Hyakunin Isshu #8

[lnhammer]

    Thus, yes, do I live
southeast of the capital
    in my hermitage,
yet I hear they call Uji
"hill of those in misery".

—3 May 2010

Original by Kisen, an early 9th century monk. Tatsumi is literally dragon-snake -- the Chinese zodiac, it is everywhere, even the names of cardinal directions. Mt. Uji near Kyoto is now called Mt. Kisen after the poet. Whether he agrees with people calling it miserable (ushi, in a pivot word pun) is a long-running debate, but that final wa looks contrastive to me. But then, maybe he intended it to be Buddhistly ambiguous -- and in the Kokinshu preface, Tsurayuki does describe the connection between the poem's beginning and end as "indistinct." The possibility of reading shika ("thus") as a pivot word also meaning "deer" is also debated.


waga io wa
miyako no tatsumi
shika zo sumu
yo o ujiyama to
hito wa iu nari

---L.