Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 86
Translation and comments by Ad Blankestijn
(version September 2022)
should I blame the moon
for making me dwell on things
as if commanding me to lament?
yet still the tears flow down
my reproachful face!
nageke tote
tsuki ya wa mono o
omowasuru
kakochi gao naru
waga namida kana
なげけとて
月やは物を
思はする
かこちがほなる
わがなみだかな
Saigyo 西行 (1118- 1190)
[Saigyo]
"Is it the moon that is causing me to be lost in thought, as if commanding me "Lament!" - No, that cannot be; and yet, as I gaze at the moon, my tears flow down just as if it were the moon's fault."
This is often read as a love poem, written in the persona of the resentful lover, but Saigyo was a deeply Buddhist poet, and I think it is best to interpret this poem as a philosophical complaint, or a general meditation on the human condition. Of course it is also possible to read the poem in a double sense, in which the moon is just as beautiful and out of reach as the beloved. In Buddhist poetry, the moon often is a symbol of enlightenment.
Notes
- tote: to itte
- ya wa: antonym, an expression which say the opposite of what the poet means
- kakochi: kakotsukeru, use something as a pretext
The Poet
Saigyo (1118-1190, real name Sato Norikiyo), was a Japanese poet and Buddhist monk. He was born in Kyoto to a wealthy family who had served the imperial court for generations. At the age of 23 he gave up his wife and children, went to Saga and became a monk of the Buddhist Shingon school. The status of a monk enabled him to live a comparatively free wandering life, in the course of which he created a wealth of poetry. He travels took him from the Kansai to Kamakura and northern Japan. But he spent most of his life living as a recluse on Mt Koya (where the head temple of the Shingon school stands) and Yoshino.
Saigyo exerted a great influence on later poets up to Sogi (1421-1502) and Basho (1644-1694). Contemporaries and later generations valued him as the archetype of the wandering poet and poet monk.
See my translations of 10 more poems by Saigyo in the series "Japanese Poetry."
References: Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); Hyakunin Isshu by Inoue Muneo, etc. (Shinchosha, 1990); Genshoku Hyakunin Isshu by Suzuki Hideo, etc. (Buneido, 1997); Chishiki Zero kara no Hyakunin Isshu, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Gentosha); Hyakunin Isshu Kaibo Zukan, by Tani Tomoko (X-Knowledge); Ogura Hyakunin Isshu at Japanese Text Initiative (University of Virginia Library Etext Center); Hyakunin Isshu wo aruku by Shimaoka Shin (Kofusha Shuppan); Hyakunin Isshu, Ocho waka kara chusei waka e by Inoue Muneo (Chikuma Shoin, 2004); Basho's Haiku (2 vols) by Toshiharu Oseko (Maruzen, 1990); The Ise Stories by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); Kokinshu, A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1994); Shinkokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1995); Taketori Monogatari-Ise Monogatari-Yamato Monogatari-Heichu Monogatari (Shogakkan, 1994).
Photo: Wikipedia
Hyakunin Isshu Index