Kokinshu Book IIb: Spring 2 (101-134)

[larryhammer]

Continued from previous scroll.

101. Fujiwara no Okikaze A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the Kanpyô era.
saku hana wa chigusa nagara ni ada naredo tare ka wa haru o urami-hatetaru	Blooming flowers are, even in their variety,     only transient, and yet who among us can hold a grudge against springtime?
Okikaze's dates are unknown, but he appears in records in the 890s and the first two decades of the 900s. He was better known in his day as a musician than poet, and has 17 poems in the Kokinshu. The slightly clumsy translation reflects the effect of having both "although" and "but" clauses.
102. (Fujiwara no Okikaze) (from the same contest)
harugasumi iro no chigusa ni mietsuru wa tanabiku yama no hana no kage kamo	If the springtime mist appears variegated,     isn't that because it reflects the flowers on the mountain it trails across?
Chigusa is literally "thousand plants" but frequently understood idiomatically (as in #101) as "various" -- and here the clash between idiom and literal context results in a flat tautology rather than clever wordplay. While "variegated" is strictly speaking not a vegetative word, it comes close to reproducing the double-meaning (if only in my own head). Per usual, the spring mist is grammatically unmarked; understanding it as direct address would make it feel a bit too preciously accusatory -- and I might have gone for that based on the tone-deafness of the initial wordplay if the final couplet wasn't actually kinda lovely.
103. Ariwara no Motokata (from the same contest)
kasumi tatsu haru no yama-be wa tôkeredo fuki-kuru kaze wa hana no ka zo suru	Although the mountains where the spring mists are rising     are distant, the winds that come blowing do indeed bring the scent of the flowers.
Note the sudden regression to early spring. It is possible to read tatsu as a pivot-word (meaning "rise" for the mists and "start" for spring), but not much meaning is gained by doing so. All in all, a rather pedestrian poem.
104. Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written on seeing flowers fading.
hana mireba kokoro sae ni zo utsurikeri iro ni wa ideji hito mo koso shire	Whenever I see the flowers, my heart as well     fades along with them. I won't display these changes -- even that person won't know.
In the original what he won't put forth is iro, here meaning both the flower's "color" and his own "appearance"/"feeling." While "changes" is not literal, it avoids collapsing the ambiguity. Why he's doing this is a puzzler, one compounded by not knowing whether to read hito as "person" or "people": if the former, he seems to be keeping a lover from imitating the flowers by altering her affections, even though his have already changed; if the latter, then he seems to be affecting a stoicism unbecoming in a Heian courtier. The repeated emphatic particles in the last line makes me inclined to singular -- "especially not even that person" -- but it's not a strong conviction. Despite the puzzle, I like this poem a lot for its layered meanings.
105. Author unknown Topic unknown.
uguisu no naku nobe-goto ni kite mireba utsurou hana ni kaze zo fukikeru	When I come and see each of the meadows where     the bush warbler cries, the winds are indeed blowing among the fading flowers.
Poor bush warblers -- can't get a poetic break. Naku would normally be "sing," but given that this is the first of a series where the bird supposedly laments the passing season and that it's written phonetically, a pun on the homophone meaning "weep" is strongly suggested -- thus "cries." As in #51, mireba can mean "because (I) see" as well as "when (I) see." Also ambiguous is whether the crying is cause or result of the fading.
106. (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
fuku kaze o nakite uramiyo uguisu wa ware ya wa hana ni te dani furetaru	Listen, bush warbler -- call out your reproaches     at the blowing wind. Has my hand even so much as brushed against these flowers?
Feel free to replace "listen" with an attention-getting exclamation appropriate for your local dialect. And may I just say that I like how in classical Japanese the question marker can go after what's being questioned instead of only at the end -- here the "I" of part of "my" is marked as a rhetorical question. My translations obscure that this begins with the blowing winds that ended the previous poem.
107. Haruzumi no Amaneiko (Topic unknown.)
chiru hana no naku ni shi tomaru mono naraba ware uguisu ni otoramashi ya wa	If it were crying that stopped the flowers from     scattering away, would I be doing it any less than the bush warbler?
