No Moonlight in My Cup: Sinitic Poetry (Kanshi) from the Japanese Court, Eighth to the Twelfth Centuries 9789004387218, 2018034938, 2018048543, 9789004387195, 9004387218

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No Moonlight in My Cup

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East Asian Comparative Literature and Culture Series Editors Zhang Longxi (City University of Hong Kong) Wiebke Denecke (Boston University) Editorial Board Alexander Beecroft (University of South Carolina, usa) Ronald Egan (University of California, Santa Barbara, usa) Joshua Fogel (York University, Canada) Alexa Alice Joubin (George Washington University, usa) Peter Kornicki (Cambridge University, uk) Karen Thornber (Harvard University, usa) Rudolf Wagner (Heidelberg University, Germany)

volume 10

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/eacl

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No Moonlight in My Cup Sinitic Poetry (Kanshi) from the Japanese Court, Eighth to the Twelfth Centuries

Edited and translated with Introduction and Commentaries by

Judith N. Rabinovitch Timothy R. Bradstock

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Cover illustration: Ink Painting by Ozasa Kizō 小笹喜三 (1896–1980), signed Ensai Kizō 燕斎喜三. Property of the authors, who have provided the cover image. Ozasa was a leading student of painter and calligrapher Nagao Uzan 長尾雨山 (1864–1942). The painting bears the inscription: In the frost the trunk of the tree is bent and gnarled; In the rain the clump of bamboo is light and unrestrained. [Signed:] “Moving Languidly” Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rabinovitch, Judith N., editor. | Bradstock, Timothy Roland, editor. Title: No moonlight in my cup : Sinitic poetry (Kanshi) from the Japanese  court, eighth to the twelfth centuries / edited and translated with  introduction and commentaries by Judith N. Rabinovitch, Timothy R.  Bradstock. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019] | Series: East Asian comparative  literature and culture, ISSN 2212-4772 ; volume 10 | Includes  bibliographical references and index. | In English, translated from the  original Chinese. Identifiers: LCCN 2018034938 (print) | LCCN 2018048543 (ebook) | ISBN  9789004387218 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004387195 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Chinese poetry—Japan—Translations into English. | Chinese  poetry—Japan—History and criticism. Classification: LCC PL3054.5.E5 (ebook) | LCC PL3054.5.E5 N66 2019 (print) |  DDC 895.11008/0952—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034938 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2212-4772 isbn 978-90-04-38719-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-38721-8 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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To the Memory of Our Fathers B. Seymour Rabinovitch Cedric Alec Bradstock

∵

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The Moon Slow to Appear Late at night, crisp the air; endlessly pacing about. The moon slow to reveal itself; frustration overflows. By clouds obscured: I often gaze in the direction its light would move. The peaks are high: no choice but to wait for the moon to start its ascent. During the banquet, as dawn drew near, no moonlight floating in my cup. Through my study window all night long it cast no light on my books. Here’s how things look: I’m eighty years old, dull and decrepit; Enlightened times and yet I’m ill-favored, living out my days. Fujiwara no Atsumitsu (1063–1144), Honchō mudaishi 25

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Contents Preface ix Notes to the Reader xii List of Poems by Title xiv Title Abbreviations for Kanshi Anthologies xxvii Introduction 1 1 An Overview of Sinitic Verse in the Japanese Court 1 2 The Rise of Sinitic Verse Composition and the Establishment of the Academy 14 3 The Early Anthologies: From Kaifūsō through the Age of Emperor Saga 29 4 Sinitic Verse Practice: Mid- to Late-Heian 46 5 Allusion and Appropriation in Historical Verse and Kudaishi, and Technical Aspects of Social Verse Practice 85 6 Natural Motifs in Sinitic Verse: Some Observations 107

Poem Translations Kaifūsō 懐風藻 (Poetic Gems Cherishing the Styles of Old, 751) 121 Ryōun shinshū 凌雲新集 (The New Cloud-Soaring Collection, 814), Compiled by Ono no Minemori and Others 141 Bunka shūreishū 文華秀麗集 (Anthology of Splendid Literary Flowerings, 818), Compiled by Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu and Others 159 Keikokushū 經國集 (A Collection of Works for Bringing Order to the Realm, 827), Compiled by Yoshimine no Yasuyo and Others 181 Denshi kashū 田氏家集 (The Shimada Poetry Collection, ca. 892), Verse by Shimada no Tadaomi 204 Kanke bunsō 菅家文藻 (The Sugawara Literary Works, 900) and Kanke kōshū 菅家後集 (The Second Sugawara Collection, 903), Verse by Sugawara no Michizane 214

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Kikeshū 紀家集 (The Ki Family Collection, ca. 911–19), Verse by Ki no Haseo 237 Fusōshū 扶桑集 (An Anthology of Poetry from the Land of Fusang, ca. 995–98), Compiled by Ki no Tadana 250 Honchō reisō 本朝麗藻 (Poetic Masterpieces from Our Court, ca. 1010), Compiled by Takashina no Moriyoshi 304 Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū 中右記部類紙背漢詩集 (A Collection of Kanshi Written on the Reverse Side of the Classified Edition of the Chūyūki Diary, twelfth century) 336 Hosshōji-dono gyoshū 法性寺殿御集 (A Collection of Poems by the Lord of Hosshōji, 1145), Verse by Fujiwara no Tadamichi 356 Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩 (Poems from Our Court Without Allusive Titles, 1162–64), Compiled by Fujiwara no Tadamichi and Others 368 Bibliography 447 Index 463

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Preface This is our second collection of translated and annotated kanshi 漢詩 (poems in literary Sinitic) from the Nara and Heian periods (710–1185), following on from our previous book, Dance of the Butterflies: Chinese Poetry from the Japanese Court Tradition, published in the Cornell East Asia Series in 2005. Seeking to illuminate both the public and the private spheres within the Nara-Heian kanshi tradition, we have provided translations, notes, and commentaries for a further 225 poems, together with the original verse texts and biographical sketches for each poet. While intending this book primarily for scholars in premodern Japanese and Chinese studies, we have endeavored to make it also accessible to general readers, who may not have any prior familiarity with Japanese court poetry or culture. For scholars working in the field, some of the information in our notes and commentaries will be common knowledge; to these individuals we apologize in advance for any superfluity. In the present volume sixty-nine poets are represented, these including members of the nobility across the aristocratic spectrum, from emperors and princes down to lesser courtiers and Academy students, along with a scattering of Buddhist priests, royal ladies, and a foreign diplomat. The verse comes from thirteen major anthologies, all compiled during the Heian period except Kaifūsō 懐風藻 (Poetic Gems Cherishing the Styles of Old), which appeared in AD 751. Most of these works contain pieces by multiple poets: sixty-four in the case of Kaifūsō and thirty in Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩 (Poems from Our Court Without Allusive Titles, 1162–64), for example. Several are private anthologies that preserve the kanshi legacies of single individuals: Shimada no Tadaomi 島田忠臣 (828–92?), Ki no Haseo 紀長谷雄 (845–912), Fujiwara no Tadamichi 藤原忠通 (1097–1164), and, most notably, Sugawara no Michizane 菅原道眞 (845–903), whose two works collectively constitute the largest extant kanshi corpus of any Heian poet. In selecting verse for this work, particular attention has been paid to informal and private poetry, comparatively little of which has ever been translated. These poems tend to have more lyrical and human interest than the formal court kanshi, offering significant insights into the personal lives and aesthetic sensibilities of courtiers. At the same time, our goal has been to provide a balanced sample of the kanshi genre throughout this period, one not limited to masterpieces and curiosities but containing representative and typical pieces as well. Besides works by iconic figures like Michizane, we include many by lesser-known literati whose poetry also merits recognition, in the spirit of the eighteenth-century anthology Tangshi sanbai shou 唐詩三百首, thanks to

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which a number of minor Chinese poets are remembered to this day. Among our selections are many unusual gems, some of them idiosyncratic and unlike anything we are familiar with in the continental verse tradition: these include the bamboo-mat poems by Ōe no Mochitoki 大江以言 and Prince Tomohira 具平親王; Fujiwara no Tadamichi’s obsessive pieces on crickets; the maritime travel poems of Priest Renzen 釋蓮禪; and the nightlong revels preserved in Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū 中右記部類紙背漢詩集 (A Collection of Kanshi Written on the Reverse Side of the Classified Edition of Chūyūki, twelfth century). The Introduction has been written with both the specialist and the general reader in mind, starting with the question of how Sinitic verse forms, and literary Sinitic itself, came to be adopted by the Japanese elite. We provide cultural and historical background to assist in contextualizing verse practice, endeavoring to highlight generic developments and characteristics of formal and informal styles of kanshi against, where possible, the backdrop of history. Further, we have supplemented the more detailed descriptions of individual anthologies situated in the poetry section with a roughly chronological overview of each work, emphasizing the foundational period of the eighth and ninth centuries. Also included are notes on several lesser-known collections. Throughout we have tried to convey a sense of the waxing and waning dynamic of Sinitic verse activity over time, especially as this relates to the half centuries on either side of the Saga anthologies; these periods have received relatively little notice in treatments of kanshi history, mainly because anthologies were either not produced during those years or have not survived. In the latter part of the Introduction we provide a short account of allusion and appropriation and some salient technical features of social poetic practice, including the topic-line verse (kudaishi 句題詩), an important and popular Heian subgenre. Finally, we have added some observations concerning nature poetry in literary Sinitic, which occupies a central place in both formal and informal verse contexts. Our hope is that the present work will make a contribution toward elevating kanshi to greater prominence in Heian literary scholarship and heighten understanding of the poetics of this period, as well as the cultural milieu within which this verse came into being. It goes without saying that this book owes a considerable debt to many others in Japanese and Chinese studies, both those who preceded us and also a more recent generation of talented and productive scholars, especially those working in the Nara and Heian historico-literary field, whose contributions are already immeasurable. If readers of our volume, including those who have not yet had the opportunity to explore this genre or who cannot read literary Sinitic, manage to enjoy these poems and come away

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with a broader sense of the scope of this tradition, in all its richness, depth, and variety, this in itself will be sufficient reward. We offer thanks to our colleagues at The University of Montana and our wonderful friends and family for their abiding interest in this project over the past decade. Judith wishes to express her deep gratitude to Professor Edwin A. Cranston of Harvard University for his encouragement over many years. We also appreciate the generous support and steadfast assistance of the editors at Brill in the preparation of this manuscript and extend our warmest thanks to the two anonymous readers whose valuable suggestions and corrections were gratefully received. Any errors or omissions that remain are ours alone. Without the ongoing support of The University of Montana Foundation and the Karashima endowment much of the research travel required to complete this project would not have been feasible, and we are most grateful for the generosity of Karashima Tsukasa of Kumamoto, Japan. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to the superb librarians at The University of Montana’s Mansfield Library, who helped us to obtain many of the materials needed to complete this study. Without their timely assistance over the years, this project could not have been brought to a conclusion.

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Notes to the Reader In our translations, we have tried our best to reflect the lineation and rhythm of the original poem lines, attempting as well to maintain a balance between fidelity to the original texts (including attention to parallelism within couplets) and the need for readability and euphony in English. All verses quoted in English in the Introduction are our own translations and are found in this volume, unless otherwise indicated. Where we have provided information to clarify translated material, make corrections, or to provisionally fill lacunae, we have used square brackets to indicate such insertions. Interlinear or other notations found in the original sources, often written in a smaller hand, are indicated by the use of a small font. Empty boxes are used to represent missing or indecipherable characters. Biographical sketches for each poet are situated where their first poem appears; cross-references to these biographies are given thereafter. In these notes, we have given comprehensive details gathered from diverse sources concerning the bureaucratic posts held by each poet-official and their main literary achievements in the hope that this repository of information will also assist future scholars, particularly since poets are sometimes identified only by their office titles in historical and literary primary sources. In these cases, we provide their actual names in our translation attributions. We have utilized the revised Hepburn system for all romanized Japanese words; for Chinese, pinyin. The abbreviations J. for Japanese and Ch. for Chinese are included for clarity in places where needed. In recording Japanese dates, the Japanese year by the lunar calendar has been roughly converted to the Gregorian year, but the month and day remain in their original form and are listed in that order following the year, without conversion. Accordingly, a typical rendering would be “939/4/21” or “the twenty-first day of the Fourth Month of 939.” Reign dates for emperors are marked with “r.” Where graphs are supplied, we have mainly done so only at the first appearance of the name, title, or term. Generally, we use traditional graphs, not only for the original poem texts but also for names of poets and other persons discussed and for classical book titles. For most other terms, such as more recent proper names, offices, and various vocabulary items, we follow current custom and use simplified post-war graphs. Characters are not provided for commonly available names of emperors or for most well-known places and geographical features. In the List of Poems by Title, we have omitted annotations that accompany the original titles, but these are included in the main body of the work. When

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the titles of poems are long prose introductions, they are abridged in the List of Poems by Title. Abbreviated bibliographic citations for books and theses are used in the footnotes and poem notes, with series titles and publishers (and, in the case of dissertations, the name of the university) generally being omitted and only the year of publication and pages indicated. Complete information about each work cited can be found in the Bibliography.

