Kokinshu #272

A poem attached to a chrysanthemum flower planted in a suhama for a chrysanthemum contest during the same reign; written on a depiction of chrysanthemums planted in Fukiage Beach.

    White chrysanthemums
standing in Fukiage
    where autumn winds blow --
they are flowers, are they not? --
might they be approaching waves?

—25 June 2012

Original by Sugawara no Michizane (845–903). Born to an academic family, Michizane was not only a leading Chinese scholar of his generation but with Emperor Uda's patronage rose to Minister of the Right based on his abilities and his not being a Fujiwara. After Uda's abdication, political opponents lead by Tokihira (see #230) had Michizane demoted on trumped-up charges in 901, and he died in an obscure provincial posting. After a series of calamities were attributed to his vengeful spirit, including the deaths of Tokihira and Sugane (see #212), in propitiation he was deified as Tenjin, initially a storm-god but now a patron of scholars, especially of students taking exams. He has two poems in the Kokinshu. ¶ Uda held this contest around 891. A suhama is a tray with an elaborate model landscape used collect the entries, be they flowers or poems or whatnot, in these sorts of contests. Apparently this particular one was a model of Fukiage Beach, near modern Wakayama City, whose name is used as a pivot-word on fuki = "blowing." The effect of three question-marking particles in the last two lines is a startled hesitance (much like in #159) rather than the either-or alternatives probably intended. For the reverse comparison of whitecaps to flowers, see #250.


akikaze no
fukiage ni tateru
shiragiku wa
hana ka aranu ka
nami no yosuru ka

---L.