Amaneiko's dates are unknown, but her father died in 870 and she appears in court records as an imperial attendant between 877 and 902 -- contemporaneous with Fujiwara no Yoruka (#80) and Fujiwara no Naoiko (#807). This is her only poem in the Kokinshu. Again, naku is "weep" for a human and "sing" for a bird -- this "cry" pun gets old quickly. Exactly what the speaker would be inferior at is unstated -- it could well be the quality, instead of quantity, of her crying. It's possible to read the last clause as asking whether the warbler could succeed at what the speaker failed to do, but that requires turning awkwardly the comparative around.
108. Fujiwara no Nochikage Written when a poetry contest was held at the house of the Middle Captain's Lady of the Bedchamber in the Ninna era.
hana no chiru koto ya wabishiki harugasumi tatsuta no yama no uguisu no koe	Is it the flowers scattering that's heart-breaking?     On Mount Tatsuta the voice of the bush warbler where the springtime haze rises ...
Nochikage's dates are unknown, but the contest (recorded only in the Kokinshu) was held some time 885-889 and he appears in court records from the 890s to 919, when he was appointed a provisional provincial governor. This is his only poem in the Kokinshu, but #385-386 were composed for a party in his honor. Lady of the Bedchamber was a title given to concubines who bear the emperor a child; the Middle Captain is apparently a male relative being used as a disambiguator. Mt. Tatsuta (typically an autumn symbol for its famous leaf colors) is in Nara Prefecture, and the tatsu part is a pivot-word meaning "rise" for the haze. Similar to #105, it's ambiguous whether the heart-break is cause or result of the warbler's voice.
109. Sosei Written on the bush warbler singing.
kozutaeba ono ga hakaze ni chiru hana o tare ni oosete kokora nakuramu	Flowers scattering in the wind of his own wings     flitting branch to branch: who is he trying to blame with his crying out so much?
If it didn't introduce my own metaphor, one that distracts from the wing-wind, I might have used "crying up a storm" in the last line.
110. Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written on a bush warbler singing in a flowering tree.
shirushi naki ne o mo naku kana uguisu no kotoshi nomi chiru hana naranaku ni	It's raising its cries without, ah, any effect,     that bush warbler -- although it's not just this year that the flowers have scattered.
The funky syntax is to mimic the inverted sentence order of the original.
111. Author unknown Topic unknown.
koma namete iza mi ni yukamu furusato wa yuki to nomi koso hana wa chirurame	Our steeds are lined up, so come now, let's go and see --     in the old village, flowers must be scattering like nothing so much as snow.
I have to admit, I find the image of horsemen in period costumes cantering through a cinematic whirl of cherry petals rather romantic -- for here's a case where the generic flowers are pretty clearly sakura again. Given cherries, there's a good chance the "old village" is pointing at the former Nara capital, though the mountain cherries it's noted for are quite a bit pinker than snow. Although koma, now an old-fashioned synonym for uma ("horse"), seems to have been at the time in the standard rather than elevated register, I still render it as "steed" for the romantic effect.
112. (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
chiru hana o nani ka uramimu yo (no) naka ni waga mi mo tomo ni aramu mono ka wa	Why should I resent the scattering flowers?     Isn't my body also something that, like them, decays in this world of ours?
This one's a bit obscure -- literally, the speaker's body is "also something that exists together with (the flowers)." Clearly there's something omitted-but-understood going on, but what? That the body "decays" is my guess; another possibility is that the second sentence has an implied start along the lines of "Even if they didn't ... " leading to a reading of " ... it's not like my body would (continue) existing like them." Only phrased as a rhetorical question (which is explicitly marked with ka wa).
113. Ono no Komachi (Topic unknown.)
hana no iro wa utsurinikeri na itazura ni waga mi yo ni furu nagame seshi ma ni	This flower's beauty has faded away it seems     to no avail have I spent my time staring into space at the long rains
We know remarkably little about Komachi despite a large body of medieval legends concerning her numerous love affairs and a name that became an idiom for a beautiful woman. Her dates and parentage are unknown, though members of the Ono clan held several apparently hereditary ritual offices; based on headnotes in the Kokinshu and Gosenshu anthologies, she was active in the 850s and possibly in the decades on either side. She is another of the Six Poetic Geniuses, with 18 poems in the Kokinshu. This is one of the most famous poems of classical Japanese -- not only beautiful but technically astonishing, with nearly every noun and verb being used with at least two operative senses (even the adverbial middle line has a double-meaning, as it can apply to either the clause before or after it). The implied context is waiting for a lover who hasn't visited, but placed here we are invited to read it as simply a nature poem. Sequence-wise, it seems a little out of place, as the long rainy season doesn't come until summer, but it does continue (more fruitfully) the imagery of the previous poem.