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Poems by Title Below, listed either by title or the poet’s introduction, are the poems translated in this volume; the thirteen anthologies from which the poems have been selected are in chronological order. The number by the left margin is the poem number in the anthology. Authorial annotations found alongside the original title are not included in this finding list, however these are provided in the main body of the work.

Kaifūsō 懐風藻 (Poetic Gems Cherishing the Styles of Old, 751)

58 66

Relating My Feelings (Ochi no Atai Hiroe) 121 A Late Autumn Banquet in the Living Quarters of Prince Nagaya (Tanaka no Asomi Kiyotari) 123 A Banquet Held in Early Spring at the Saho Mansion (Prince Nagaya) 125 A Poem Written to Match One by Chancellor Fujiwara [no Fuhito], Written During a Visit to Yoshino River (Ōtsu no Muraji Obito) 127 A Banquet Held on a Spring Day at the Residence of Prince Nagaya, Minister of the Left (Ōtsu no Muraji Obito) 128 Sorrowing over Ill-Luck (Fujiwara no Asomi Umakai) 129 Written While Serving as Special Defense Officer for the Saikaidō Region (Fujiwara no Asomi Umakai) 133 In early spring, while I was at Tsugenoyamadera, Prince Nagaya held a banquet at his residence. I promptly declined an invitation to attend. (Priest Dōji) 134 Sitting Alone in the Mountains (The Recluse Tami no Imiki Kurohito) 137 Banished to the Southern Wilds, I Send This Poem to My Old Friends in the Capital (Isonokami no Asomi Otomaro) 138 Presented to the Provincial Secretary as He Prepares to Return to the Capital After Being Assigned a New Post (Isonokami no Asomi Otomaro) 139

69 83 84 91 93 104 109 115 116

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Ryōun shinshū 凌雲新集 (The New Cloud-Soaring Collection, 814): Compiled by Ono no Minemori and Others

6

On the occasion of the Double Ninth Festival at Shinsen’en we all wrote poems using the verse-line “Late autumn, and we have a bountiful harvest.” From this line we took the rhyme, which belongs to the rhyme category you 尤. (Emperor Saga) 141 Presenting a Hat and Sable Coat to Ono no Minemori, Junior Assistant Head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, After Learning that He Was Heading to the Frontier (Emperor Saga) 144 A Farewell Banquet for the Lesser Captain of the Imperial Bodyguards, Asa[no] no Yoshimichi After He Received an Appointment to Pacify the East (Emperor Saga) 145 A Poem Written by Imperial Command to Match One Titled “A Hunting Expedition on a Spring Day; When the Sun Went Down We Stayed at a Lodge by the River” (Crown Prince Ōtomo) 146 Setting Off by Boat Early in the Morning (Prince Nakao) 148 A Poem to Match One by Genchū: Written During an Early Spring Banquet at Ki no Chiyo’s Pondside Pavilion (Kaya no Asomi Toyotoshi) 150 Song of a Lofty Man (Kaya no Asomi Toyotoshi) 152 Taking Leave of Governor “Fuji-” of Bungo Province After I Was Censured (Ōmi no Mahito Fukuramaro) 153 Lying Sick Abed on an Autumn Night (Nakashina no Sukune Yoshio) 155 Lament Composed While Lying on My Pillow (Kuwahara no Kimi Miyasaku) 156

21 22 27 34 42 47 77 78 88



Bunka shūreishū 文華秀麗集 (Anthology of Splendid Literary Flowerings, 818): Compiled by Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu and Others

26

Bidding Farewell to My Friend One Autumn Day (Kose no Shikihito) 159 Moonlit Night, Talking About Separation (Kuwahara no Haraaka) 161 Poem for the Scholar Kamitsukeno [no Ehito], Written in Bed (Emperor Junna) 162 Lying Sick Abed, I Thank My Old Friend for Visiting Me (Prince Nakao) 163

27 29 32

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39

At this frontier guesthouse I received the topic “mountain blossoms.” I have presented this verse in jest to the two officials in charge of foreign visitors and to Shigeno [no Sadanushi], the third son [of Ieosa]. (Wang Hyoryǒm) 164 A Poem on the Assigned Topic “Ji Zha” (Yoshimine no Yasuyo) 165 Plum Blossoms Falling (Emperor Saga) 168 A Poem Written to Match Priest Kōjō’s “Wandering in the Eastern Hills” (Emperor Saga) 169 Stopping at Bonshakuji Temple (Emperor Saga) 170 Visiting Hokuzanji Temple (Tajihi no Kiyosada) 171 A Poetic Inscription Written About Priest Kōjō’s Mountain Temple (Nishikoribe no Hikogimi) 172 A Song Lamenting Physical Decline; Written for an Old Pine Tree in Shinsen’en (Emperor Saga) 173 A Poem to Match “A Song Lamenting Physical Decline; Written for an Old Pine Tree in Shinsen’en” [by Emperor Saga] (Prince Nakao) 174 At Reizen’in each of us wrote on a topic: I was assigned “reflections in the water” and composed this verse by imperial command. (Kuwahara no Hirota) 175 A Verse Composed One Summer Day on Plums in the Rain (Crown Prince Ōtomo) 176 A Verse Written to Match the Poem “Watching the Leaves Fall” (Shigeno no Sadanushi) 177 A Poem Composed on the Line “The Autumn Moon Bright above the River Long” (Emperor Saga) 179

43 67 72 73 79 80 120 121 125 132 133 134



Keikokushū 經國集 (A Collection of Works for Bringing Order to the Realm, 827): Compiled by Yoshimine no Yasuyo and Others

44

A Heptasyllabic Poem Presented to Match One by His Majesty Written When He Heard that Sadatada, Regimental Commander of the Right, Had Entered the Priesthood (Yoshimine no Yasuyo) 181 A Heptasyllabic Poem Presented to Tomo, Holder of the Flourishing Talent Degree, Who Is Entering the Priesthood (Koreyoshi no Harumichi) 183 A Farewell Poem to My Son, Who Has Left Home and Gone into the Mountains: Written in Pentasyllabic Lines (Yoshimine no Yasuyo) 185

45 56

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A Heptasyllabic Poem About Being Visited in the Southern Mountains by a Buddhist Monk from Silla (Priest Kūkai) 186 60 A Heptasyllabic Poem About a Visit to Jinxinsi Temple (Priest Kūkai) 187 104 Song About an Old Man: In Heptasyllabic Lines (Retired Emperor Saga) 188 125 A Pentasyllabic Poem to Match Shunta’s “Poem on Ghosts” (Ishikawa no Hironushi) 189 128 A Heptasyllabic Poem About Listening to the Early Bush Warblers: For Showing to the Mountain Hermit Koreyoshi no Harumichi (Retired Emperor Saga) 191 141 A Heptasyllabic Poem on a Night in the Mountains (Retired Emperor Saga) 191 187 A Pentasyllabic Poem Written for the Examinations; I Was Assigned the Phrase “Polishing the Gem from Jing” as My Topic (Ki no Toratsugu) 192 191 A Heptasyllabic Poem Written for the Examinations; I Received the Topic “Wang Zhaojun” (Ono no Suetsugu) 194 205 A Song in Irregular Meter About a Landscape Painting Done on a Wall in the Seiryōden (Retired Emperor Saga) 196 212 Written in Irregular Meter, to Match Retired Emperor Saga’s Song of the Blue Mountains (Koreyoshi no Harumichi) 198 219–20 Song of the Fisherman: Five Unclassified Poems (Retired Emperor Saga) (#4) 200 (#5) 201 229 A Poem Written in Irregular Meter to Match “Song of Tea” by Kose, Governor of Izumo ([Lady] Koreuji) 202

Denshi kashū 田氏家集 (The Shimada Poetry Collection, ca. 892): Verse by Shimada no Tadaomi

2

A Poem Presented to “Funa-,” Holder of the Flourishing Talent (Shūsai) Degree, Written on a Visit to Master Shimada’s Homestead 204 Looking at the Snow in the Palace 206 In Attendance at a Palace Banquet Held in Early Spring, We Composed Poems on the Topic “All Things Are Encountering Spring,” by Imperial Command 207

38 41

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A Late Spring Gathering of Fellow Students, Held to Enjoy the Last of the Flowers in the Garden 209 52 Enlightened Thoughts on a Spring Day at a Country Temple 210 77 Keeping Company with the Bamboo 210 213 [Untitled] 211

Kanke bunsō 菅家文藻 (The Sugawara Literary Works, 900) and Kanke kōshū 菅家後集 (The Second Sugawara Collection, 903): Verse by Sugawara no Michizane

39

Five Poems: On the evening of the Fifteenth of the Eighth Month we waited for the moon to appear. Everyone at the party was assigned a rhyme word. (#1) 214 (#2) 217 (#3) 218 (#4) 218 (#5) 219 42 Sitting Together and Speaking Our Minds 219 54 Enjoying the Autumn Flowers 220 81 At the Mid-Spring Classical Seminar for Confucius, Listening to a Lecture on Xiaojing (The Classic of Filial Piety) 222 95 On the Road: My Feelings upon Seeing the Former Residence of Consultant Minamoto no Tsutomu 223 176 On Choosing a Place to Live 223 179–82 Four Summer Quatrains: (#1) Suffering in the Heat 224 (#2) Hearing the Cicadas 225 (#3) Young Bamboo 225 (#4) Sand Garden 226 198 Recently a visitor from the capital came to this province. He recited a quatrain, a poem by Governor Kose of Echizen about how he had dreamed of me here in Sanuki one autumn night … 227 273 Rising at Dawn and Gazing at the Mountains 228 276 Facing the Snow While Living Away from Home 228 301 Lamenting My Grey Hair 229 321 Dwelling in Idleness 231 323 Sentiments Expressed on a Spring Day at the House Where the Late Minister of the Right Once Lived 231 361 Facing the Moon on a Frosty Night 232 376 Enjoying the Plum Blossoms: Written by Imperial Command 233 394 Willow Fluff 234 468 Written by Imperial Command at a Palace Banquet in Early Spring; Everyone Composed a Poem Using the Phrase “Fragrant Breeze” 234 487 Light Snowfall on the Eastern Hills 235 512 End of the Ninth Month 236 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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Kikeshū 紀家集 (The Ki Family Collection, ca. 911–19): Verse by Ki no Haseo

3 5 6 15 17 18

Lament for the Fallen Flowers 237 Written in the Style of “The Woodpecker Tune” 240 A Poem to My Sons and Grandsons 242 Sitting Peacefully, Enjoying the Autumnal Waters 242 Looking for a Man of the Mountains But Not Finding Him 243 In Attendance at a Banquet on the Ninth, I Witnessed His Majesty Presenting Chrysanthemums to the Assembled Courtiers; Written by Imperial Command 244 On the morning after the Ninth, while in attendance at a banquet in the Suzakuin, we each wrote a poem using the line “Our thoughts on autumn while among cold pine trees” at the Retired Emperor’s command. 245

26



Fusōshū 扶桑集 (An Anthology of Poetry from the Land of Fusang, ca. 995–98): Compiled by Ki no Tadana

1

Grieving for the Presented Scholar Fujiwara: A Poem Offered to the Household Staff of the Eastern Pavilion (Sugawara no Michizane) 250 29 During a three-day stay in the mountains, we each wrote a poem on the line “The green valley is his home.” (Takaoka no Tomotsune) 252 30–31 Ono and I wrote eleven poems back and forth to each other. After our exchange there were still some thoughts I had not yet disclosed, so I have written two more poems to convey them. (Koreyoshi no Harumichi) (#1) 255 (#2) 257 32 (#1 of series) To the talented scholar Tachibana: We recently met at a mountain temple. “Pure Conversation” ensued in a relaxed fashion as we discussed poetry and Buddhism. In both fields you are thoroughly knowledgeable; I am not your equal … (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 258 33 (#2) Though undeserving, I was presented with a new poem written by you, Middle Captain Minamoto of the Right Imperial Bodyguards, and I could not help bowing twice! I now presume to offer my humble thoughts. (Tachibana no Aritsura) 261 34 (#3) The talented scholar Tachibana responded to my clumsy poem, and I have written in reply to offer thanks, using the same rhymes. (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 265

