWARA NO YOSHITAKA (954-974)
Before last night
I would have given my life
for one night with you.
But now I wish for endless life
with endless nights like that.
51. FUJIWARA NO SANEKATA (died 999)
Though it never cures,
it burns like the best moxa
from Mt. Ibuki,
this searing pain that won't stop
because she won't ever care.
Burning a small amount of powdered moxa leaf on the skin was thought to be therapeutic.
FUJIWARA NO MICHINOBU (972-994)
Dawn on the darkness
we shared, waking and sleeping,
sleeping and waking.
How I hate the light of day,
although night will come again.
53. THE MOTHER OF MICHITSUNA (about 937-995)
Sighing sleeplessly,
alone in my desolate room,
the night is so long
and dawn so late in coming--
but no, you can't understand.
54. THE MOTHER OF GIDO SANSHI (died 996)
If in my future
you will find it difficult
to remember me,
then I'd wish that all my life
were just this one day.
55. FUJIWARA NO KINTOU (966-1041)
The ceaseless rushing
sound of the waterfall
stopped, dried up, so long ago.
Still in memory the falls flows on,
the cataract does not close.
Peter MacMillan writes that the repetition of the syllables "na" and "ta" as parts of various words in the original Japanese gives a sense of flow to the poem, which is a chief part of its beauty. That I cannot reproduce. But I did allow myself some wordplay with falls, flows, cataract, and close, as well as with still, sound, and ceaseless. The waterfall described was an actual waterfall, whose source river dried up or perhaps an imitation, waterless waterfall, which still exists today, in the Garden of the Emperor Saga.
56. IZUMI SHIKIBU (976?-1020)
Soon my life will cease.
And from this world into what
may lie beyond, I
wish I could carry the memory
of one last meeting with you.
Written when Izumi was gravely ill. To whom is uncertain.
57. MURASAKI SHIKIBU (abt. 973-1014)
Your visit was brief,
my friend from so long ago.
You came at night
and left with the early-setting moon.
Was it actually you?
Alt: A brief, chance meeting with someone from long ago in that darkest night of the early-setting moon. Was it really you?
Murasaki was the author of The Tale of Genji, often called the world's first novel. The headnote to this piece in Murasaki's collected poems: "I met someone I had known long ago as a child, but the moment was brief and I hardly recognized them. It was the tenth of the tenth month. They left hurriedly as if racing the moon." The significance of the date is that the moon would be visible only early in the night.
58. DAINI NO SANMI (999-1082)
From Arima Hill
the wind blows down on Ina's
field of bamboo grass,
rustling the leaves of memory--
so no, I can't forget you.
59. AKAZOME EMON (956-1041)
Yes, I almost did
just go to bed, but instead
waited up for you
watching the descending moon
until, yes, it disappeared.
60. KOSHIKIBU NO NAISHI (999-1025)
Past Oe mountain
through fields on Ikuru road
to Heaven's Bridge--
Nothing's come from my mother there
nor have I gone so far myself.
When teased by someone that she was unable to write poetry without the help of her mother, the very famous poet, Izumi Shikibu, the author composed this poem on the spot. It is exceedingly artful and filled with puns in Japanese.
61. ISE NO OSUKE (abt. 989-1060)
Cherry trees that once
in ancient Nara opened
their eightfold blossoms
now spread their sweet scent over
this ninefold imperial court.
63. FUJIWARA NO MICHIMASA (992-1059)
Dying of love,
I wish I could in person
explain why I must
give up all my thoughts of you
instead of through this messenger.
64. FUJIWARA NO SADAYORI (995-1045)
As in the predawn light
mists on the Uji River
slowly lift and clear
in the shallows, near, then far,
stakes of fishing nets appear.
65. SAGAMI (998--1061)
Bitterness and grief
make my sleeves always sodden,
rotting their fabric.
But the ruin of my good name
is what I resent the most.
66. ABBOT GYOSON (1055-1135)
Mountain Cherry,
let us console each other
in our grief.
Only your flowers know me,
not friends, not anyone else.
67. SUO NO NAISHI (1037-1109)
On a short spring night,
to drowse and dream awhile,
pillowed on your arm...
how tempting your kind offer,
but it would ruin my name.
