Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

Written when seeing off Ôe no Chifuru when he traveled to Koshi.

    Although I don't know
this White Mountain in Koshi
    where you are going,
I'll go follow your tracks in
the snow wherever they lead.

—14 May 2013

Original by Fujiwara no Kanesuke. Kanesuke (877–933), a younger brother of Kanemochi (see #385) and son-in-law of Sadakata (see #231), was a middling courtier, a patron of other poets (including Tsurayuki), and great-grandfather of Murasaki Shikibu (author of The Tale of Genji). He has 4 poems attributed to him in the Kokinshu, but see also #35. ¶ Ôe no Chifuru (?–923) was a younger brother of Chisato (see #14) and tutor of Emperor Daigo while still a young prince. Pivot-word: yuki = "go and"/"snow," and here (in contrast to #383) both senses are needed to make sense of things. There's also a sort of "uncollapsed" pivot-word: the sound echo of shirayama, "White Mountain," and shiranedomo, "although not know." The sentiment may have a bit of hyperbole, perhaps, but in a fitting way for a sensitive aristocrat, and the sound-play is appealing.


kimi ga yuku
koshi no shirayama
shiranedomo
yuki no manimani
ato wa tazunemu

---L.

Written when Sane said, "Now return home from here."

    Because I have gone
out of my mind with yearning
    to come along with you,
I can't even comprehend
which road is the way for home.

—10 May 2013

Original by Fujiwara no Kanemochi. Apparently a direct reply to the previous. Most of the time, I translate kokoro as "heart" as that usually encompasses the most relevant senses of the original, but the conceit here hinges on a sense involving awareness or intelligence. To convey this, my rendering is more free than usual -- more literally it's, "Because my yearning-and-has-come spirit/heart is with you, I don't know even the road that's the return way." Either way, not the best of poems, though the echo of kinishi/mi ni shi is a neat touch.


shitawarete
kinishi kokoro no
mi ni shi areba
kaeru sama ni wa
michi mo shirarezu

---L.

Written while seeing off Minamoto no Sane at Yamazaki when he was traveling to Tsukushi to bathe in the hot springs.

    If only our lives
somehow corresponded to
    our hearts' desires,
would separation still be
something so agonizing?

— 2 May 2013

Original by Shirome. In Tales of Yamato, this is ascribed to a ukareme or female entertainer named Shiro who wrote another poem for Emperor Uda. Nothing more is known of Shiro(me) other than that this must have been written before Minamoto no Sane's death in 900, and this is the only poem ascribed to her in the Kokinshu. ¶ For Sane, see the next poem. Tsukushi was a province corresponding to modern Fukuoka Prefecture but could also refer to Kyushu as a whole, and Yamazaki on the Yodo/Uji River (it's a waterway that changes name frequently), downstream from the capital at the border of modern Kyoto and Osaka prefectures, was the embarkation point for travelers to the western provinces. That Shirome was an entertainer rather than a court lady may explain why she could travel that far with Sane. (As a side-note, being an ukareme does not necessarily mean being of a commoner -- Tales of Yamato mentions one who was a younger daughter of a middling courtier -- but it does imply some freedom of behavior, and the role, later called asobi, came to imply a sexual component. So it has too often gone for freer women.) As for the poem itself: whose life, whether hers, his, or both, is ambiguous -- hers is the traditional reading, reasonably enough given the Lonely Lady trope, but the arduousness of the journey to Kyushu suggests the hot-springs are intended as a cure for serious health issues, making his also a topic of concern.


inochi dani
kokoro ni kanau
mono naraba
nani ka wakare no
kanashikaramashi

---L.

Written at a drinking party held by high court officials for Fujiwara no Nochikage, who was leaving at the end of the Ninth Month to become inspector of Chinese goods.

    Stay here, you cricket,
and cry together with us --
    for isn't it true
this autumn's departure is
something to be regretted?

—28 April 2013

Original by Fujiwara no Kanemochi. His birth date is unknown, but given his younger brother Kanesuke (see #391) was born in 877 and his own career as a middling courtier starting in 897, it was probably around 870. He died in 923 and has two poems in the Kokinshu. ¶ Nochikage is the author of #108, and he, Kanemochi, and the father of Motonori, the author of the next poem, all received their first official appointments, as imperial archivists, shortly after Daigo's enthronement in 897. The inspector of imports from the mainland was a Kyushu duty station (and here I was wondering about Kyushu just a few poems ago); the appointment is not otherwise recorded but was probably a few years after 900. For the kirigirisu, see #196 -- and again we get the naku/sing/cry pun. Grammatical ambiguity with a significance pointed up by the headnote: the departure could be "in autumn" or "of autumn," the latter (at the end of the Ninth Month) being what the cricket traditionally cries for.

(I should probably explicitly say that I've been calling aristocrats who reach the 4th or 5th rank "middling courtiers." In the terms of the time, those are the lowest of the high court officials -- with access to the court and so actual courtiers but not movers-and-shakers. I call 3rd rank and up, being ministers and the like, "high-level officials," while 6th rank on down are "lower-level bureaucrat." By way of calibration, a provincial governor is a 4th-rank office.)


morotomo ni
nakite todomeyo
kirigirisu
aki no wakare wa
oshiku ya wa aranu

---L.

Written and sent to someone who traveled to Koshi.

    I shall continue,
it seems, longing for you
    only from afar
-- I who cannot even go
see the snows of White Mountain.