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(#4) A further poem offered to match the one I was presented by you, Middle Captain Minamoto of the Right Imperial Bodyguards. (Tachibana no Aritsura) 267 (#5) To the talented scholar Tachibana: You’ve presented me with another poem … In the course of all this praise and lamentation, we have written five poems using the original rhyme words. (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 269 (#6) Middle Captain Minamoto: You keep turning out poetic masterpieces! These stunningly magnificent and rare jewels are unparalleled in the world … Overcome by feelings and emotions, I have once more stitched together the following piece of chaff. (Tachibana no Aritsura) 270 (#7) Middle Captain Minamoto: You’re like a dragon hesitating to leap and remaining in the depths. In our poetic exchanges I have often lamented this … Thus, I have written the following poem, with the original rhyme words, presuming to offer my humble opinions. (Tachibana no Aritsura) 272 (#8) To the talented scholar Tachibana: You believe that I have let slip the opportunity to advance, and your response poems often mention this. I beg to differ, explaining my reasons in a reply that once again uses our original rhyme words. (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 274 (#9) Another Matching Poem (Tachibana no Aritsura) 276 (#10) Another Poem in the Series, with “Group” as a Rhyme Word (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 278 (#11) Another Poem, Using “Hear” as a Rhyme Word (Tachibana no Aritsura) 279 (#12) Another Poem, Using “Literature” as a Rhyme Word (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 281 (#13) Another Poem, Using “Literature” as a Rhyme Word (Tachibana no Aritsura) 283 (#14) Another Poem, Using “Clouds” as a Rhyme Word (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 284 (#15) Another Poem, Using “Group” as a Rhyme Word (Tachibana no Aritsura) 286 (#16) Another Poem, Using “Hear” as a Rhyme Word (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 287 (#17) Another Poem, Using “Clouds” as a Rhyme Word (Tachibana no Aritsura) 289 (#18) Another Poem I Sent (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 291 (#19) Yet Another (Tachibana no Aritsura) 292

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51 52 53 54 58

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(#20) Yet Another (Tachibana no Aritsura) 293 (#21) Yet Another Poem (Minamoto no Fusaakira) 294 (#22) Yet Another (Tachibana no Aritsura) 296 Yesterday I received from you, our talented scholar Abe, a poem revealing your thoughts … I was deeply moved and am writing once again to match your verse. (Tachibana no Aritsura) 297 Master Ryū, holder of the fifth rank, is one of the greatest talents of our age. After writing a history of our nation, he asked me to compose a poem for it. So I have written the following four-rhyme verse, to be appended at the end of his text. (Koreyoshi no Harumichi) 299 Vice-Envoy Ono: You are one of the greatest scholars of our time. You often recite my poetry, and I have undeservedly received praise for being special and so on … Thus, I have composed and sent to you the following poem with six rhymes to express my thanks. (Koreyoshi no Harumichi) 300



Honchō reisō 本朝麗藻 (Poetic Masterpieces from Our Court, ca. 1010): Compiled by Takashina no Moriyoshi

22 23 29

The Trees in Bloom Are Familiar to Everyone (Prince Tomohira) 304 Same Title as the Previous Poem (Ōe no Mochitoki) 307 Fourth Month, Weather Not Yet Completely Hot (Fujiwara no Kintō) 309 Spreading out the Mats, Waiting for Guests to Arrive (Ōe no Mochitoki) 311 A Poem Written in Early Autumn Using the Topic-Line “Autumn Begins with the Mats” (Prince Tomohira) 312 Visiting the Area Above Onjōji Temple Late in the Year (Ōe no Mochitoki) 313 Feeling Deeply Moved After Learning that a Lady-in-Waiting in the Ministry of Popular Affairs Has Taken Buddhist Vows (Fujiwara no Korechika) 316 A Poem Written in Response to One by Lord Takashina of the Ministry of Popular Affairs About How He Dreamed Again of the Former Imperial Tutor Bai [Juyi] from the Tang Dynasty (Prince Tomohira) 317 Meeting Imperial Tutor Bai [Juyi] and Chancellor Yuan Zhen in a Dream (Takashina no Moriyoshi) 319

38 49 72 79 116

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132 134 135

141 154

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For Drinking Wine, Autumn is the Best Time of Year (Takashina no Moriyoshi) 320 I Feel Better When Drunk Than When Sober (Fujiwara no Suketada) 322 Here in seclusion I heard that on two occasions you, Provisional Middle Captain of the Left Imperial Bodyguards, took pleasure trips on the Uji River. I have attempted to relate some of my inner feelings, and as your subordinate I submit these to you in confidence. (Fujiwara no Kintō) 324 Another Poem (Fujiwara no Tametoki) 325 The former Governor of Mino has repeatedly gone back and forth to visit me during my illness. I feel enormously grateful and have written this poem to thank him. (Fujiwara no Arikuni) 327 Recently, the Chamberlain and the Senior Assistant Director of the Board of Censors went and parked their carriage near the front of the prison. They made a comprehensive inspection of the inmates and gave them food to relieve their hunger … News of this having reached my ears, I am now adding a poem of my own. (Minamoto no Tamenori) 329 Written on Behalf of a Man from the Island of Uruma, to Express his Gratitude for the Emperor’s Kindness (Minamoto no Tamenori) 330 I was dismissed from my post but have recently been restored to the third rank … I have humbly set forth some thoughts in an attempt to convey my feelings to those who would understand. (Fujiwara no Arikuni) 332



Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū 中右記部類紙背漢詩集 (A Collection of Kanshi Written on the Reverse Side of the Classified Edition of the Chūyūki Diary, twelfth century)

4

Verses in heptasyllabic lines: On a winter’s day, everyone wrote on the topic-line “white snow blankets the pines in the courtyard” in the study of the ex-officio governor of Inaba. (#1) (Ōe no Iekuni) 336 (#2) (Fujiwara no Atsumoto) 340 (#3) (Taira no Suketoshi) 341 On a summer’s day, everyone wrote on the topic-line “the wind among the pines makes it feel like autumn.” (#1) ( Fujiwara no Atsumoto) 342

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On a winter’s day, everyone wrote on the topic-line “the pond is visible through the pines.” (#7) (Taira no Suketoshi) 343 (#8) (Koremune no Hirochika) 345 Verses in heptasyllabic lines: During a royal excursion south of the capital in early summer, everyone wrote poems on the topic-line “pine trees near the pond.” (#2) (Minamoto no Ason Toshifusa) 346 (#4) (Minamoto no Ason Tsunenobu) 348 (#9) (Fujiwara no Ason Yukiie) 350 On an autumn night, everyone wrote poems on the topic-line “drinking and viewing the bright moon.” (#4) (Tachibana no Munesue) 351 (#6) (Koremune no Nakachika) 352 (#7) (Koremune no Hirochika) 353



Hosshōji-dono gyoshū 法性寺殿御集 (A Collection of Poems by the Lord of Hosshōji, 1145): Verse by Fujiwara no Tadamichi

7 18 20 41 42 51 54 64

Fallen Blossoms in Abundance, Floating on the Water 356 In the Moonlight I Am Able to Escape the Summer Heat 358 Dark the Grove, Hard to See the Moon 359 Nighttime, the Sound of Insects Chirping 360 The Noise of Crickets Fills the Steps and the Garden 361 In the Snow: The Musings of an Old Man 362 The Wheels Turn and the Time Is Finally Here 363 On a day off work I went out to enjoy the late autumn scenery. The novelty of the seasonal attractions inspired me … I recorded a few of my thoughts and now present the following poem to Right Middle Controller Minamoto. 364 To My Literary Friends 365 I heard that on account of illness the senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial has taken Buddhist vows. I am overwhelmed by sadness. What follows is a rough account of how I feel. 366 An Impromptu Poem Written on a Spring Night 367

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Poems by Title



Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩 (Poems from Our Court Without Allusive Titles, 1162–64): Compiled by Fujiwara no Tadamichi and Others

25 49 50 68

The Moon Slow to Appear (Fujiwara no Atsumitsu) 368 Poem on Roses (Fujiwara no Atsumitsu) 371 Poem on Roses (Priest Renzen) 373 Written After Hearing that a Merchant from China Had Presented a Parrot as a Gift (Ōe no Sukekuni) 374 A Poem on the Cuckoo (Nakahara no Hirotoshi) 376 The Puppeteers (Fujiwara no Shigeakira) 378 A Poem About a Fisherman, Written While Traveling in the Kayō Area (Fujiwara no Michinori) 380 At my mountain home the snow lies deep. The path is already cut off, no one comes to visit … Now that the year is coming to an end, my thoughts turn to the poignancy of growing old. (Sugawara no Ariyoshi) 382 There is a farmhouse, and the host and his guests are chatting in a carefree fashion. The reed blinds are rolled up, and people are looking out on a path leading through the countryside … Old rustics are helping out by bringing casks of sake and straining it—a joyous scene! The sun is gradually sinking. (Fujiwara no Atsumoto) 384 All the blossoms are in full bloom. Crowds of people are scrambling to go and see them. Beneath a long bridge light carriages are parked. (Fujiwara no Chikamitsu) 385 By a pond there is a pavilion, and in the pavilion some people reading. There is a narrow path flanked by pines, and beneath the pines there are cranes. A priest has arrived on a boat; he has a goose with him … In the foreground, there is a front yard where beds have been set out. (Fujiwara no Michinori) 386 Enjoying the Moon (Fujiwara no Atsumitsu) 387 Enjoying the Moon at My Mountain Home (Priest Renzen) 389 Written Impromptu in Early Spring (Fujiwara no Tadamichi) 390 Written Impromptu on a Spring Day (Fujiwara no Shigeakira) 391 Written Impromptu on a Spring Night (Sannomiya [Prince Sukehito]) 392 Speaking My Mind on a Spring Night (Fujiwara no Munemitsu) 394 Relating My Thoughts at the End of the Third Month (Fujiwara no Atsumitsu) 395 Written Impromptu on a Summer Day (Fujiwara no Atsumitsu) 398

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265 274 293

Written Impromptu on a Summer Day (Fujiwara no Atsumitsu) 399 Three Autumn Poems: #3 (Fujiwara no Tadamichi) 400 A Quiet Conversation on an Autumn Night (Fujiwara no Akihira) 401 302 Written Impromptu in Late Autumn (Fujiwara no Akihira) 403 321 A Casual Poem Written in Early Winter (Priest Renzen) 404 328 Written Impromptu on a Winter Day (Fujiwara no Sanenori) 405 333 Speaking My Mind on a Winter Night (Fujiwara no Tadamichi) 406 334 Speaking My Mind on a Winter Night (Fujiwara no Shigeakira) 407 335 A Casual Poem Written on a Winter Night (Ōe no Masafusa) 408 343 Written Impromptu Near the End of the Year (Nakahara no Hirotoshi) 411 351 A Refined Conversation Beside the Brazier (Priest Renzen) 412 354 A Quiet Conversation Beside the Brazier (Priest Renzen) 413 357 At Leisure, Enjoying the Cool (Fujiwara no Chikamitsu) 413 359 Relating My Thoughts (Ōe no Masafusa) 414 360 Written While Ill (Ōe no Masafusa) 416 362 I was informed that some of our distinguished colleagues in the profession planned to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Master Miyoshi, professor of mathematics, with a poetry banquet. Deeply moved, I just went ahead and wrote the following poem. (Fujiwara no Shigeakira) 417 363 A Casual Poem Tossed Off in an Idle Moment: Written Simply to Ameliorate the Melancholy of Old Age (Fujiwara no Shigeakira) 418 373 Written Impromptu on an Autumn Day at a Pondside Pavilion (Fujiwara no Arinobu) 419 375 Written Impromptu in Summer at a Pavilion Near a Spring (Fujiwara no Chikamitsu) 420 386 Early Winter, Gazing Afar from a Pavilion in the Woods (Sannomiya [Prince Sukehito]) 422 401 Written Impromptu at a Country House South of the City in Late Autumn (Koremune no Takatoki) 423 431 Going on a Winter Day to the Mountain Village of Ono for a Taste of Rural Life (Fujiwara no Sanenori) 424 432 At a Country Villa, Gazing Afar in Autumn (Priest Renzen) 425 434 Written Impromptu at Shirakawa Palace in Late Autumn (Fujiwara no Sanenori) 426 439–42 Recently I headed to Umezu, and yesterday morning I passed through Uji … I shall attempt to describe what I have observed in