The headnote to this poem explains that a number of people had gathered at Nijo-in to spend the night in conversation. The author whispered that she wished she had a pillow. A man just on the other side of the screen separating the men from the women, thrust his arm under the screen and urged her to use it as her pillow. The word used, "temakura," means "arm pillow"--a common term for what one's lover sleeps on. Dreams and the short nights of spring often made their appearance in poems about the brief encounters of young love. The poem is a joke, with the writer feigning concern for her reputation.
68. RETIRED EMPEROR SANJO (976-1017)
If, all unwilling,
I must linger painfully
in this fleeting world,
still I will recall fondly
the bright moon in this deep night.
Written when the emperor was very ill and contemplating abdication.
69. NOIN HOSHI (abt. 988-1050)
Roughly, the storm winds,
I've heard, scatter the red leaves
of Mount Mimuro
onto Tatsuta River
to make there a fine brocade.
70. RYOZEN HOSHI (active abt. 1038-1065)
Feeling desolate,
I get up and leave my hut.
Near, far, all around,
the whole world, it is the same:
the dimming light, the autumn.
71. MINAMOTO NO TSUNENOBU (1016-1097)
Beyond the gate
the evening wind rustles
through the rice field,
arriving then to whistle
in the reeds of my thatched hut.
72. LADY KII (1087-1109)
At Takashi beach
for constancy in changing
the waves are famous.
One more place I dare not go
for fear of wetting my sleeves.
The poet is comparing wading out into treacherous waves to getting involved with an inconstant lover. The wet sleeves in the latter case would be from wiping away tears.
73. OE NO MASAFUSA (1041-1111)
On Takasago,
cherry trees high on the slope
are all blooming now.
May the mists on the foothills
not rise to obscure my view.
74. MINAMOTO NO TOSHIYORI (1055-1129)
I prayed, mild Kannon,
amid raging mountain storms
at Hase Temple,
that you calm her stormy temper,
not make her tempests more fierce.
Kannon is the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, derived from the Buddhist bodhisatva Avalokitesvara,
known in China as Guanyin. Her Temple on Hatsuse Mountain, famous for its stormy weather, was often visited by lovers. The tanka was composed on the set topic "praying in vain to meet a lover." These poems rely very much on wordplay, particularly. In Japanese poetry puns are not the lowest form of humor, but rather are integral to the art. Poems very often contain a "pivot" word, one word used only once, applying in one sense to the part of poem it end and in another sense to the part it begins. When I can, I include wordplay in English appropriate to the subject, but it's almost always not the same wordplay as in the original, that is, the English doesn't parallel the Japanese.
75. FUJIWARA NO MOTOTOSHI (1060-1142)
Your promises were
like dew on parched moxa leaves--
and just as steadfast.
So now another autumn,
another year, is ending.
The Buddhist Novice of Hosshoji had not made good on his promise to honor Mototoshi's request that his son be named lecturer for an autumn Buddhist festival.
76. FUJIWARA NO TADAMICHI (1097-1164)
Out on the sea plain
all around in the distance
what is it I see,
the white of low-hanging clouds
or white waves reaching for sky?
77. RETIRED EMPEROR SUTOKU (1119-1164)
One rushing river
streaming around a boulder.
Cleft in two by stone
it cleaves together again,
flowing on once more as one.
A metaphor for lovers kept apart and hoping to reunite.
78. MINAMOTO NO KANEMASA (1110-1128)
Awaji Island--
back and forth the plovers fly
and with their cries
keep the guards at Suma gate
sleepless night after night.
Officials who were out of favor were often exiled to Awaji Island, which was mentioned in Murasaki Shikibu's novel, The Tale of Genji. There is a contrast between the birds that are free to come and go and the exiles who are confined to the island. The plovers discomfit the guards at the barrier gate, who control which humans can come and go.
"Awaji" sounds almost like "will /can not meet" in Japanese. Some commentators believe this to be a deliberate pun--which would fit with the general theme of the poem and perhaps make it a metaphor for lovers unable to meet. Be that as it may, play with the boundaries of words or syllables is common in serious Japanese poetry. While we might say that puns are the lowest form of humor, to is only a slight exaggeration to say that in Japan puns are the highest form of art. In English, we use puns mainly for comic effect, as in bogus names of signers on student council nominating petitions, like Gaddagedduppandha Singh, Ben Dover, or Mike Easter.