—28 April 2013

(Original by Ôshikôchi no Mitsune.) White Mountain in Koshi, here called Shirayama, is modern Hakusan (same meaning only in Chinese) on the border of Gifu, Fukui, and Ishikawa Prefectures. It will also reappear in later poems. Possible pivot-word: yuki can be "going" and "snow," but you can get an understandable if less idiomatic statement if you just read "snow" (and many texts write it with the kanji for snow). Possibly irrelevant detail: the original second line (the first two of the translation) is the same as the last line of #180 (equivalent to l.4 of the translation).


yoso ni nomi
koi ya wataramu
shirayama no
yuki mirubeku mo
aranu waga mi wa

---L.

Written when parting from someone.

    This thing called "parting"
doesn't even have color,
    so how can it be
it penetrates the heart
and dyes it sorrowful?

—7 April 2013

(Original by Ki no Tsurayuki.) A deceptively simple poem from Tsurayuki. "Penetrate" and "dye" double-translates shimu, done largely to bring out the point of the color. (Or so my notes from the time said -- to be honest, I haven't looked at this since. But it's time to get back into the swing of things.)


wakare chô
koto wa iro ni mo
aranaku ni
kokoro ni shimite
wabishikaruramu

---L.

Written when a friend traveled to the eastern provinces.

    Your departure now
for hither and thither
    among the white clouds
is a journey that, ah!, shreds
my heart into prayer strips.

—7 April 2013

Original by Yoshimine no Hideoka. His parentage (though presumably he's somehow related to Henjô and Sosei) and dates are unknown, but he appears in court records during the last two decades of the 800s as a middling courtier. He has this one poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ For nusa prayer strips, see #298. Here's another example of what's in effect an adverbial stock epithet: shirakumo no, "of/among the white clouds," modifying tachi-, the "de-" of "depart" but meaning "rise" when alone. Omitted-but-understood verb: "is." The conceit is a little odd, but the poem's sound is not bad and I'm kinda charmed by it.


shirakumo no
konata kanata ni
tachiwakare
kokoro o nusa to
kudaku tabi ka na

---L.

When Ki no Munesada went to the eastern provinces, he spent the night at someone's house, and as he was making his farewells before dawn had broken, a woman wrote and sent this out.

    We don't know for sure --
now let's put it to the test:
    As long as we live,
will it be I who forgets?
will that person not visit?

—4 April 2013

Original author unnamed. Whom Munesada spent the night with (a male friend? the poet? another woman?) and the poet's relationship with him (wife? lover? would-be lover?) are all ambiguous, as is whether the woman "sent out" or "held out" the poem. There's no consensus I can see among commentaries on these questions, though some note that because of directional prohibitions, it was not uncommon to start a journey by staying overnight at a nearby house that's in a different direction from one's destination. While it's clear the poet is being snarky, it'd be nice to know just HOW snarky (vicious? arch? exaggeratedly for effect?) and how justified she is, as that'd help fill in some of the lacunae in this "reasoning style" poem, such as whose life is being staked. Best guesses, and all that.


e zo shiranu
ima kokoromiyo
inochi araba
ware ya wasururu
hito ya towanu to

---L.

Topic unknown.

    I'll not hear of it,
the day you start, cutting us
    like a Chinese robe
-- for, left behind like morning dew,
I must vanish when you go.

A certain man, having been named to an official post, took a new wife and abandoned the one he'd lived with for years. When he said to her merely, "I start tomorrow," she said nothing but wrote and sent him this poem.

—14-17 March 2013.

Original author unknown. Time for a short break from male friendships with three partings by lovers, all written in contemporary, Chinese-influenced styles in marked contrast to the older, plain manner of of #366-368. That the editors give the story as a footnote rather than headnote suggests they did not entirely trust it, even without hedging it with "some people say." Two pivot-words here, both used to attach decorative phrases that essentially act as adverbial stock epithets: tatsu is "cut" for the Chinese robe and "start/depart," and oku is "settle" for the morning dew and "leave (behind)." All this plus that "dew" and "vanish" are imagisticly related words makes this a technically elaborate piece. (I'm less satisfied than usual with my rendering here, but it's time to move on and come back later.)


karakoromo
tatsu hi wa kikaji
asatsuyu no
okite shi yukeba
kenubeki mono o

kono uta wa, aru hito, tsukasa o tamawarite atarashiki me ni tsukite, toshi ete sumikeru hito o sutete, tada asunamu tatsu to bakari ierikeru toki ni, to mo kau mo iwade yomite tsukawashikeru

Written and sent to someone who'd gone to the eastern provinces.

    Although I long to
I cannot split my body --
    so I shall send you
as a companion a heart
that can't be seen with the eye.

—14 March 2013

Original by Ikago no Atsuyuki, who is otherwise unknown aside from this one poem in the Kokinshu. ¶ The recipient had gone to Azuma, a general name for the eastern half of Honshu, everything from what's now the Tokyo metro area on north. What is longed for is unstated -- the traditional interpretation is "to go with you," but this reading feels more natural to me. The original plays on the homophone mi meaning both "body/self" and "eye" -- similar to the soundplay of "I" / "eye," though I don't see a way to bring that out as pointedly. Not bad, but the conceit was more charming in #368, when a mother sent her heart.


omoedomo
mi o shi wakeneba
mi ni mienu
kokoro o kimi ni
taguete zo yaru

---L.