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464 465 470 477 522 523 524 599 764

Poems by Title

order to enlighten anyone unfamiliar with these places. (Fujiwara no Tadamichi) (#1) Umezu 427 (#2) Uji 429 (#3) Yamashina 430 (#4) The Journey Back 430 The Joys of Spring at My Mountain Home (Priest Renzen) 431 Spring Thoughts at My Home in the Mountains (Fujiwara no Chikamitsu) 432 An Autumn Day at My Home in the Mountains, Gazing Afar (Fujiwara no Atsumitsu) 433 Autumn Inspirations: At a Rustic Inn (Priest Renzen) 434 On a winter’s day I went to the old Higashiyama residence that belonged to the former master of the Right Office of the Capital. Compelled by what I saw and heard, I wrote this poem, tears streaming down my face. (Priest Renzen) 435 On Passing My Former Home in Yamashiro Province (Nakahara no Hirotoshi) 437 Mountain Village in Late Autumn (Priest Renzen) 438 Early Autumn, Floating on the Nishi River (Ōe no Sukekuni) 438 Staying in Nagato Province at an Inn Near the Sea (Fujiwara no Michinori) 439 Visiting Chōrakuji Temple on a Spring Day (Fujiwara no Shigeakira) 440 Visiting Chōrakuji Temple on a Spring Day (Ōe no Masafusa) 441 Gazing Out from Chōrakuji Temple (Nakahara no Hirotoshi) 442 Written Impromptu on an Autumn Day at Zenrinji Temple (Fujiwara no Sanemitsu) 443 Speaking My Mind on a Summer Day at a Buddhist Temple (Fujiwara no Chikamitsu) 444

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Title Abbreviations for Kanshi Anthologies bksrs Bunka shūreishū cbsk Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū dsks Denshi kashū fss Fusōshū hcmds Honchō mudaishi hcrs Honchō reisō hdg Hosshōji dono gyoshū kfs Kaifūsō kkbs Kanke bunsō kkks Kanke kōshū kks Keikokushū ks Kikeshū (Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū) rus Ryōunshū srs Shōryōshū (Henjō hokki shōryō shū)

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Introduction 1

An Overview of Sinitic Verse in the Japanese Court

The subject of this book is the Nara and Heian tradition of versification in literary Sinitic: shi 詩, or kanshi 漢詩 (poetry in literary Sinitic) as this verse has come to be known in Japan since the late nineteenth century.1 Originally the preserve of Japanese court nobles, courtiers, and other educated elites, kanshi practice gradually extended across society to all corners of Japan over the centuries; by the time of its waning in the twentieth century this verse had been composed and exchanged among educated persons for over 1300 years, having retained its vitality and importance well into modern times. Versification in literary Chinese in its formal dimension was once central to the ritual pageantry and spectacle of aristocratic life, part of ceremonies and relationships governed by protocol and helping to perpetuate the traditional values and hierarchies of the court. “Communing” through verse was a means to enhancing social stability within the competitive and hierarchical society of the court, providing also a sense of continuity with the past and a connection with the larger Sinosphere. Throughout the Nara and Heian periods the imperial court remained the center of formal literary activity and creation, every event seeming to call for a poem appropriate to the occasion, generated in a manner largely dictated by convention and in accord with shared communal expectations. The adoption of Sinitic verse practices by the court was only one of many highly developed arts and institutions acquired through long and extensive contact and borrowing from other East Asian states. The history of relations between China and Japan stretches back at least to the second century; the period between the fifth and ninth centuries saw extensive borrowing by the ruling elite of the archipelago from China and the other polities of East Asia. In laying the foundations of a higher civilization, Japanese rulers and their courtiers looked to China as their primary source of political and economic institutions, laws, the arts, and religion, also adopting Sinitic as their official written language. The ancient peoples of Japan originally lacked a written script, acquiring Sinitic writing and literacy mainly via Korean experts in 1  “Kan” 漢 denotes China; here, more specifically, the Chinese language. The term “kanshi,” although most often used to refer to poetry in literary Sinitic composed in Japan, is also seen in reference to verse in literary Sinitic regardless of its place of origin. In China, hanshi 漢詩 refers both to the poetry of the Han dynasty and to Chinese poetry in general.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_002

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2

Introduction

a process that began around the second century. The earliest specimens of Chinese graphs recorded in Japan are kinsekibun 金石文 inscriptions incised on such objects as mirrors and swords, and dating from the third and fourth centuries.2 No less than the actual study of the Chinese canonical texts, including dynastic histories, the Confucian classics, and belles-lettres, the composition of Sinitic prose and verse came to be seen as an essential accoutrement of statecraft and good governance.3 As David Lurie notes, “[u]ntil the mid seventh century literacy remained the province of specialist scribes—migrants from the Korean peninsula and their descendants—who were employed by the Yamato kings …”4 As utilitarian writings and belles-lettres developed under their guidance and writing skills improved, the ability of courtiers to compose competently in various styles of literary Sinitic became a sine qua non for performing one’s daily duties and participating in the ritual events of public life. At the same time, kanshi composition came to enjoy imperial patronage and was elevated to a place of high prestige in palace ceremonies and other court events, being employed to celebrate the majesty of the emperor and signifying the attainment of a high level of literacy and cultural sophistication within the court. With its rich, dense brocade of ornate images and figures and its formidably regimented linear construction, Sinitic verse was a perfect medium for ceremonial occasions, serving also as an instrument for developing cordial and productive relations with diplomats in the course of missions to and from the Tang court and other East Asian states in the Sinosphere, notably Silla and later Parhae (Palhae 발해, Ch. Bohai 渤海, J. Bokkai). The Parhae missions were a vital source of advanced legal, administrative, and technical knowledge in virtually every discipline, at the same time elevating Japan’s diplomatic profile in the Tang court and helping the Japanese to stay abreast of important movements in East Asian political affairs. These relations were also indispensable

2  David B. Lurie, Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing (2011), pp. 2–3. Some of the earliest examples are considered “pseudo-inscriptions,” as Lurie notes. 3  An authoritative source on the role of education, historiography, texts and letters, as well as the importance of versification in building the administrative and ideological foundations of the imperial state is Man’yōshū and the Imperial Imagination in Early Japan (2014) by Torquil Duthie, from which we have acquired valuable insights. 4  David Lurie, “Introduction: writing, literacy, and the origins of Japanese literature,” in Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, with David Lurie, eds., The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature (2016), p. 16. A literatus from Paekche (Kudara) named Wani is said to have arrived in Japan around 400 to tutor the heir to the throne, other scholars coming on a regular basis during the following century to teach diverse specialties.

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Introduction

3

for the conduct of state trade, a fact sometimes overlooked.5 Japanese courtiers who had direct contact with foreign guests were expected to be able to compose suitably refined verses ex tempore or else risk embarrassment, especially if the guests were members of a “vassal” state, such as Parhae.6 Besides being written on almost all formal occasions at court, kanshi became an integral component of the leisure activities of the aristocracy, both in the presence of the emperor and in less formal and private settings, where poetry played a role in the conduct of personal relationships, serving as a solitary pursuit as well. Even during periods when formal versification ebbed at court, informal verse activities continued to flourish out of the public eye. Kanshi served an important interpersonal communicative function, becoming a vehicle for offering praise, sympathy, and words of gratitude, as well as for deflecting criticism and hinting at hoped-for favor. Today, Sinitic verse composed in both the public and private domains affords us rare glimpses into the lives of members of court society at every level: from sovereigns and princes down through nobles and courtiers to Academy students, Buddhist priests, and foreign visitors. 1.1 Terminology: “Shi” and “Kanshi” Historically, Japanese scholars simply referred to poetry written in Sinitic, no matter its place of origin, as shi 詩 (lyric poetry) or else shifu 詩賦 (the shi and fu genres), as seen in the preface to Kikuchi Gozan’s 菊池五山 (1769– 1849) Gozandō shiwa 五山堂詩話 (Gozan’s Discourse on Shi Verse, 1807), where the author observes at the outset of his essay that “discussing shifu is one of the pleasures enjoyed by poets” 詩賦を話するは詩人の楽事なり.7 Similarly, the title of Emura Hokkai’s 江村北海 (1713–88) monograph Nihon shi shi 日本詩史 (A History of the Japanese Shi, 1771), in qualifying the term shi with “Nihon,” points to his focus upon the domestic tradition of Sinitic verse 5  Douglas Sherwin Fuqua, “The Japanese Missions to Tang China and the Maritime Exchange in East Asia, 7th–9th Centuries,” Ph.D. diss. (2004), p. 117. Chapters 3–4 in Fuqua’s magisterial study provide a comprehensive account of formal relations between Japan, China, and other continental entities, reconstructing the history of official, “elite,” and private merchant trade among the states. 6  See Robert Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court (1994), p. 235 for the revealing story of one hapless Fujiwara no Yoshitsumu 藤原良積 who, during a diplomatic engagement in 883, proved unprepared to exchange verses with the Parhae ambassador and had to leave the room abruptly to spare himself embarrassment. Seeing Yoshitsumu’s predicament, the ambassador covered for him nicely, laying down his brush as if nothing had happened. His good grace and discretion won him a gift from the emperor himself. 7  For the Gozan passage, see Shimizu Shigeru, Ibi Takashi, and Ōtani Masao, eds., Nihon shi shi, Gozandō shiwa (1991), p. 157.

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Introduction

practice, while still retaining the age-old term shi. The word “kanshi” itself is a relatively recent innovation, appearing sometime during the early decades of the Meiji era; given its late origins, it is thus clearly an anachronism when applied to the earlier verse tradition. However, it remains in common use today and is employed in this volume as a simple expedient to denote Sinitic verse by Japanese poets. One of the earliest examples of its use is seen in the title of Shirai Atsuharu’s Kanshi sakuhō yōgaku benran 漢詩作法幼学便覧 (A Kanshi Composition Handbook for Elementary Education, 2 vols.), published in 1877. Another instance occurs in the preface to Jojōshi 抒情詩 (Lyric Verse, 1897) by Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908), where there is mention of the recitation of “kanshi” using the chokuyaku 直訳 (direct translation) method.8 The absence until modern times of a specific term to distinguish verse in literary Sinitic by Japanese poets from works by others in the Sinosphere suggests that the former tacitly viewed themselves as participants in a single, larger East Asian community composing in Sinitic.9 Despite the presence of certain domestic features,10 kanshi were generally comprehensible throughout the Sinosphere (to the limited extent that the poems found their way outside of Japan), and were being exchanged during diplomatic missions to and from the Sui and Tang courts as early as 607. By this time, literary Sinitic had gained a strong foothold as the written medium of the Yamato court. 1.2 Writing and the Foundation of the Yamato State Writing and the transmission of knowledge both directly from immigrant scholars and by means of canonical and utilitarian texts of Sinic origin formed the bedrock for the eventual construction of a cultural and administrative order in the ancient Yamato court. An important early impetus for the recording of texts was the introduction of Buddhism during the latter half of the sixth 8 

We have not found a reliable, contemporary usage of the term kanshi among Edo book titles in library databases. The use of “kanshi” was known during the Meiji era, as the above examples show, but not a single text featuring “kanshi” in the title can be seen among a large listing of some 1500 Meiji “kanshibun” works contained in Miura Kanō’s Meiji kanbun gakushi (1998), pp. 429–75. “Shi” and specific shi genres, such as the zekku (Ch. jueju 絶句, the quatrain) are invariably used instead. For an informative discussion of the terminology used to denote Chinese verse forms in Japan and elsewhere in the Sinosphere, and the Sinitic literary styles used in Japan, see Matthew Fraleigh, Plucking Chrysanthemums: Narushima Ryūkoku and Sinitic Literary Traditions in Modern Japan (2016), pp. 20–24. 9  Fraleigh, pp. 18, 20. 10  These would include the occasional presence of native and variant graphs, Japanese proper nouns, official nomenclature, certain idioms and neologisms, and various grammatical or syntactical irregularities.

