The bank of the River of Heaven is a lonely place to wait ...

[larryhammer]

Of all the odd-numbered Nth day of the Nth month holidays imported to Japan from China, the N=7 Tanabata is my favorite -- possibly because unlike the others there's an actual myth that came with it. The festival celebrates the one day a year the Oxherd (Hikoboshi, the star Altair) and the Weaver Maid (Orihime, Vega) are allowed a conjugal visit across the River of Heaven (the Milky Way) that separates them the rest of the year. In the most romanic version of the story, a bridge of birds (or more specifically magpies) spans the River, allowing them to cross -- but only if it doesn't rain. But like most myths, there are many variations.

In all forms, it is considered a romantic story -- and a romantic holiday.

Since Japan went Gregorian, Tanabata has been a mid-summer festival celebrated on July 7th, but in the former lunisolar calendar (the one used to calculate Chinese New Year) it fell in early autumn, in what's now August. As such, it was an autumn topic in poetry -- and book 4 of the Kokinshu has 11 poems about it, loosely arranged into a story of one of their meetings, translated below.

173. Author unknown Topic unknown.
akikaze no fukinishi hi yori hisakata no ama no kawara ni tatanu hi wa nashi	Ever since the day autumn winds began blowing,     there's been not one day I haven't stood on the bank of Heaven's Endless River.
What doesn't come through in translation: the blowing is inflected as a personal experience, highlighting that the speaker is either the Weaver Maid or Oxherd; given the Weaver Maid waits to be visited, this is often heard as specifically her voice.
174. (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
hisakata no ama no kawara no watashimori kimi watarinaba kaji kakushite yo	O ferryboatman on the bank of the Endless     River of Heaven, if my lord has crossed over, keep your oar hidden away!
The first two lines of the original (my l.2-3) are almost the same as the previous poem's l.3-4 (my last line and a half). Here the speaker is, of course, the Weaver Maid. This follows versions of the story where the Oxherd is ferried across (leaving me wondering what the ferryman does the rest of the year).
175. (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
ama (no) kawa momiji o hashi ni wataseba ya tanabatatsume no aki o shimo matsu	River of Heaven, is it because it lays down     a bridge of colored leaves that the Weaver Maid awaits the arrival of autumn?
And we swoop down from heaven to a terrestrial speaker, and a poem that's especially admired for its romantic tone. My justification for the interpetive "the arrival of" is how emphatically the autumn being waited for is marked.
176. (Author unknown) (Topic unknown.)
koikoite au yo wa koyoi ama no kawa kiri tachi-watari akezu mo aranamu	Desperately longed for, the night we meet is tonight.     River of Heaven, may the mists envelop you so that daybreak never comes.
Back up to heaven; while either party could be speaking, I'm inclined to hear the Weaver Maid's voice again. I am unreasonably fond of the line au yo wa koyoi, "the night we meet (is) tonight."
177. Ki no Tomonori Written for another when, in the Kanpyô Era, the Emperor [Uda] commanded the courtiers to present poems on the night of the Seventh Day.
ama (no) kawa asase shiranami tadoritsutsu watari-hateneba ake zo shinikeru	Constantly searching the white waves in the shallows     of Heaven's River, he didn't know how to cross when daybreak had, yes, begun.
On the one hand, this is about the Oxherd searching for a way across; on the other, it's also about the man Tomonori is pinch-hitting for, who he implies searched all night for something to write but also failed. As such, I read this pronounless poem in the third-person instead of first, returning to a terrestrial point-of-view. In some Tanabata stories, the Oxherd cannot cross the Milky Way if the sky is overcast, and the whitecaps may represent such clouds. Pivot-word: shiranami is "white wave" but can also be read as "not knowing."
178. Fujiwara no Okikaze A poem from the poetry contest held in the palace of the consort in the same era.
chigirikemu kokoro zo tsuraki tanabata no toshi ni hitotabi au wa au ka wa	It is cold indeed, a heart that could promise that:     is meeting but once a year on Tanabata really a meeting at all?
I cannot help thinking this isn't really a Tanabata poem but rather using the story's trappings to accuse a lover. Either way, though, it doesn't work for me because it's blaming the victim: meeting one night a year isn't the idea of either the Weaver Maid or the Oxherd, but a punishment from her grandfather, the Emperor of Heaven, for her shirking weaving for love. "But," "really," and "at all" are rhetorical rather than literal.
179. Ôshikôchi no Mitsune Written the night of the Seventh Day.
toshi-goto ni au to wa suredo tanabata no nuru yo no kazu zo sukunakarikeru	Although it is true that they meet every year     on Tanabata, the nights they sleep together are indeed few in number.
According to an ambiguous record from a decade after the fact, this poem was pitted against #178 in the Kanpyô Era consort's poetry contest; it's not clear which supposedly won but I hope it wasn't this because, while I may be missing something, the wit sounds to me just as weak in Japanese as in English. "Together" is another of those omitted-but-understood words.
180. (Ôshikôchi no Mitsune) (Written the night of the Seventh Day.)
tanabata ni kashitsuru ito no uchi-haete toshi no o nagaku koi ya wataramu	These threads we offer for Tanabata ever     continue onward -- will their love extend like that the length of the cord of years?
On Tanabata, young women gave offerings of thread to the Weaver Maid in return for skill at working with it. As such, I understand the speaker as one of them speculating about the celestial affair, but it could be read as a single person talking about his/her own love, with the offering done by another and the festival as metaphoric dressing. The action of the middle line uchihaete ("keeps continuing, and") applies both to the thread above it and the years below; I made the resulting implicit comparison explicit.
181. Sosei Topic uknown.
koyoi komu hito ni wa awaji tanabata no hisashiki hodo ni machi mo koso sure	No, I shall not meet the man who might come tonight,     lest I also would then have to wait as long as the next Tanabata.
Written in a female persona who is using the story to talk about herself rather than Orihime, though of course the gist is "as above, so below." The conjunction of consequence (here "lest") is omitted but understood, while "long" somewhat understates the strength of the prolonged hisashi.
182. Minamoto no Muneyuki Written at dawn on the night of the Seventh Day.
ima wa tote wakaruru toki wa ama (no) kawa wataranu saki ni sode zo hichinuru	Because "It is now" -- in this time of separation,     though I haven't yet crossed the River of Heaven, my sleeves are already soaked.
The conceit being that the Oxherd is crying into his sleeves in the approved courtly manner, getting them wet even before the river splashes them, presumably on the ferry. Technically "(it is) now" is not directly quoted, but I treat it as a farewell comparable to sayonara, lit. "since (it's) thus," to bring out the drama.
183. Mibu no Tadamine Written on the Eighth Day.
kyô yori wa ima komu toshi no kinô o zo itsu shika to nomi machiwatarubeki	So starting today I must wait impatiently     though the entire year that is now to come for yesterday's Tanabata.
And the story rounds out with a morning-after poem from the Oxherd, de rigueur in court circles after a tryst. Because, of course, "as below, so above."