79. FUJIWARA NO AKISUKE (1090-1155)
The autumn winds
spread clouds across the sky
and through the gaps
the bright moon shines so clearly,
making shadows with light.
80. LADY HORIKAWA (active abt. 1142)
How long is true love?
Perhaps his heart itself
knows not the measure.
My feelings and my black hair,
this morning both are tangled.
Tangled hair in the morning was a sure sign of a lover having spent the night.
81. FUJIWARA NO SANESADA (1139-1191)
I heard a cuckoo
and looked in that direction
to see only
the pale dawn moon remaining
where the absent bird had been.
82. DOIN HOSHI (1090-1182)
In my pain and grief,
I live on still, to endure
my continuing fate.
But my tears, less stoic
than I, break down and run.
83. FUJIWARA NO SHUNZEI (1114-1209)
In this world, this age,
there's no happy, righteous path.
But if I retire
deep in the hills, lost in thought,
cries of the stag will find me.
84. FUJIWARA NO KIYOSUKE
My early hard life
seems so happy to me now.
Perhaps if I live
long enough, I can recall
fondly, too, these bitter times.
85. SHUN'E HOSHI (1104-1177)
All through the long night,
with anxiety gradually
giving way to grief...
Heartless shutters block the dawn
light that would end my vigil.
86. SAIGYO HOSHI (1118-1190)
The moon in the night,
does she tell me to lament?
What vision do I see
when I look upon her face?
Why are tears running down mine?
88. LADY BETTO (active abt. 1175-1182)
Because of one night
brief as on a Naniwa reed
the space between nodes,
must I forever wade through
a sea of lapping passion?
89. PRINCESS SHOKUSHI (1149-1201)
Jewels on a string,
thread of life with pearls of my soul,
snap and scatter now!
Living on, I will weaken
and reveal my secret love.
The word "tama," used just once in the original Japanese, can refer to both the soul and to gems/beads/pearls. Compare this tanka with number 37.
90. AN ATTENDANT TO EMPRESS INPU
The women who dive
for clams off Man Island,
look, their sleeves are soaked
over and over again
and don't change color like mine.
Recall that wet sleeves usually mean sleeves wet with tears, almost always related to disappointment in romance. Also, "iro," the word used for "color," can also mean "love." So here, the author is perhaps complaining that she is not yet inured to the vagaries of love.
91. FUJIWARA NO YOSHITSUNE (1169-1206)
In the frosty night,
a cricket chirps somewhere near
the pale straw mat,
lying cold with a folded robe,
where I will sleep alone.
93. MINAMOTO NO SANETOMO (1192-1219)
That it would remain
the same, the world that contains
the small fishing boat
rowing back to shore
and throwing its mooring rope.
94. FUJIWARA NO MASATSUNE (1170-1221)
Here in Yoshino,
the old capital, fall winds
blow down from the hills.
Cold the sound in the deep night,
fullers' mallets on fullers' blocks.
95. FORMER HIGH PRIEST JIEN (1155-1225)
Down from the wooded hill,
though inadequate I am,
I must come and try
to gather in my black robes
those unmoored in the floating world.
What I have translated as "the wooded hill" is a reference to the location of Jien's Tendai Buddhist sect on Mount Hiei above Kyoto. "Floating world" can mean the transitory world in general or, more specifically, the pleasure-seeking urban lifestyle.
96. FUJIWARA NO KINTSUNEN (1171-1244)
Storm-scattered blossoms
may look white as fallen snow.
But what I'm seeing
falter in my back garden
is my own befallen self.
98. FUJIWARA NO IETAKE (1158-1237)
Autumn, in the wind
rustling through the Oak River trees.
Summer, in only
these rites of its last evening,
washing off six months of sin.
49. ONAKATOMI NO YOSHINOBU (921-991)
At the palace gates
the watchmen's fires blaze all night
and during the day
die down to ashes and grief.
My circadian passion.
50. FUJIWARA NO YOSHITAKA (954-974)
Before last night
I would have given my life
for one night with you.
But now I wish for endless life
with endless nights like that.
51. FUJIWARA NO SANEKATA (died 999)
Though it never cures,
it burns like the best moxa
from Mt. Ibuki,
this searing pain that won't stop
because she won't ever care.