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century, occasioning, as Lurie notes, the importation of “new kinds of texts and new modes of literacy,” even though such literary materials related to “narrow, specialized pursuits.”11 Prior to the mid-seventh century, writing in Japanese official life was still largely in the hands of immigrant specialists and their progeny, who served the Yamato rulers. But by around 650, a range of Sinitic written styles, as well as various forms of recording in Old Japanese using Sinographs both logographically and phonetically (and in orthographically mixed forms, too) were in use at court for official business and record-keeping. Writing was no longer the exclusive preserve of immigrant scribes and scholars; a local scribal elite rapidly emerged, mastering the use of written sources and beginning to create a literate culture in the archipelago. These materials, historical, literary, administrative, and legal, provided ideological and technical guidance and models for the establishment of a wide range of institutions and fostering the arts,12 helping to build a framework upon which the ruling elite could legitimize their developing political system as an imperial realm conceptually situated within a Chinese-style cosmological order. This orthodoxy, while often styled “Confucian,” was in reality an eclectic mix that drew upon a variety of ancient Chinese schools of statecraft and cosmology. But at the heart of the matter was the notion of a universe comprising the sacred trinity of heaven, earth, and a sovereign who served as the linchpin in this cosmic order, assisted by a bureaucracy engaged in the “grand undertaking” of administering the realm. As Torquil Duthie maintains, “… [T]he spread of literate culture to nonSinitic states meant that, just as literary Sinitic was the standard for writing, so the ideal of Sinic imperial rule that permeated Sinitic texts—classics and histories as well as dictionaries, classified encyclopedias, and all the basic texts of officialdom—became the ideal of government throughout the East Asian region.”13 Between the fifth and eighth centuries, relations among the various 11  Lurie, “Introduction,” The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature. For a more extensive account of the advent of writing and literacy in early Japan, see Lurie’s authoritative monograph, Realms of Literacy. 12  The blueprints for these early institutions were set forth in the Ōmiryō 近江令 codes (ca. 670) and the ritsuryō 律令 system of statutes and administrative ordinances of 681 and 689, later expanded in the Taihō Ritsuryō 大宝律令 codes of 701 and further revised in the Yōrō Ritsuryō 養老律令 codes, 718. These legal landmarks comprised a diverse and detailed body of laws for governing the realm, including rules for taxation and punishment as well as a template for the establishment of a civil service and an Academy of Higher Learning. Ritsuryō laws mandated the study of the classics and other Sinic texts at the Academy. 13  Duthie, p. 22; see also p. 85 on the surge in the use of Sinitic in the Yamato court during the final quarter of the seventh century, reflecting a rise in literacy and making possible

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Introduction

polities of the continent, the Korean peninsula, and the Japanese archipelago itself were greatly assisted by the use of Sinitic. As a written lingua franca, literary Sinitic embraced various localized forms of wenyan 文言 (often loosely called classical or literary Chinese), which were utilized for governance and administration, scholarship, and formal belles-lettres. The varieties of literary Sinitic employed from one country to another were by no means identical. As Peter Kornicki explains: In East Asia the role of cosmopolitan language was played by the written language known as literary Chinese or Sinitic, which brought not only writing to the surrounding societies but also Buddhism, in the form of Chinese translations of the sacred texts and commentarial literature, and the whole range of Chinese literary production … It was thus in Sinitic that those living in the parts of the world that we now call Japan (including the kingdom of Ryūkyū, now Okinawa Prefecture in Japan), Korea, Vietnam and Palhae … read and wrote their first texts and in Sinitic that they continued to write their learned texts even after the development of scripts to write their own languages …14 With respect to styles of Sinitic language used in Japanese literary genres, many scholars employ the term “Sino-Japanese,” which we prefer to avoid because it seems inherently ambiguous and may imply that the language form being referenced is, as Kornicki observes, “a variety of Japanese influenced by Chinese.”15 He notes: “[T]he binary opposition of ‘a kind of Chinese’ and ‘a kind of Japanese’ is itself unsatisfactory: we are not dealing with an eitheror, EITHER literary Chinese OR Japanese, but with a range of possibilities lying between, and the choices are as much ones of style and register as they are ones of language.”16 A further complexity is that the term Sino-Japanese is also used by some to loosely refer to wakan konkōbun 和漢混淆文, the “mixed Chinese-Japanese styles” that became popular in certain later Heian vernacular literary genres and remained in use thereafter, these reflecting the influence of imported Chinese vocabulary, orthography (that is, a mixed kanji 漢字 / what Duthie calls “the ideal configuration of the Yamato state as an imperial realm in law codes, myths, histories, and poetic anthologies.” 14  Kornicki, “Vernacularization in East Asia,” a project summary, http://www.research.ames .cam.ac.uk/research-groups/japanese-korean-studies-rg/Japanese-korean-studies-rg -projects/Kornicki (Nov. 2017). See also Kornicki, “A note on Sino-Japanese: a question of terminology,” in Sino-Japanese Studies 17 (2010): pp. 29–44. 15  Kornicki, “A note on Sino-Japanese,” p. 32. 16  Ibid.

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kana 仮名 native script), and even grammatical locutions derived from Sinitic texts largely via kundoku 訓読 reading methods (see below), where the native Japanese matrix had been radically modified by “Sino” elements.17 During the centuries following its adoption in Japan, Sinitic underwent a degree of domesticization into variant Sinitic styles (hentai kanbun 変体 漢文), particularly in prose forms (and in some genres more than others), with texts that display idiosyncratic, hybrid language amalgams coming to coexist alongside those utilizing near-orthodox varieties that closely emulated literary Chinese models. While the evolution of local styles of literary Sinitic was a multiform and gradual process, the decline of the Tang dynasty and the cessation of direct official contact with China in the mid-ninth century almost certainly accelerated both the hybridization of literary Sinitic into variant styles and the popularization of kunten 訓点 (native gloss-marked) Sinitic texts.18 The “variant” Sinitic styles show a marked debt to vernacular forms as 17  We note that there are also specialized, often ambiguous linguistic usages of the term Sino-Japanese to denote certain “nativized norms for pronouncing kanji” and Sinitic loanwords adopted into the vernacular (both in written and spoken contexts) via domestic traditions of “reading out” Chinese texts. See Bjarke Frellesvig, A History of the Japanese Language (2010), pp. 274–79 et seq. 18  Kurozumi Makoto writes that the decline of the Tang dynasty and the weakening of its cultural leadership helped to precipitate the growth of native writing systems (and, we note, localized reading methods) throughout the Sinosphere. Kurozumi observes that as expedited reading strategies based on native graph glosses and other coded symbols (kunten) acquired currency in Japan, having been imported from Korea during the seventh and eighth centuries, “a new generation grew up within the native language and no longer read kanbun [prose in literary Chinese—eds.] directly.” See Kurozumi, “Writing and Institutional Authority” (trans. David Lurie), p. 206, ch. 8, in Inventing the Classics: Modernity, National Identity, and Japanese Literature (2000), ed. by Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki.    Kunten-glossing systems entered Japan from Korea during the seventh and eighth centuries, with the use of kunten-marked texts appearing in the Academy curriculum in the tenth century, based on diacritic traditions used by Enryakuji and other Tendai temples the century before (Brian Steininger, Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice [2017], p. 144). The employment of these methods accelerated the conversion of Sinitic texts into a more readable native idiom, a sort of translationese that resided “between the lines” of the original text. Techniques for reading Sinitic by Japanese gloss, so-called kundoku, developed over the centuries in diverse ways, but generally these entailed such methods as: (1) the insertion of kana (native phonetic graphs) alongside kanji (Sinographs) to provide needed Japanese morphological elements and to show how to voice Chinese words using Japanese glosses; and (2) the use of dots or symbols to help rearrange the syntax into Japanese sentence structure.    Concerning kundoku traditions and their significance in the development of literacy, see Lurie, Realms of Literacy, ch. 4, and Brian Steininger, “Poetic Ministers: Literacy and Bureaucracy in the Tenth-Century State Academy,” Ph.D. diss. (2010), pp. 41–74, together with his Chinese Literary Forms, ch. 4 and ch. 5. Christopher Seeley, A History of Writing in

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Introduction

well as to the hybrid kundoku mode, as practiced both as a reading method and a writing style.19 Straddling both languages, these styles defy easy characterization but are perhaps best exemplified by courtier diaries (kuge nikki 公家日記), whose domesticized Sinitic forms comprise complex admixtures of Japanese grammatical locutions, syntactical patterns, lexical items (including honorifics), and even Japanese phonetic graphs (for citing waka, for example), all intermingled in diverse ways yet married to a literary Sinitic core. Adding yet another layer of complexity to these localized styles was their inclusion of colloquialisms from both Sinitic and vernacular styles. In short, the entity we call literary Sinitic branched out over time to include a range of variant local styles, a continuum within which characteristics derived both from the vernacular and from Sinitic forms were intermingled. These varied according to period, genre and compositional context, and also the background and training of individual writers. In view of these complexities and the absence of anything approaching a monolithic Sinitic entity, the overarching term “literary Sinitic” must be seen as, at best, a blunt axe, used faute de mieux. The Sinitic predominantly used in Nara and Heian kanshi is situated at the more orthodox end of this spectrum, while displaying occasional irregularities or “differences” in lexicon, usage, and word order. Deviations from typical Chinese syntactical norms are more noticeable in the works of certain Heian poets, especially in informal verse from the tenth century onward,20 although these irregularities can be difficult to identify in all cases as purely domestic in origin. Addressing the style of the mid- to late-ninth-century poet Sugawara no Michizane in particular, Kawaguchi Hisao offers several of what he considers washū 和習 usages (localized diction, syntax, or grammar showing Japan (1991), is another rich source of information on early writing and reading systems in Japan. 19  With reference to variant forms of Sinitic, Lurie applies the term “mixed logographic writing,” observing: “The structural hallmark of these styles is simultaneous use of elements of the grammar of literary Chinese—especially particles but also word order—along with the grammar of Japanese, the influence of which is usually explicit in Object-Verb ordering of phrases and implicit in the kundoku process that governs the entire text. Inasmuch as the arrangement of characters is at times consistent with the rules of literary Chinese and at times not, this could be called a mixture, but both arrangements are recuperated into the Japanese order when the text is read via kundoku.” See Lurie, ibid., p. 182. The significant impact of kundoku practices upon the development of variant styles of Chinese is lucidly explained on pp. 180–84 et seq. For an overview of hybridized “variant” styles of Sinitic in the Japanese court, see also Judith N. Rabinovitch, “An Introduction to Variant Chinese, a Hybrid Sinico-Japanese Used by the Male Elite in Pre-Modern Japan,” Journal of Chinese Linguistics 24.1 (Jan. 1996): pp. 98–127. 20  Word order anomalies and idiosyncratic usages are particularly evident, for example, in the poetry of Fusōshū (995–98) and Honchō reisō (1010).

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native adaptation): for example, Michizane’s use of 雖 (glossed as to iedomo).21 Some, however, are in a grey area and often on closer inspection turn out to be Sui-Tang colloquialisms, typically acquired via the works of Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846). Bai’s style also contributed to a certain rambly vernacular quality in mid-Heian (and later) kanshi diction, particularly in heptasyllabic verse.22 As Konishi Jin’ichi observes, “… [T]he plainness of Po’s [Bai Juyi’s] style (in the narrow sense), a characteristic criticized as typical of ‘frivolous Yüan and vulgar Po,’ resulted in a loss of poetic tension. Poets moved toward cruder expression rather than freer versification.”23 The use of such diction was likely often intentional, part of a conscious effort to develop a casual tone.24 1.3 Kanshi Subgenres, Prosody, and Technique The vast majority of Nara and Heian kanshi belong to one of the four subgenres of shi 詩 (Sinitic lyric poetry), which include siyan shi 四言詩 (tetrasyllabic verse); yuefu 樂府 (Music Bureau ballads), a kind of folk or pseudo-folk verse; gushi 古詩 (“old-style” poetry); and jinti shi 近題詩 (“recent style” or “regulated” verse). Prose-poems (fu 賦) were occasionally written, ci 詞 (song lyrics in mixed meter) scarcely at all.25 The oldest shi date back to around the beginning of the first millennium bce and are preserved in the canonical Shijing 詩經 (The Classic of Odes, China’s earliest poetic anthology). This verse mainly employed the tetrasyllabic line (rarely seen among Heian kanshi), a meter which by the early centuries of the Common Era was giving way to five- and (later) seven-character lines. Kanshi overwhelmingly took the form of quatrains or octaves, in either fiveor seven-character meter. In Kaifūsō, the stately, formal-seeming five-word 21  See Kawaguchi Hisao, Heianchō no kanbungaku (1981), pp. 76–97. 22  This characteristic is by no means peculiar to kanshi but seems even more prevalent in Heian poetry than in compositions by Chinese poets. Redundant items include xu zi 虚字 (“empty” words), such as prepositions and conjunctions; other instances involve tautology. 23  Konishi Jin’ichi, A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 2: The Early Middle Ages (1986), trans. Aileen Gatten, with Earl Miner, ed., p. 167. 24  For more on Bai’s style, especially the casual quality of the diction in many of his poems (the later ones in particular) and their tendency toward looseness of expression, even redundancy, see Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860) (2006), pp. 45–47. 25  For further details on the major forms of shi, see Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry: From Late Tang to Northern Sung (1980), pp. 210–12; see also Judith N. Rabinovitch and Timothy R. Bradstock, trans. and eds., Dance of the Butterflies: Chinese Poetry from the Japanese Court Tradition (2005), pp. 13–14. For more on ci, see note 36, below.