114. Sosei Written when a poetry contest was held at the house of the Middle Captain's Lady of the Bedchamber in the Ninna era.
oshi to omou kokoro wa ito ni yorarenamu chiru hana-goto ni nukite todomemu	Were my heart that thinks "it is so lamentable"     twisted into thread, I'd overtake and keep in place every scattering flower.
The bit about keeping them is obscure but seems to be pointing at tying petals to the branch, though it could also indicate somehow convincing them with all his heart to not scatter. Like I said, obscure.
115. Ki no Tsurayuki Written and sent to several women met while crossing Shiga Mountain.
azusayumi haru no yama-be o koekureba michi mo sariaezu hana zo chirikeru	When I crossed over (drawing my catalpa bow)     the mountains of spring, I could not keep to the road -- the flowers are scattering.
The road from Kyoto to Sôfuku Temple, a frequent pilgrimage site on Lake Biwa to the northeast, passed over Shiga Mountain. Tsurayuki is, of course, playing the gallant here, implying that it's not just the fluttering flower-petals that distract him, but the flower-women as well. And with his gallantry, we get the wit of a pivot-word: haru = "to bend" (the bow) / "spring" -- which is the only reason for the presence of the otherwise irrelevant, if graceful, bow.
116. (Ki no Tsurayuki) A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the Kanpyô era.
haru no no ni wakana tsumamu to koshi mono o chirikau hana ni michi wa madoinu	I once came to pluck the young greens in the spring fields,     yet now my way is confused by the flowers mingling and scattering.
Picking young greens is done in early spring, starting some 90 poems ago, while flowers scattering is a late spring event, giving a neat timeslip comparible to #2.
117. (Ki no Tsurayuki) Written while making a pilgrimage to a mountain temple.
yadori shite haru no yama-be ni nutaru yo wa yume no uchi ni mo hana zo chirikeru	I found lodgings here, and the night I spent sleeping     in these spring mountains, even inside my dreams the flowers were scattering.
Another slippage, of state rather than time.
118. (Ki no Tsurayuki) A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the Kanpyô era.
fuku kaze to tani no mizu to shi nakariseba miyama-gakure no hana o mimashi ya	Both the blowing winds and waters of the valleys --     were it not for these, would we ever see the flowers hidden in the deep mountains?
And now slippage of place. That the waters are flowing is omitted-but-understood: wind blows the petals off to be washed downstream into view. I'd like this more if that were a touch more explicit, though in Japanese esthetics, leaving it implicit gives the poem more "depth."
119. Henjô Written and sent to some ladies returning from Shiga who had entered Kazan to stop underneath the wisteria blossoms.
yoso ni mite kaeramu hito ni fuji no hana hai-matsuware yo eda wa oru tomo	Those who'd just look at distant things and then go home --     creep and entwine them, O wisteria blossoms, even if your branches break.
From generic spring flowers, we move to two specific late-spring blossoms, starting with wisteria. Wisteria blossoms, fuji no hana, is another thing that exactly fills a 5-syllable line and so is unmarked -- though here an imperative verb makes clear it's being directly addressed. Shiga probably points at Sôfuku Temple (see #115) and Kazan is better known as Gangyô Temple, Henjô's primary residence in northeastern Kyoto, noted at the time for its wisteria. Yoso ni, describing the manner of looking, is most readily understood as "elsewhere" but can also mean "apathetically" -- making what on the surface is a bit of harmless gallantry ("keep those lovely ladies here!") look like a covert dig at bored or mindless tourists. I've tried to suggest this double-meaning.
120. Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written on seeing someone stop to look at the wisteria flowers blooming at his house.
waga yado ni sakeru fujinami tachi-kaeri sugigateni nomi hito no miruramu	Rising, returning: -- the wave of wisteria     blooming by my house -- the person who can't pass on but must, it seems, look again.
The motions of the flowers billowing in the wind and someone turning around to look again are described with the same verb compound verb, tachi-kaeri, the tachi part of which can mean both "rising (up)" or "starting (out)." Balancing the two images around that middle line is the sort of technical virtuosity I associate with Tsurayuki more than Mitsune, but the latter could apparently make words dance to his beat, if not always their sounds to his tune. I moved this fulcrum to the front for the clarity of a colon.