Burning a small amount of powdered moxa leaf on the skin was thought to be therapeutic.
FUJIWARA NO MICHINOBU (972-994)
Dawn on the darkness
we shared, waking and sleeping,
sleeping and waking.
How I hate the light of day,
although night will come again.
53. THE MOTHER OF MICHITSUNA (about 937-995)
Sighing sleeplessly,
alone in my desolate room,
the night is so long
and dawn so late in coming--
but no, you can't understand.
54. THE MOTHER OF GIDO SANSHI (died 996)
If in my future
you will find it difficult
to remember me,
then I'd wish that all my life
were just this one day.
55. FUJIWARA NO KINTOU (966-1041)
The ceaseless rushing
sound of the waterfall
stopped, dried up, so long ago.
Still in memory the falls flows on,
the cataract does not close.
Peter MacMillan writes that the repetition of the syllables "na" and "ta" as parts of various words in the original Japanese gives a sense of flow to the poem, which is a chief part of its beauty. That I cannot reproduce. But I did allow myself some wordplay with falls, flows, cataract, and close, as well as with still, sound, and ceaseless. The waterfall described was an actual waterfall, whose source river dried up or perhaps an imitation, waterless waterfall, which still exists today, in the Garden of the Emperor Saga.
56. IZUMI SHIKIBU (976?-1020)
Soon my life will cease.
And from this world into what
may lie beyond, I
wish I could carry the memory
of one last meeting with you.
Written when Izumi was gravely ill. To whom is uncertain.
57. MURASAKI SHIKIBU (abt. 973-1014)
Your visit was brief,
my friend from so long ago.
You came at night
and left with the early-setting moon.
Was it actually you?
Alt: A brief, chance meeting with someone from long ago in that darkest night of the early-setting moon. Was it really you?
Murasaki was the author of The Tale of Genji, often called the world's first novel. The headnote to this piece in Murasaki's collected poems: "I met someone I had known long ago as a child, but the moment was brief and I hardly recognized them. It was the tenth of the tenth month. They left hurriedly as if racing the moon." The significance of the date is that the moon would be visible only early in the night.
58. DAINI NO SANMI (999-1082)
From Arima Hill
the wind blows down on Ina's
field of bamboo grass,
rustling the leaves of memory--
so no, I can't forget you.
59. AKAZOME EMON (956-1041)
Yes, I almost did
just go to bed, but instead
waited up for you
watching the descending moon
until, yes, it disappeared.
60. KOSHIKIBU NO NAISHI (999-1025)
Past Oe mountain
through fields on Ikuru road
to Heaven's Bridge--
Nothing's come from my mother there
nor have I gone so far myself.
When teased by someone that she was unable to write poetry without the help of her mother, the very famous poet, Izumi Shikibu, the author composed this poem on the spot. It is exceedingly artful and filled with puns in Japanese.
61. ISE NO OSUKE (abt. 989-1060)
Cherry trees that once
in ancient Nara opened
their eightfold blossoms
now spread their sweet scent over
this ninefold imperial court.
63. FUJIWARA NO MICHIMASA (992-1059)
Dying of love,
I wish I could in person
explain why I must
give up all my thoughts of you
instead of through this messenger.
64. FUJIWARA NO SADAYORI (995-1045)
As in the predawn light
mists on the Uji River
slowly lift and clear
in the shallows, near, then far,
stakes of fishing nets appear.
65. SAGAMI (998--1061)
Bitterness and grief
make my sleeves always sodden,
rotting their fabric.
But the ruin of my good name
is what I resent the most.
66. ABBOT GYOSON (1055-1135)
Mountain Cherry,
let us console each other
in our grief.
Only your flowers know me,
not friends, not anyone else.
67. SUO NO NAISHI (1037-1109)
On a short spring night,
to drowse and dream awhile,
pillowed on your arm...
how tempting your kind offer,
but it would ruin my name.
The headnote to this poem explains that a number of people had gathered at Nijo-in to spend the night in conversation. The author whispered that she wished she had a pillow. A man just on the other side of the screen separating the men from the women, thrust his arm under the screen and urged her to use it as her pillow. The word used, "temakura," means "arm pillow"--a common term for what one's lover sleeps on. Dreams and the short nights of spring often made their appearance in poems about the brief encounters of young love. The poem is a joke, with the writer feigning concern for her reputation.