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meter accounts for ninety-three percent of the verse, but by the age of the Saga anthologies the proportion of each had roughly equalized, and gradually, by the late tenth century, heptasyllabic lines had become by far the most popular meter for regulated verse composition. The poets introduced few, if any, formal innovations, evidently finding the existing continental models adequate for their needs. From around 800, poems written in pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic meter in the Japanese court complied to varying degrees with the generic rules associated with xinti shi 新體詩 (“new-style” verse), a term used in contradistinction to “old-style” verse (gushi 古詩), which did not adhere to new compositional rules. This verse gradually emerged from the late fifth century onward, reaching maturity during the early eighth century as “regulated verse” (lüshi 律詩, J. risshi; also called jinti shi. By this time, regulated verse had become strictly codified with respect to lineation, end-rhyme selection, poem structure, and, most prominently, tonal prosody. Although the majority of regulated poems were either four or eight lines in length, longer works, known as pailü 排律 (J. hairitsu), were also composed. Lines were generally end-stopped, but enjambment is also seen, and the fundamental unit, perhaps more so than the line, was the couplet. Thus, a quatrain (jueju 絶句, J. zekku) was primarily thought of as two couplets and the octave (hachiku rishi 八句律詩) as four, each couplet being subject to generic expectations concerning their structural function and relationship to one another; a discussion of the so-called “tripartite” and “quadripartite” models of narrative development follows further on. At the linear level, a five-word line is most commonly divisible into a two-word syntactic segment followed by one with three. In heptasyllabic verse the pattern is more complex, but “four up [i.e. first], then three down” is the usual rule, with the initial four-word unit often subdivisible into two units of two. In later Heian kanshi, the two-then-five pattern is occasionally seen in heptasyllabic verse. Very prosy lines are sometimes impossible to separate into discrete syntactic units, as some of our verse selections show. Even-numbered lines in regulated verse exhibited end-rhyme, always employing a level-tone word, with the first line occasionally included in the rhyme scheme. Complex rules evolved governing the distribution and patterning of level and deflected tone words within each line, fixing the tonal relationship not only among words in a line but also with those correlates in the other line of the same couplet. Words were arranged in patterns of mirror-opposition across the adjacent couplet lines; for example, two level tone words appearing side by side were matched by two deflected tone words in the same position in the other line. In a heptasyllabic octave, the second and fourth graphs within a line were required to be in different tonal categories, while the second and

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11

sixth had to be in the same tonal category. Further, between two lines in a middle couplet, opposing tonal categories had to be used in the correlated second, fourth, and sixth positions. However, in the case of the second line of a couplet and the first line in the next couplet the same tonal categories were used in these positions, so as to bind the two units together. The overall objective of tonal patterning was euphony, achieved through maximum auditory contrast and the avoidance of monotony. Stuart Sargent summarizes these conventions, with reference to Chinese regulated verse in general as follows: … [R]egulated lines avoid awkward sequences of tones or too many syllables strung together with the same tone; regulated poems follow rules by which lines are pleasingly balanced again each other by relationships of contrast within couplets; couplets “adhere” to each other by relationships of identity between the adjoining lines.26 Above all, jarring aural combinations were anathema, including the so-called “wasp-waist” fault of sandwiching a level-tone word between two deflected ones, this being just one of many tonal “ills” that were expressly forbidden. Poetic manuals grouped words into rhyme categories, poets often relying on these works for guidance in selecting mutually compatible rhyme words and avoiding errors, which were nonetheless common.27 The degree of compliance with the rules of tonal prosody varies considerably among Heian-period regulated verse; Ryōunshū (814), which contains 91 poems, illustrates various kinds of tonal deviation that were not uncommon. Matsuura Tomohisa’s research finds that among 70 poems that resemble the modern style at least in their basic form and rhyme implementation only 26  Stuart Sargent, The Poetry of He Zhu (1052–1125): Genres, Contexts, and Creativity (2007), p. 9. See p. 10 on the phenomenon of ‘unregulated’ lines within regulated verse which he explains are common, with various means of “compensating” for violations. 27  For general information on tonal prosody and other features of regulated verse, see, for example, James Liu, The Art of Chinese Poetry (1962), pp. 26–31; William H. Nienhauser, Jr., ed., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (1986), pp. 682–89; and Zong-qi Cai, How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology (2008), ch. 8–10 on the regulated styles. Rabinovitch and Bradstock, Butterflies, pp. 15–20 offers some remarks concerning the prosodic rules of regulated verse and the varying degrees of compliance with these in Heian kanshi.    Students of linguistics will find the following articles of interest: A. C. Graham, “Structure and License in Chinese Regulated Verse,” Journal of Chinese Linguistics 8.1 (January 1980); Donna Jo Napoli, “The Tonal System of Chinese Regulated Verse,” Journal of Chinese Linguistics 19.2 (June 1991); and Ping Xue, “Prosodic Constituents and the Tonal Structure of Chinese Regulated Verse,” Linguistic Inquiry 20.4 (Autumn 1989).

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Introduction

thirteen fully conform to the rules of tonal prosody.28 Another irregularity, which involved an older style of rhyming called tsūin 通韻 (designating rhymes that are phonetically close but not in the same rhyme category) can be seen in five of the Ryōunshū poems.29 But such deviations from the exacting rules of tonal prosody are by no means characteristic of kanshi alone; a lack of strict adherence to the rules is also seen in Tang regulated verse.30 Quite apart from the requirements surrounding phonic parallelism, which was created through tonal patterning, poets composing regulated verse also had to implement grammatical parallelism in the middle couplets. Parallelism relied upon the construction of close pairs of correlatives—including both semantic likenesses and antithetical elements—which served to bind the matching or contrasting elements.31 Each word in the line of a middle couplet was required to correlate with its counterpart in the same position in the other line; this center portion of a poem was the focus of interest, since the most creative crafting occurred here. Parallel couplets tend to be descriptive rather than narrative; and as Cai Zong-qi notes, “[A] poem’s middle part often functions to suspend the temporal flow and allow for an intense perception and reflection in the timeless lyrical present. References to a specific time and place seldom occur in this middle part.”32 28  Matsuura speculates that some of the conforming verses were emended in the process of textual copying over the ages. Among the non-conforming examples, some were probably not composed as regulated verses in the first place. See “Ryōunshū no shitai” (ge), Kokubungaku kenkyū 24 (Sept. 1961): pp. 18–19. 29  Ibid., p. 13. 30  Tonal irregularity is seen even among the works of Du Fu 杜甫 (712–70). Nathan Vedal in “Never Taking a Shortcut: Examination Poetry of the Tang Dynasty,” Tang Studies 33.1 (2015), p. 59, cites the research of San Duanmu and Nathan Stiennon, who found in their investigation of heptasyllabic verse in Tangshi sanbai shou (1763), which contains both lüshi and gushi, that “only 32% of the lines and 1% of the poems in that anthology conform to the strict rules of regulated prosody, while 95% of the lines and 68% of the poems conform to the modified 1-3-5 rule.” (This ‘rule’ constructed by linguists relates to the tonal behavior of words in positions 1, 3 and 5 of the line, which enjoyed varying degrees of tonal freedom.) For details, see Duanmu and Stiennon, “Tonal Patterns in Chinese Regulated Verse: a Corpus Study,” Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 3.1 (2005), pp. 1–32 and Napoli, pp. 50–59 (on the 1-3-5 rule). 31  For an overview of this technique, see James Robert Hightower’s classic study “Some Characteristics of Parallel Prose,” in Soren Egerod and Else Glahn, eds., Studio Serica Bernhard Karlgren Dedicata (1959); rpt. in John L. Bishop, ed., Studies in Chinese Literature (1965). Hightower treats six main types of parallelism: reiteration, synonymy, antonymy, “likes,” “unlikes,” and “formal pairs.” For a succinct treatment that includes a well-explained example of parallelism in a quatrain, see Burton Watson’s The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century (1984), pp. 9–11. 32  Cai, p. 165.

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The technical manual Bunkyō hifuron 文鏡秘府論 (The Secret Treasury of Poetic Mirrors, ca. 819), by Priest Kūkai, identifies twenty-nine varieties of parallelism, treating this feature as the hallmark of “literary” writing, and remarking, “If one consistently uses non-parallel [constructions], it is not ultimately literary writing (if it is never parallel, then it is no different from common language).”33 Sakumon daitai 作文大體, a mid-Heian Sinitic composition manual (see below), streamlines its description of parallelism into eight major kinds, highlighting three of what it describes as the most commonly-used strategies, these based on color or number correspondences or sound similarities between opposed correlates.34 While kanshi poets nearly always employed parallelism, one of the most creative craftsmen was Sugawara no Michizane, who experimented with alternate-line parallelism in longer poems, with correlates found in lines 1 and 3, 2 and 4, 5 and 7, and 6 and 8, in the case of octaves; Michizane’s teacher Shimada no Tadaomi also utilized this technique.35 In the Japanese court, this variety of parallelism was likely inspired by the poetry of Bai Juyi but had ancient origins, reaching back to Shijing. Separate from regulated verse is a diverse formal and thematic category of “unclassified” or “miscellaneous” poems known as zatsugon 雜言 or zatsuei 雜詠. These vary in length and are often in a mixed meter, being essentially “old-style” poems that do not follow the conventions and rules of regulated verse. The zatsugon category embraces a panoply of sundry topics: on the one hand, we find folkloric or idiosyncratic themes of a rather “uncourtly” nature, such as ghosts, bugs, or a shoulder of pork; on the other, there are examples composed at palace occasions that tend to be more conventional in theme and compositional setting but display some degree of formal irregularity. An example is a lengthy mixed-meter poem by Emperor Saga titled “Falling Leaves on the Ninth Day” (translated below). One relatively uncommon variety of zatsugon is represented by a series of fisherman songs in Keikokushū 經國集 33  Cited in Steininger, Chinese Literary Forms, p. 84. Bunkyō hifuron, a rare early treatise on literary theory and composition, draws upon many older, non-extant Chinese sources. 34  For a translation of this portion, see Steininger, ibid., pp. 236–37. 35  Gu Shanshan’s investigation finds eleven examples in the works of Michizane and two in Tadaomi’s corpus. See Gu Shanshan, “Heian zenki ni okeru Nihon kanshi bungaku no kenkyū,” Ph.D. diss. (2014), p. 35; see pp. 35–44 for a full account. On alternate-line parallelism in Heian kanshi, as well as ancient Chinese antecedents and those in the corpus of Bai Juyi, see also Gu Shanshan, “Nihon kanshi ni okeru tsuiku no katachi: Heian zenki no Nihon kanshi ni okeru kakkutsui no un’yō o megutte,” in Kokusai Nihon bungaku kenkyū shūkai kaigiroku 34 (Mar. 2011). We have benefited from Gu’s comprehensive research into alternate-line parallelism in kanshi and its Chinese precedents, as well as the practices of rhyme-matching and the composition of formal historical poetry.