One day, I'll figure out how to write the Chinese myth sex farce version of the story. It's been tickling 'round the hindbrain for a while, but still isn't ready to come out.

---L.

(Index for this project)

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Awe-some.

[larryhammer]

It's a nice little arc. (It is, however, immediately followed by a succession of being-gloomy-about-autumn poems.)

---L.

[maryosmanski.livejournal.com]

These are wonderful. Thank you for sharing them with us.

[larryhammer]

De nada.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I like these a lot, especially #175.

We saw Tanabata decorations in Japan when we visited in August; apparently up around Sendai they still celebrate it on the later date, and this year other parts of Japan were doing the same as a kind of solidarity gesture with the Tohoku region after the tsunami.

[larryhammer]

Interesting -- hadn't known that. There's also regional differences for whether to observe O-bon per Gregorian or closer to the original lunar date.

---L.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Obon in July or August, or there's a third option I always forget, that's only celebrated in a few places. We got to see Obon, too, because we were in the Kansai during August.

[larryhammer]

Coo. That has always looked like a pretty holiday to observe.

---L.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think the highlight was seeing women and girls in a mall in Fukuoka doing Bon-Odori (holiday fan dance) to recorded music and live taiko drums while two other women did aerial yoga (the stuff with the big ribbons) above them . . . and then seguing into Michael Jackson's "Beat It" for their finale. :-D

[larryhammer]

Awesome.

One of the things I like about Yosakoi dance troupes is how (at least outside of Kōchi) is how so many blend traditional and modern styles. And sometimes music as well.

---L.