68. RETIRED EMPEROR SANJO (976-1017)
If, all unwilling,
I must linger painfully
in this fleeting world,
still I will recall fondly
the bright moon in this deep night.
Written when the emperor was very ill and contemplating abdication.
69. NOIN HOSHI (abt. 988-1050)
Roughly, the storm winds,
I've heard, scatter the red leaves
of Mount Mimuro
onto Tatsuta River
to make there a fine brocade.
70. RYOZEN HOSHI (active abt. 1038-1065)
Feeling desolate,
I get up and leave my hut.
Near, far, all around,
the whole world, it is the same:
the dimming light, the autumn.
71. MINAMOTO NO TSUNENOBU (1016-1097)
Beyond the gate
the evening wind rustles
through the rice field,
arriving then to whistle
in the reeds of my thatched hut.
72. LADY KII (1087-1109)
At Takashi beach
for constancy in changing
the waves are famous.
One more place I dare not go
for fear of wetting my sleeves.
The poet is comparing wading out into treacherous waves to getting involved with an inconstant lover. The wet sleeves in the latter case would be from wiping away tears.
73. OE NO MASAFUSA (1041-1111)
On Takasago,
cherry trees high on the slope
are all blooming now.
May the mists on the foothills
not rise to obscure my view.
74. MINAMOTO NO TOSHIYORI (1055-1129)
I prayed, mild Kannon,
amid raging mountain storms
at Hase Temple,
that you calm her stormy temper,
not make her tempests more fierce.
Kannon is the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, derived from the Buddhist bodhisatva Avalokitesvara,
known in China as Guanyin. Her Temple on Hatsuse Mountain, famous for its stormy weather, was often visited by lovers. The tanka was composed on the set topic "praying in vain to meet a lover." These poems rely very much on wordplay, particularly. In Japanese poetry puns are not the lowest form of humor, but rather are integral to the art. Poems very often contain a "pivot" word, one word used only once, applying in one sense to the part of poem it end and in another sense to the part it begins. When I can, I include wordplay in English appropriate to the subject, but it's almost always not the same wordplay as in the original, that is, the English doesn't parallel the Japanese.
75. FUJIWARA NO MOTOTOSHI (1060-1142)
Your promises were
like dew on parched moxa leaves--
and just as steadfast.
So now another autumn,
another year, is ending.
The Buddhist Novice of Hosshoji had not made good on his promise to honor Mototoshi's request that his son be named lecturer for an autumn Buddhist festival.
76. FUJIWARA NO TADAMICHI (1097-1164)
Out on the sea plain
all around in the distance
what is it I see,
the white of low-hanging clouds
or white waves reaching for sky?
77. RETIRED EMPEROR SUTOKU (1119-1164)
One rushing river
streaming around a boulder.
Cleft in two by stone
it cleaves together again,
flowing on once more as one.
A metaphor for lovers kept apart and hoping to reunite.
78. MINAMOTO NO KANEMASA (1110-1128)
Awaji Island--
back and forth the plovers fly
and with their cries
keep the guards at Suma gate
sleepless night after night.
Officials who were out of favor were often exiled to Awaji Island, which was mentioned in Murasaki Shikibu's novel, The Tale of Genji. There is a contrast between the birds that are free to come and go and the exiles who are confined to the island. The plovers discomfit the guards at the barrier gate, who control which humans can come and go.
"Awaji" sounds almost like "will /can not meet" in Japanese. Some commentators believe this to be a deliberate pun--which would fit with the general theme of the poem and perhaps make it a metaphor for lovers unable to meet. Be that as it may, play with the boundaries of words or syllables is common in serious Japanese poetry. While we might say that puns are the lowest form of humor, to is only a slight exaggeration to say that in Japan puns are the highest form of art. In English, we use puns mainly for comic effect, as in bogus names of signers on student council nominating petitions, like Gaddagedduppandha Singh, Ben Dover, or Mike Easter.
79. FUJIWARA NO AKISUKE (1090-1155)
The autumn winds
spread clouds across the sky
and through the gaps
the bright moon shines so clearly,
making shadows with light.
80. LADY HORIKAWA (active abt. 1142)
How long is true love?
Perhaps his heart itself
knows not the measure.