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(A Collection of Works for Bringing Order to the Realm, 827), which seem to have been written in imitation of ci lyric verse;36 these use an irregular meter known as the etchō 越調 (Yue Tune) mode.37 Also found among the zatsugon are eibutsu 詠物 (Ch. yongwu, “poems about objects”), a subgenre that can be traced back to the Han dynasty.38 Eibutsu are portraits of things in the natural world, such as flowers and insects, or elegant household objects like candlesticks and mirrors, often written using stylized conventions and imagery and sometimes running many lines in length. David R. Knechtges notes that in China, the yongwu was “well-established by the Qi-Liang period [479–556]” and “could include nearly everything” as far as subject matter is concerned.39 Stephen Owen characterizes this verse as “one of the most stable and enduring of the poetic subgenres,”40 and in Japan it came into vogue quite early, examples being present even in Kaifūsō (751). 2

The Rise of Sinitic Verse Composition and the Establishment of the Academy

As Torquil Duthie points out, versification was seen as “play[ing] a central part in the cultural self-definition of the court throughout the Nara and Heian periods,” also providing “the means by which the ruler [could] listen to his 36  Ci began as a yuefu-like song genre, arising ca. the sixth century and developing into a literati genre during the mid- to late-Tang. However, the titles of Japanese ci-inspired poems neither identify the verses as “ci,” nor do they utilize traditional ci pai 詞排 (tune patterns) as would normally be expected. In China, ci poets chose from among some 825 different ci pai, each characterized by a set meter with varied line lengths. Why Japanese poets stayed away from the ci form is unclear, but perhaps the decline and eventual termination of direct contact with China during an era when ci were at their height of popularity was a factor. 37  See the notes to kks 219, below. 38  Li Jiao’s 李嶠 (ca. 646–715) collection of yongwu verse titled Baiershi yong 百二十詠 (One Hundred and Twenty Compositions) is said to have been highly influential in the development of eibutsu in Japan. It also played an important role in the formation of the native understanding of Sinitic poetic rhetoric and diction more generally. See Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” ch. 3: “Li Jiao’s Hundred and Twenty Songs in Japan.” 39  Knechtges, “Culling the Weeds and Selecting Prime Blossoms: The Anthology in Early Medieval China,” ch. 8, in Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600, ed. by Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey (2001), p. 219. Knechtges notes that during the Wei-Jin era yongwu were “composed in seven broad subject areas: celestial phenomena (e.g., the moon, sun, wind, and rain); land and waterways; plants; animals; man-made objects; buildings; and food and drink.” 40  Owen, The Poetry of the Early T’ang (1977), p. 281.

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people and bring harmony to his realm.”41 Verse-composition occasions at court, part of an annual cycle of seasonal rituals, celebrated the prestige and accomplishments of the sovereign, at the same time reminding the participants of their place within a traditional cosmology wherein the emperor, Heaven’s counterpart on earth, “nourished” his subjects, sustaining them with his virtue and beneficence. Composition events also helped build esprit de corps and harmony among persons of differing status,42 in a social milieu where criticism and backbiting among courtiers were hardly unknown, as revealed in fss 59, written by Koremichi no Harumichi 惟良春道 (fl. ca. 830). Watch them flatter then blacken others and strain to form personal ties. They slander and praise, just as they please, blowing hot and cold. The poems you write are seen as abstruse, and so you are shunned by the world; In my verse I strive for plainness, but have come in for ridicule. Together we entered the tiger’s lair, yet you had strength to spare; Both of us sought the dragon’s pearl, but I had no success. Versifying ex tempore in literary Sinitic was practiced across a spectrum of occasions, ranging from formal events and poetry contests to casual drinking parties. Courtiers were expected to employ diction and imagery appropriate to the occasion and adhere to the challenging rules of regulated verse composition, the goal being to produce in short order a poem that could stand up to scrutiny. Only after years of reading and internalizing classical texts could poets acquire the range of skills necessary to impress their superiors—and above all, avoid the taint of poetic ineptitude. The Jitō annals of the Nihon shoki 日本書紀 (The Chronicle of Japan, 720), Japan’s earliest extant mytho-history, trace the rise of court interest in Sinitic poetry (referred to as “shifu” 詩賦) to the time of Emperor Tenji (Tenchi, r. 668–71).43 The Kaifūsō preface comments on Tenji’s rationale for promoting Sinitic composition as follows: 41  Duthie, pp. 7, 203. 42  In his monograph titled The Pursuit of Harmony: Poetry and Power in Early Heian Japan (2008), Gustav Heldt provides a wide-ranging and illuminating treatment of “harmonizing in verse” and its function in binding the realm together, explaining the essential role of ceremonial poetry in stabilizing and reinforcing hierarchies and fostering solidarity among courtiers. 43  In the Nihon shoki entry for 686/10/3, where the beginning of a rising interest in kanshi composition (詩賦之興) is mentioned, the text does not explicitly cite Tenji’s reign as the starting point but instead uses the ambiguous term “Ōtsu.” Ōtsu was both the location

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To [Tenji’s] mind, nothing was more valuable than letters for regulating customs and providing education, nothing was better than learning for cultivating virtue and improving the individual. Therefore he established schools, summoned men of talent, fixed the five rites, and designated the hundred regulations … Frequently His Majesty invited men of letters; on many occasions he held feasts with wine. At such times the imperial brush produced [Chinese] poems and able courtiers presented eulogies. The number of splendid compositions exceeded one hundred.44 Letters, in other words continental learning, textual traditions, and the art of writing, were recognized as a means to the highest good, conducive to selfcultivation and the establishment of correct human relations. The edifying role that literature could play was to remain a theme in Japanese culture and society, supporting literary goals and activities among intellectuals and officials down through the ages. and the name of Tenji’s palace (Ōtsu no miya 大津宮) and thus was probably intended as a metonym for his reign. However, it also happens to be the given name of Tenji’s nephew Prince Ōtsu 大津皇子 (663–86), the son of Emperor Tenmu (r. 672–86), whose intellectual abilities and love of letters are praised in the very same sentence. This lack of clarity over “Ōtsu” seems to have led at least one later commentator, Ki no Yoshimochi 紀淑望 (d. 919), to infer in his Sinitic preface to Kokin wakashū (Kokinshū) 古今和歌集 (905) that Prince Ōtsu was being singled out as the “first” to inaugurate or popularize the practice of kanshi in the court. He writes, “After Prince Ōtsu composed the first poems in Chinese [emphasis added], those who were proficient in that art admired and imitated his style” (trans. Helen Craig McCullough, Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry [1985], p. 257). Prince Ōtsu was in fact preceded by other poets, including Prince Ōtomo 大友皇子 (648–72), author of the first two Kaifūsō verses, who died when Ōtsu was nine, and Prince Kawashima 河島皇子 (657–91), author of the third poem in this collection, who was likewise Ōtsu’s senior. In any event, as Duthie observes, “there can be little doubt that the practice of Sinic-style poetry was, at least by the early eighth century, regarded as an integral part of the cultural identity of the upper levels of government” (Duthie, p. 118). See also ibid., p. 154, where he discusses the ambiguity surrounding “Ōtsu.”    Curiously, the second official history of Japan, Shoku Nihongi 續日本紀 (The Chronicle of Japan, Continued), which begins its account in 697, does not even mention the composition of shi until the year 726, followed by notations for 728 and 734. As this sparse record attests, much of the history of early Sinitic verse practice remains undocumented. For the Shoku Nihongi text, and the other five national histories, we have used the digitized expanded Zōho Rikkokushi, Saeki Ariyoshi, ed. (1940), available at http://www .j-texts.com/jodai/rikkoku.html (Nov. 2017). 44  Trans. from Tsunoda Ryusaku and others, comps., Sources of the Japanese Tradition, vol. 1 (1958), quoted in Helen Craig McCullough, Brocade by Night: ‘Kokin Wakashū’ and the Court Style in Japanese Classical Poetry (1985), p. 86. See below for more on the rise of literary activities during Tenji’s reign.

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The advocacy of learning by Emperor Tenmu and his consort, later the Empress Jitō (r. 686–97), led to a sharp rise in the use of Sinitic in the court. Tenmu created or institutionalized many annual palace events that featured banquets with Sinitic verse composition and such diverse amusements as musical performances and sumō. The banquets provided an opportunity for courtiers to build camaraderie and enjoy the company of the sovereign himself, in whose presence many hierarchical and lineage-based distinctions were temporarily set aside in an atmosphere of joviality and common purpose.45 At the same time, such banquets were a venue for junior members of the elite to practice and develop their Sinitic literary skills which, from the late seventh century onward, they began to acquire through formal instruction at the Academy of Higher Learning (Daigakuryō 大學寮). 2.1 The Academy The Daigakuryō, under the Ministry of Ceremonial, was charged with training young men in classical Sinitic studies for careers within the central and provincial bureaucracies. As Steininger notes, the position of the Academy was strengthened during the Saga era, but the century that followed saw a dramatic reduction in enrollment of youths from the most prestigious households, and the number of graduates serving on the Council of State also fell. He further observes, “[W]hereas imperial China later developed a powerful class of ‘examination elite,’ Japan’s literati were concentrated in the lower nobility, largely alienated from political influence.”46 Writes Kurozumi Makoto: “[In Japan], the university, academies, and examinations, which were established under the ritsuryō 律令 statutory system in the eighth century, were not considered to be elements of a large recruiting system.” He adds that as Academy professorships, originally considered low-ranking, gradually came to be inherited by privilege, “learning was pursued as ‘house studies’ (kagaku),” the preserve of professorial families.47 Accordingly, official promotions based upon exam results also trailed off, being replaced by a mechanism for advancement through nomination and leading to what Steininger characterizes as “officially sanctioned nepotism within the Academy.”48 In a society valuing hereditary 45  On the development of a climate of egalitarian social camaraderie and the growing popularity of Sinitic verse “matching” (verse-harmonizing) activities at formal palace gatherings from the time of Saga, see Gotō Akio, Heianchō kanbungaku shi ronkō (2012), pp. 17–23. 46  Brian Steininger, “The Heian Academy: literary culture from Minamoto no Shitagō to Ōe no Masafusa,” in The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature (2016), p. 176. 47  Kurozumi, p. 207. 48  Steininger, “The Heian Academy,” p. 176.

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privilege, where the rank and connections of one’s own family counted far more than native ability or accomplishments, it is hardly surprising that an open and truly functional meritocratic civil service did not emerge and that literary prowess only rarely translated into political authority. Yet even without a system that guaranteed job placement or advancement in rank, many courtiers and students of the Academy made repeated attempts to gain a measure of prestige among their peers by passing one or more of the four examinations, collectively known as the kakyo 科挙. Held by the Ministry of Ceremonial, each of these examinations carried its own qualification, which are listed as follows in ascending order of distinction: (1) myōbō 明法 (Master of Jurisprudence); (2) shinshi 進士 (Presented Scholar); (3) myōgyō 明經 (Master of the Confucian Classics); and (4) shūsai 秀才 (Flourishing Talent), the highest level.49 The establishment of the Academy saw the inauguration of the myōgyōdō 明經道 discipline and mathematics as the two foundational curricular areas, with ancillary training also offered in calligraphy, medicine, and phonetics; jurisprudence (myōbō 明法) was added to the curriculum in 730. For aspiring scholar-officials, the normal course of study entailed acquiring a grounding in the seven texts of the Confucian canon, 49  After entering the Academy, promising students progressed through evaluations by examination, starting with what Jennifer Guest has identified as a “preliminary reading examination” based on Shi ji. Those who performed well became gi-monjōshō 擬文章 生 (provisional students of literature); see Guest, “Primers, Commentaries, and Kanbun Literacy in Japanese Literary Culture, 950–1250 CE,” Ph.D. diss. (2013), p. 31. Their number was limited to a quota of twenty during the tenth century (Steininger, Chinese Literary Forms, p. 134). After further study, successful students went on to take the shōshi 省試 (ministry) exam, involving the composition of a regulated verse on a set topic. Others who received special permission from the sovereign were also allowed to sit the exam (Steininger, ibid.). Qualifying candidates were awarded monjōshō 文章生 (student of letters) status and the shinshi title. A few outstanding graduates typically went on to receive special stipends for advanced study, taking an exam called the hōryakushi 方略試 (known also as the taisaku 對策 exam), leading to the shūsai credential. Usually only two chosen students were permitted to take this test, which was administered by the Ministry of Ceremonial (Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” p. 24). For more on the shūsai degree, see also the notes to rus 42.    On the early history of the Academy, examinations, degrees, and curriculum, see Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, pp. 71–88. See also Wiebke Denecke and Nam Nguyen, “Shared Literary Heritage in the East Asian Sinographic Sphere,” in The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature (2017) for a discussion of meritocracy in the greater East Asian context, Confucian academies, books and literary culture, and the exam system. Further valuable sources on the Academy and the bureaucracy include Steininger, Chinese Literary Forms, especially pp. 129–38, and Marian Ury, “Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life,” in The Cambridge History of Japan (1999), ed. by William H. McCullough and Donald H. Shively, vol. 2, ch. 5.