121. Author unknown Topic unknown.
ima mo ka mo saki-niouramu tachibana no kojima no saki no yamabuki no hana	It's now, isn't it, that they'll be blossoming forth     in all their glory: the kerria on the headland of Tachibana Island ...
On to the other canonical flower of late spring. I'm a little dubious about rendering yamabuki as "kerria," as the name is from the Irishman who introduced it to the West, but the word does have a more pleasing sound-shape than the other possible translation, wild yellow rose. Yamabuki no hana ("kerria flowers") is another noun phrase that exactly fills a line -- this time a 7-syllable one, which means it cannot be grammatically marked in poetry. In this case, it's the head of a long noun phrase that would, were the sentence in standard order, be the subject of "bloom." Tachibana Island, usually identified as the one in Uji River southeast of Kyoto (near Byôdô Temple), is named after a native species of mandarin orange cultivated for its scent, giving us two flowers for the price of one, though the citrus won't bloom until summer.
122. (Author unknown) (Topic unknown).
harusame ni nioeru iro mo akanaku ni ka sae natsukashi yamabuki no hana	Though there's no tiring of their glorious color     in the springtime rains, even the scent is lovely: the blossoming kerria.
The unmarked flowers could also be an address, but, just -- no. Too silly. The phrasing implies that the rains brings out the color.
123. (Author unknown) (Topic unknown).
yamabuki wa ayana na saki so hana mimu to uekemu kimi ga koyoi konaku ni	O kerria, no, there's no reason to -- don't bloom --     for indeed the one who planted you won't come here tonight to see the flowers.
A slightly more natural reading would be that it's the planting that was done to see flowers, but taking it as the coming brings out more clearly that the woman identifies herself as another flower.
124. Ki no Tsurayuki Written on kerria blooming on the bank of Yoshino River.
yoshinogawa kishi no yamabuki fuku kaze ni soko no kage sae utsuroinikeri	In the deep waters even reflections scatter     in the blowing wind: the kerria on the banks of Yoshino River.
The point apparently being that a flower's reflection broken up by a breeze ruffling the water looks a lot like its petals blown off by the wind. It can also be read as saying that the bright flowers make their shadows on the river bottom seem pale in comparison, but that isn't as striking an image. An even easier reading is that the flower petals' reflections are, like the real ones, getting blown off by the wind, but that's an awfully slight conceit for Tsurayuki. Compare and/or contrast with #44, which is a lot less ambiguous.
125. Author unknown Topic unknown.
kawazu naku ide no yamabuki chirinikeri hana no sakuri ni awamashi mono o sono uta wa, aru hito no iwaku, tachibana no kiyotomo ga uta nari	The kerria, ah, has scattered in Ide where     the river frogs cry. If only I'd come to see the flowers in their full bloom ... Some say this poem is by Tachibana no Kiyotomo.
Kiyotomo (758-789) was father of Kachiko, the empress of Emperor Saga, but otherwise an obscure member of the at-the-time-powerful Tachibana clan. Ide is a town north of the Nara capital (now in southern Kyoto Prefecture) where the clan had an estate. At the time, kawazu meant specifically what's now called kajika, a river frog noted for its attractive voice in the late spring and summer.
126. Sosei Written as a spring poem.
omoudochi haru no yama-be ni uchimurete soko to mo iwanu tabine shite shika	Flocking with a few close friends to the springtime hills,     staying overnight wherever we decide to -- if only I could do that!
Compare to #95. The original reads as a straightforward descriptive statement until you reach the final shika, a strongly desiderative particle. In standard English word order, the statement of desire goes at the beginning ("If only I could ... "). I ended up reproducing the suspensive effect, but deciding it is more important to convey the smooth syntax of Sosei's "direct style" would also be a valid choice.
127. Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written on spring passing swiftly.
azusayumi haru tachishi yori toshi tsuki no iru ga gotoku mo omouyuru kana	Since springtime started like a bent catalpa bow     -- ah, the shooting by of the months and years has seemed to be just like an arrow's.
