Famous Short Poems from the Man'yoshu
(1)
Manyoshu III.328
Ono no Oyu
the capital Nara
of the blue-green earth
is at the height of splendor now
like blossoming trees
glowing in beauty and fragrance
aoniyoshi | Nara no miyako wa | saku hana no | niou ga gotoku | ima sakarinari
あをによし奈良の都は咲く花の薫ふがごとく今盛りなり
Ono no Oyu (?-737, 小野老) was Assistant Governor-General of Dazaifu in Tsukushi (Kyushu) - he served under Otomo no Tabito. Three of his tanka poems have been preserved in the Man'yoshu. In the one translated here, he expresses nostalgia for Heijokyo (Nara), the capital, which he imagines at its height of splendor now that the trees are all blossoming (I assume the blossoms are cherry blossoms, although they are not identified in the poem and the Man'yoshu has a preference for plum blossoms). This is one of the most popular poems in the Man'yoshu.
"Aoniyoshi,"of the blue-green earth" is a makurakotoba for "Nara." In 710 the capital had been transferred from Fujiwarakyo to Heijokyo or Nara. It was 3 times as large, 4 km from east to west and 5 km from north to south. Major temples, like Yakushiji and Kofukuji, were moved to the new capital, and new ones, as Toshodaiji and Todaiji, were built. The population counted about 150,000 persons. The verb "niou" means in the first place "to be beautiful and lustrous (utsukushiku tsuyayaka de aru), "to be fragrant" is the second meaning. Most translators mix them here as I have done.
[Scenery of Waka no Ura with cranes, by Hiroshige]
(2)
Manyoshu VI.919
Yamabe no Akahito
as the tide flows
into Waka Bay,
the tidal flats vanish,
and the cranes fly off
calling toward the reedy shore
Wakanoura ni | shio michikureba | kata o nami | ashibe o sashite | tazu nakiwataru
若の浦に潮満ち来れば潟をなみ葦辺をさして鶴鳴き渡る
Yamabe no Akahito (fl. 724–736, 山部赤人) is
- together with Kakinomoto no Hitomaro - considered as the best poet of the Manyoshu. His strength lay in the description of landscape. In my earlier article Five Poems from Manyoshu I have translated his famous poem dedicated to Mt Fuji. Of the envoy (a single tanka poem)
of that larger poem, the view of Mt Fuji across Tago Bay, there exists also a variant version in the shape of Poem 4 in the One Hundred Poems, One Poem Each series.
The Manyoshu contains 13 choka ("long poems") and 37 tanka ("short poems") of Yamabe no Akihito. Many of his poems were composed during journeys with Emperor Shomu between 724 and 736. The above poem is also a celebration of the visit of Emperor Shomu to the picturesque seashore of Waka no Ura on the Kii Peninsula (in present-day Wakayama City) in the tenth month of 724. It is in fact the second envoy of a longer poem (choka) and it describes the end of the excursion: "the tide pours in, the seastrand vanishes, the cranes fly off one by one - and the courtiers must leave the scene that has entranced them" (Cranston).
Waka no Ura is the general name for a scenic area located in the southwestern part of Wakayama City. In the past it was regarded comparable to Ama no Hashidate, but in modern times, the eastern part of the area has undergone significant topographical changes and not much of its former glory is left today.
[Waka no Ura Tenmangu]
The most prominent scenic spot in Waka no Ura used to be Tamatsujima, a small island floating in the sea (with a Shinto shrine), connected to or separated from the land by the ebb and flow of the tide. As Akahito's waka states, it was a marshy area with reeds and other aquatic plants growing in thick profusion. Waka mo Ura was loved by many writers and aristocrats due to its proximity to the capital, and Emperor Shomu was particularly fond of the area, visiting it many times. In addition, during the Heian period, between 964 and 968 a Tenmangu Shrine was constructed here as it was believed that Sugawara no Michizane stopped at Waka no Ura to shelter from the wind when he was on his way to exile in Kyushu. Waka no Ura Tenmangu is still very much worth visiting.
[Wall painting of court ladies in Takamatsu Tumulus, Asuka]
(3)
Manyoshu I.40
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
on Ami Bay,
where they must now be boating,
is the tide swelling
to touch the elegant hems
of the court ladies' skirts?
Ami no ura ni | funanori suramu | otomera ga | tamamo no suso ni | shio mitsuramu ka
嗚呼見の浦に船乗りすらむおとめらが玉裳の裾に潮満つらむか
Although Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (660?-720? 柿本人麻呂) is the official poet of public poetry about grand imperial progressions, he did not always accompany the court on its excursions, as is the case in the above poem, when he stayed behind in the Kiyomihara Palace in Asuka. This was a visit to Ise by Empress Jito in the spring of 692. After visiting the Ise Shrine, they went to what is now Toba for the fun part of the excursion. In a pastoral vision of aristocrats at play, Hitomaro imagines the young court ladies: they have a boating party. and when they board the boats, the rising tide wets the hems of their elegant skirts. The repeated "-tamu" indicates that the poet is guessing their situation.
"Mo" 裳 is a long skirt with a very long hem, as in the illustration above. The way Hitomaro describes how the swelling tide makes the hems of the shirts wet has a definite erotic connotation
[Fawn lily]
(4)
Manyoshu XIX.4143
Otomo no Yakamochi
near the temple well
where a throng of maidens,
bustling like courtiers,
is drawing water:
a bed of fawn lilies
mononofu no | yaso otomera ga | kumimagau | terai no ue no | katakago no hana
もののふの八十おとめらが汲みまがう寺井の上の片かごの花
Otomo no Yakamochi (718-785, 大伴家持) was one of the Man'yoshu compilers. He served at court but also was provincial governor of Etchu (present-day Toyama Prefecture). The poem quoted was written on the second day of the third month of the year 750 - interestingly the day after Yakamochi wrote his equally famous poem about a beautiful woman standing under a blossoming peach tree.