My feelings and my black hair,
this morning both are tangled.
Tangled hair in the morning was a sure sign of a lover having spent the night.
81. FUJIWARA NO SANESADA (1139-1191)
I heard a cuckoo
and looked in that direction
to see only
the pale dawn moon remaining
where the absent bird had been.
82. DOIN HOSHI (1090-1182)
In my pain and grief,
I live on still, to endure
my continuing fate.
But my tears, less stoic
than I, break down and run.
83. FUJIWARA NO SHUNZEI (1114-1209)
In this world, this age,
there's no happy, righteous path.
But if I retire
deep in the hills, lost in thought,
cries of the stag will find me.
84. FUJIWARA NO KIYOSUKE
My early hard life
seems so happy to me now.
Perhaps if I live
long enough, I can recall
fondly, too, these bitter times.
85. SHUN'E HOSHI (1104-1177)
All through the long night,
with anxiety gradually
giving way to grief...
Heartless shutters block the dawn
light that would end my vigil.
86. SAIGYO HOSHI (1118-1190)
The moon in the night,
does she tell me to lament?
What vision do I see
when I look upon her face?
Why are tears running down mine?
88. LADY BETTO (active abt. 1175-1182)
Because of one night
brief as on a Naniwa reed
the space between nodes,
must I forever wade through
a sea of lapping passion?
89. PRINCESS SHOKUSHI (1149-1201)
Jewels on a string,
thread of life with pearls of my soul,
snap and scatter now!
Living on, I will weaken
and reveal my secret love.
The word "tama," used just once in the original Japanese, can refer to both the soul and to gems/beads/pearls. Compare this tanka with number 37.
90. AN ATTENDANT TO EMPRESS INPU
The women who dive
for clams off Man Island,
look, their sleeves are soaked
over and over again
and don't change color like mine.
Recall that wet sleeves usually mean sleeves wet with tears, almost always related to disappointment in romance. Also, "iro," the word used for "color," can also mean "love." So here, the author is perhaps complaining that she is not yet inured to the vagaries of love.
91. FUJIWARA NO YOSHITSUNE (1169-1206)
In the frosty night,
a cricket chirps somewhere near
the pale straw mat,
lying cold with a folded robe,
where I will sleep alone.
93. MINAMOTO NO SANETOMO (1192-1219)
That it would remain
the same, the world that contains
the small fishing boat
rowing back to shore
and throwing its mooring rope.
94. FUJIWARA NO MASATSUNE (1170-1221)
Here in Yoshino,
the old capital, fall winds
blow down from the hills.
Cold the sound in the deep night,
fullers' mallets on fullers' blocks.
95. FORMER HIGH PRIEST JIEN (1155-1225)
Down from the wooded hill,
though inadequate I am,
I must come and try
to gather in my black robes
those unmoored in the floating world.
What I have translated as "the wooded hill" is a reference to the location of Jien's Tendai Buddhist sect on Mount Hiei above Kyoto. "Floating world" can mean the transitory world in general or, more specifically, the pleasure-seeking urban lifestyle.
96. FUJIWARA NO KINTSUNEN (1171-1244)
Storm-scattered blossoms
may look white as fallen snow.
But what I'm seeing
falter in my back garden
is my own befallen self.
98. FUJIWARA NO IETAKE (1158-1237)
Autumn, in the wind
rustling through the Oak River trees.
Summer, in only
these rites of its last evening,
washing off six months of sin.
Referring to a cleansing ritual performed at the end of summer.
99. RETIRED EMPEROR GOTOBA (1180-1239)
The dear ones I pity.
The hateful ones I curse.
The sense of this age--
its reasons, its moods--escapes me.
I brood on it nonetheless.
100. RETIRED EMPEROR JUNTOKU (1197-1242)
The former palace--
memory ferns grow on the eaves.
Of its ancient days
how much is now forgotten,
though much is fondly recalled?
99. RETIRED EMPEROR GOTOBA (1180-1239)
The dear ones I pity.
The hateful ones I curse.
The sense of this age--
its reasons, its moods--escapes me.
I brood on it nonetheless.
100. RETIRED EMPEROR JUNTOKU (1197-1242)
The former palace--
memory ferns grow on the eaves.
Of its ancient days
how much is now forgotten,
though much is fondly recalled?