On to poems about the end of spring. According to Mitsune's collected poetry, this was written for a screen painting on the theme of the Twelfth Month; placing it here emphasizes the passing spring rather than the passing year -- and invites reading a plural "years" instead of that single year. The poem starts with the same prefatory bow + pivot on haru = "to bend" / "spring" as #115, here better integrated by setting up the arrow imagery. The comparison is explicit but to what is not, making the arrow another omitted-but-understood thing.
128. Ki no Tsurayuki Written in the Third Month on having not heard the bush warbler's voice for a long time.
naki-tomuru hana shi nakereba uguisu mo hate wa monouku narinuberanari	Because the flowers he tried to detain with song     now are no more, even the bush warbler must have at last become listless.
The lunisolar Third Month, roughly early-April to early-May, was the last month of spring.
129. Kiyowara no Fukayabu Written on flowers floating down a stream while crossing the mountains near the end of the Third Month.
hana chireru mizu no manimani tomekureba yama ni wa haru mo nakunarinikeri	When I come follow hither and yon the waters     with scattered flowers, I see that in the mountains spring has also passed away.
Fukayabu's dates are unknown but he appears in court records through the first three decades of the 10th century; he has 17 poems in the Kokinshu. Note the contrast, pointed up by their balanced placement, of water and mountain.
130. Ariwara no Motokata Written on lamenting spring.
oshimedomo todomaranaku ni harugasumi kaeru michi ni shi tachinu to omoeba	For all I lament, it isn't remaining here --     and so it appears the spring mist has, yes, started up the road returning home.
Tatsu, literally "stand up" but also several extended senses, is usually used to describe the "rising" or "appearing" of the spring mist -- here, and this seems to be the entire point, it's used as the "starting out" part of its return to wherever it came from. Without any way to reproduce the weakness of that wordplay, this actually reads a little better in translation. So far Motokata's batting 0 for 3 with his poems. (See #120 for a tastu play done well.)
131. Fujiwara no Okikaze A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the Kanpyô era.
koe taezu nake ya uguisu hitotose ni futatabi to dani kubeki haru ka wa	Sing, O bush warbler, with a voice that doesn't cease!     -- for is spring something that comes around even twice within a single year?
In case you're unclear on the answer, the rhetorical question is indeed marked as expecting a negative answer.
132. Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written on seeing women returning from picking flowers on the last day of the Third Month.
todomubeki mono to wa nashi ni hakanaku mo chiru hana-goto ni taguu kokoro ka	There's nothing, surely, that can detain them, and yet,     such futility! -- how this heart's drawn to each and every scattering flower.
The flowers as symbols for the women cuts two ways: on the one hand, he's flirting with them -- on the other, it's a reminder that they, like the flowers, will one day fade. Impressive density for improvised social verse. The flowers, for what it's worth, were likely for a Buddhist ceremony.
133. Ariwara no Narihira On the last day of the Third Month, as it was raining he picked wisteria flowers and sent them [to someone].
nuretsutsu zo shiite oritsuru toshi no uchi ni haru wa ikuka mo araji to omoeba	Though thoroughly drenched I was determined to pick them,     for I was aware that within this year there are but a few days left of spring.
This also appears in Tales of Ise chapter 80, in a context that makes it a desperate plea instead of what seems here the sharing of an esthetic experience (one that, as #132, implies awareness that we're all as impermanent as the flowers). Some scholars speculate that Narihira may have been riffing on a couplet by Po Chü-i/Bai Juyi, who was just starting to come into vogue in Japan. My version does not bring out the inverted sentence order, nor the general lightness of his shifting through layers of conditionality. All too often with Narihira, even when I do manage to reflect his surface meaning, it feels more than most poets' work like an inadequate shadow of the original. Not all of Tsurayuki's comments in his Kokinshi preface seem just, but his claim that Narihira tries to encompass too much feeling in too few words feels spot-on.
134. Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written during the poetry contest in the Teiji Palace.
kyô nomi to haru o omowanu toki dani mo tatsu koto yasuki hana no kage ka wa	Yet even when we aren't aware there's only     today left of spring, is it easy, departing the shadows of the flowers?
The effect of the odd syntax of the last two lines is difficult to reproduce: only one of the two attributive verbal forms is given something to modify (a nominalizer, turning it into a gerund), and the shade he's leaving is displaced from normal sentence order to the end. "Left" is interpolation for clarity.

And that really is the last of spring. Book 3 covers all of summer, which season is apparently all about the cuckoo. Literally.

But that's for another day.

(Index for this series)

---L.