The fawn lily (Erythronium japonicum) is in modern Japanese called "katakuri." Note how the poet puts images together, while leaving it to the reader to draw conclusions about their exact relationship: he just mentions the existence of the fawn lilies, without explicitly comparing the bevy of girls to them, or mentioning that they are in bloom or being plucked. As Cranston (p. 467) says, it would be romantic over-reading to interpret the pink fawn lily as a shy maiden (he has only one lily, while I see a cluster - in Japanese this is unspecified). According to him, the poem is built on the contrast between the lively commotion of the women around the well and the quietude of a single bloom in the crannies.
"Yaso" (eighty) is here "many," and "mononofu" (men at arms or court officers, a makurakotoba) is an ancient epithet used here for comic effect.
[Mallard in flight]
(5)
Manyoshu III.416
Prince Otsu
on Iware Pond
fifty-of-a-hundredfold
the mallards cry -
is today the last time I see them
before I vanish into the clouds?
momozutau | Iware no ike ni | naku kamo wo | kyo nomi mite ya | kumogakurinamu
百伝ふ盤余の池に鳴く鴨を今日のみ見てや雲隠りなむ
The title is "A poem composed by Prince Otsu when, having been condemned to death, he wept on the bank of the Iware Pond." Prince Otsu (663–686, 大津皇子) was the son of Emperor Tenmu. He was regarded as a popular and talented figure who was a likely successor of his father to the imperial throne, but was forced to commit suicide after false charges of rebellion were laid against him by Empress Jito in order to promote her own son, Prince Kusakabe, to the position of crown prince.
The natural image in the poem can also be read as irony: the mallards cry, but it is the prince who will fly up into the clouds (Cranston, p. 182). "Kumogakure" is in fact an euphemism for the death of a member of the nobility.
"Momozutau", "on the way to a hundred," is a mock epithet for Iware. Iware Pond is a large pond built for irrigation purposes (although it was also used for boating parties) in present day Kashihara and Sakurai municipalities. In 2011 an embankment was excavated that is believed to have been part of the pond.
[Prince Shotoku with two attendants, 13th c.]
(6)
Manyoshu III.415
trad. Prince Shotoku
at home, he would be
pillowed on his wife's arm
now, grass for a pillow,
he lies dead on a journey -
poor traveler!
ie ni araba | imo ga te makamu | kusamakura | tabi ni koyaseru | kono tabito aware
家にあらば妹が手まかむ草枕旅に臥せるこの旅人あわれ
This is a famous poem that has been put in the mouth of the legendary (if not purely mythical) Prince Shotoku (574–622), when he found a man lying
dead on Mount Tatsuya.
The full legend can be found in the Nihon Shoki (tr. Aston, p. 144), under the year 613. Prince Shotoku was traveling one cold winter day when he spied a starving wayfarer lying by the roadside. The prince took off his robe and covered him, but the poor man was too weak to speak. In sympathy for his plight the prince composed a song (not the present poem!) and then continued on his way. The man died soon after and the prince arranged for his burial. A few days later, the prince sent back a messenger because he believed the man to have been some sort of saint. The servant discovered that the corpse had disappeared from the tomb and nothing remained but the prince's robe left on top of the coffin. The point of the story is that it demonstrated the virtuous and compassionate nature of the Prince, who himself came to be regarded as a saint.
The present poem is not included in the Nihon Shoki and it looks as if it was composed later to fit the situation.
[Wake pattern generated by a small boat]
(7)
Manyoshu III.351
Sami Manzei
to what
shall I compare this life?
It is like the vanishing wake
of a boat that has rowed away
at break of day
yononaka wo | nani ni tatoemu | asabiraki | kogiinishi fune no | atonaki gotoshi
世間を何に譬へむ朝開き漕ぎ去にし船の跡なきがとし
Sami Mansei (fl. c. 720, 沙弥満誓, "novice Mansei") was a Buddhist priest. While serving at a temple in the north of Kyushu, he was a member of Otomo no Tabito's literary coterie. His few surviving pieces are collected in the Man'yoshu.
The above fine poem expresses the emptiness of the world, a Buddhist tenet, in the telling image of a boat that rows away, its wake vanishing. It is a simple and direct poem. It was immortalized in later ages as a poem that epitomized the Buddhist view of life as something transient and void.
Translations:
Levy, Ian Hideo (1987). The Ten Thousand Leaves: A Translation of the Man'yoshu. Japan's Premier Anthology of Classical Poetry, Volume One. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00029-8.
Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai (2005). 1000 Poems From The Manyoshu: The Complete Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai Translation. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-43959-3.
Traditional Japanese Literature, an Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, ed. Haruo Shirane (Columbia U.P., 2007)
Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991);
A Waka Anthology, by Edward A. Cranston (2 vols, Stanford U.P. 1993 and 2006);
Studies:
History of Japanese Literature by Jun'ichi Konishi (3 vols, Princeton U.P., 1991)
Seeds in the Heart, Japanese Literature from the Earliest Times to the late Sixteenth Century, by Donald Keene (Columbia U.P. 1999)
Utakotoba Utamakura Daijiten, Kubota Jun and Baba Akiko (Kadokawa Shoten)
Original texts:
Kokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1994);
Shinkokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1995);
Man'yoshu (4 vols, Shogakkan, 1996)
Online:
Japanese Text Initiative (Virginia University Library)
One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each (Hyakunin Isshu), translation and comments at this website
Manyoshu Best 100 with Explanations and Translation compiled by Kanji Haitani
Photos: Wikimedia Commons.
Japanese Poetry Index