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special priority being accorded to Lun yu 論語 (The Analects of Confucius) and Xiaojing 孝經 (The Classic of Filial Piety). However, the emphasis was gradually shifted to the Chinese dynastic histories and literature, with special importance attached to the anthology Wen xuan 文選 (Literary Selections, sixth century).50 Various more utilitarian resources, such as dictionaries and classified encyclopedias, were closely studied as well.51 During the late 720s, a professorship in Letters (monjō hakase 文章博士) was established, which inaugurated a discipline known as monjō-ka 文章科 or monjōdō 文章道, more formally called kidendō 紀傳道,52 a field embracing both Chinese history and literature. The monjōdō professor served as head of the institution, indicative of the growing prestige of this track. An order issued by Heizei in 808/2 made kidendō an independent historical field separate from literature, but in 834 it was merged with literature again, its professor being replaced by a second appointment in literature.53 By the early 800s kidendō had grown more prestigious than the Classics, emerging as the most selective course in the Academy and providing the best career prospects.54 In 806, a decree by Emperor Heizei ordered the sons and grandsons (aged ten and above) of princes and courtiers holding the fifth rank or higher to “enter the Academy, determine a

50  See Kurozumi, p. 207. He notes that the emphasis upon history and literature was the reverse of the situation in Tang China, where the Five Classics were considered paramount in the civil service exam curriculum. As Guest has noted, besides the Three Histories, the Classics, and Wen xuan, the texts to which scholars were exposed “stretched to include other material popular at court—Laozi, Zhuangzi, The Complete works of Bai Juyi, and the Child’s Treasury (J. Mōgyū, Ch. Mengqiu, 蒙求),” notwithstanding the fact that they were “not officially on the curriculum” (Guest, p. 34; see also pages 83–85 et seq.). 51  On the curriculum, its revision, and the changing hierarchies of texts, see Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” pp. 22–25, 37–40, 117, and Chinese Literary Forms, ch. 4. See also Borgen, ibid., pp. 71–88, and Ivo Smits, “The Way of the Literati: Chinese Learning and Literary Practice in Mid-Heian Japan,” in Mikael Adolphson and others, eds., Heian Japan: Centers and Peripheries (2007), pp. 112–13. 52  Literally, “The Way of Records and Biographies.” 53  For more on developments in the Academy, see Yamaguchi Hiroshi, Ōchō kadan no kenkyū: Kanmu, Ninmyō, Suzaku-chō hen (1982), pp. 168–69; see also Borgen, ibid., pp. 80–83. 54  Ibid., pp. 81–82; Steininger, ibid., p. 24. Saeko Shibayama notes that from the start of the thirteenth century the kidendō discipline declined for a period, while the myōgyōdō (Chinese classics) specialty was reinvigorated: “From the viewpoint of Chinese literary studies (kangaku, 漢学) in Japan, the gradual transition that took place throughout the twelfth century at the Academy, from the belletristic Kidendō to the more politically oriented Myōgyōdō, set off a brief ‘dark age’ in Japan’s long tradition of Chinese studies.” See Shibayama, “Ōe no Masafusa and the Convergence of the ‘Ways’: The Twilight of Early Chinese Literary Studies and the Rise of Waka Studies in the Long Twelfth Century in Japan,” Ph.D. diss. (2012), p. x.

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specialization, and learn through instruction.”55 But this order was rescinded by Saga in 812: by making attendance a personal decision he aimed to “bring into harmony [educational policy and individual disposition].”56 The kidendō discipline, as described by Shibayama, had three major areas of training, beginning with the acquisition of “the basic vocabulary, grammar and syntax of classical Chinese, presumably through ‘primers,’” with students later advancing to the study of the Chinese dynastic histories and biographies of famous persons. Next, they progressed to building skills in the actual composition of Chinese prose and verse, this premised upon their grasp of classical works.57 As stated in the preface (dated 939) to Wachū setsuin 倭注切韻 (The Qieyun with Japanese Annotations), “The way of learning takes composition as its beginning. If one only chants the classics without learning poetry, he can be considered a useless box of books.”58 As students gained the compositional skills needed for service they also developed a common outlook, acquired through a shared educational experience. As Denecke observes, this set of values emphasized “self-cultivation, the duty of both obedience and remonstration, the rhetoric of lamenting lack of official success or of ‘not meeting 55  Jason P. Webb, “The Big Business of Writing: Monjō keikoku in the Early Heian Court of Saga Tennō,” in Sino-Japanese Studies 21 (2014), p. 15. 56  Webb, ibid. The square brackets are present in Webb’s translation. Marian Ury observes that the apparent rationale for Saga’s ruling was that “ignorant minds are not easily improved and some had wasted many years without mastering a single subject; better to leave academic work to those who were interested.” See Ury, “Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life,” p. 371. 57  See Shibayama, p. 150. Steininger notes the centrality of Shi ji, Han shu, and Hou Han shu in the composition curriculum, as well as belles-lettres, primarily those contained in Wen xuan. See Chinese Literary Forms, p. 130. 58  From Steininger’s “Poetic Ministers” translation, p. 224; see the preface to Sakumon daitai for the original text. “Learning poetry” (習詩賦) here presumably means learning to write poetry; the text is ambiguous. Apparently the original context for this remark was a passage deriding one Lu Cheng 陸澄 (425–94) for “collecting a great library but not really understanding the classics or producing any work of his own” (ibid.).    Wachū setsuin is a Japanese annotated edition of the early seventh-century rhyming dictionary Qieyun 切韻 and was probably compiled by Ōe no Asatsuna 大江朝綱 (886– 957); perhaps because of its apt comment on the value of poetic composition its preface was later excerpted into Sakumon daitai, serving as the introduction. Sakumon daitai (probably partially mid-Heian with later revisions and expansion) was a literary composition manual for Sinitic parallel prose and regulated verse; part of this work is attributed to Minamoto no Shitagō 源順 (911–83) in some of the manuscripts; both Fujiwara no Munetada 藤原宗忠 (1062–1141) and Minamoto no Michichika 源通親 (1149–1202) are also believed to have played a part in its expansion or revision. Freely modified over the centuries, Sakumon daitai has a complex textual history, with more than sixteen known texts.

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one’s time’ and finding an appreciative ruler and patron …” She notes that “the often vastly more pervasive flipside of exam triumph and career success” was “disappointment, strained effort, and periods of unemployment,” causing some to lose hope and withdraw from society.59 The bureaucracy staffed by these scholars was broad and varied in its offices, but the post of “professional poet” per se was not among them. As Gian Persiani observes, “The poetry specialist was not a specialist in the sense that the Master Painter (eshi) of the Office of Painting (edokoro), for example, was. There was no specific office that employed these masters of verbal art, nor were they paid a salary for their services.”60 Poet-specialist did exist, however, as an unofficial calling, often referred to as senmon kajin 専門歌人, “poetry specialist,” by modern scholars. In the kanshi world versification was thus mainly practiced as an adjunct to courtiers’ official duties, an ordinary career in the bureaucracy being the lot of most. Overall, most courtiers, regardless of educational level, seldom advanced beyond the middle tier of the aristocracy and sometimes languished for years without special recognition—a situation often addressed in Sinitic poetry and prose.61 Koremune no Takatoki 惟宗孝言 (eleventh century) expresses despair over his perceived lack of success in hcmds 349, lamenting, “White-haired, in my final years, I’m ashamed of my crane-like hair. / Red-robed, in a lowly post, I sigh, losing heart. / This futile life is slipping away—a man with no achievements. / Slow and irresolute in all affairs, by fortune never blessed.”62 Such sentiments are visible even in the two earliest kanshi collections,63 growing more evident from the late ninth century. Some 59  Denecke and Nguyen, “Shared Literary Heritage,” p. 14. 60  “Waka After the Kokinshū: Anatomy of a Cultural Phenomenon,” Ph.D. diss. (2013), by Gian Piero Persiani, pp. 80–81. Persiani notes that the office known as the Etakumi no tsukasa (which was within the Ministry of Central Affairs and dealt with painting and carpentry) originally employed four master artists and sixty painters as regular paid functionaries. It was later merged with the Uchi no Takumi no Tsukasa 内匠寮 in 808. 61  See Steininger, Chinese Literary Forms, pp. 118–21 for a discussion of two rakusho 落書 poem-complaints, including Honchō monzui 本朝文粹 389, a forty-line pailü attributed to Fujiwara no Moroumi 藤原衆海 (most likely a pseudonym for Tachibana no Aritsura), an extract from which is provided as follows: “If ascent to the top comes when a mountain of bronze is spent, / Then stagnation at the bottom is also because the gold chest is empty. / I cannot believe Confucius “enjoyed the way in poverty,” / For I witness my juniors’ Achievements come through wealth.” (Ibid., p. 119). 62  Trans. in Butterflies, pp. 203–204. For a recent treatment of lamentation, a powerful motif in Sinitic verse and prose, and the phenomenon of promotion petitions, together with the rhetoric and formulation of supplicatory “letters” more generally, see Steininger, ibid., pp. 109–24. 63  Early examples of laments include kfs 91, and rus 55 and 76; the latter is a quatrain by Ōmi no Fukuramaro 淡海福良満 (fl. ca. 800), “Expressing My Aspirations,” which reads:

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poets do not stop at mere declarations of discontent but obliquely request the assistance of a patron in redressing their predicament. Securing special clientage relationships with members of the nobility provided some with a path to a better life, especially from the mid-Heian onward, when the dire financial straits of the imperial court forced even greater retrenchment in offices and staffing. These cuts took a severe toll on the official class, leaving many mid-level to lower functionaries in particular without any stipend whatsoever. However, even those from rather undistinguished family backgrounds could profit from their literary skills, taking auxiliary positions as family tutors or lecturers, compiling utilitarian reference works, writing verse at poetry events, and undertaking diverse other scribal and scholarly tasks.64 An Overview of Kanshi Production in the Nara-Heian Courts: Glimpses from Within Sinitic verse practice in the first half of the eighth century seems to have reached a peak in the 720s. Shoku Nihongi records a verse occasion held on 726/9/27 (apparently at a villa owned by the middle counselor Fujiwara no Takechimaro 藤原武智麻呂), where around 112 poets were in attendance, versifying in rank order on the subject of jujubes (Chinese dates 玉棗), at Emperor Shōmu’s command, with courtiers receiving gifts of coarse silk.65 Some thirtynine poets with works in Kaifūsō (751) were active during this decade, but by the 740s many had passed from the scene (some perishing in the devasting smallpox epidemic of 737), and accordingly Sinitic activity dwindled, with only around six known Kaifūsō poets active by mid-century.66 Sinitic verse nevertheless remained a constant fixture at court, the absence of other anthologies dating from the eighth century in no way signifying that kanshi had fallen out of fashion. One event from later in the century, briefly documented in Shoku Nihongi (770/3/3), was the Winding Water Banquet held on the banks of the Utagawa river near the end of Empress Shōtoku’s reign (r. 764–70). A hundred 2.2

“The solitary tree has long been twisted and gnarled. / Autumn, and it stands bereft of its leaves. / Day and night, beset by wind and frost. / How long will it have to wait for its day of glory?” (Butterflies, p. 58) Still other poems in early collections bewail the suffering of aging, rather than career dissatisfaction. 64  See Steininger, “The Heian Academy,” pp. 179–82 on scribal occupations and contracted assignments. 65  Yamaguchi, Kanmu, Ninmyō, p. 71. Twelve days earlier, on the fifteenth of the Ninth Month, Shoku Nihongi notes that a date tree (Zizyphus jujuba, a prized medicinal and nutritional tree native to China) grew within the palace grounds and that a general order had been issued for “people from within and without the court and from the priesthood and the laity” to write poems about this tree. 66  Ibid., pp. 71–72.

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courtier-poets, Academy students, and others turned out to enjoy the celebration and write Sinitic poetry appropriate to the season.67 The record of verse for the decades following Kaifūsō is patchy at best; there was only a little more interest in recording poetry occasions than in documenting the comings and goings of, for example, a flock of 108 cranes that paid a visit to the palace over four days;68 and since no further large anthologies survive from the eighth century we are reliant upon official histories and other narratives for whatever fragmentary morsels can be gleaned about verse practice during these decades. Kanshi preservation (and official anthologization) remained sporadic and uneven throughout much of the succeeding Heian age, with lacunae often extending for many decades between major collected works, although these long intervals are at least partially filled by later works whose compilers often sought to include poems from the distant past. The period between Kaifūsō and the recorded verse of the Saga-Junna years constitutes only one such hiatus in the production of anthologies. Some of the gaps were likely due to a failure to systematically record the scores of public poems written at regular intervals, at palace celebrations such as the Double Ninth and during imperial excursions,69 but much of this verse was lost to fire, floods, 67  Ibid., pp. 76–77. For the Shoku Nihongi text and the other five national histories, some of which are quoted in the notes below, see the digitized expanded Zōho Rikkokushi, Saeki Ariyoshi, ed. (1940), available at http://www.j-texts.com/jodai/rikkoku.html (Nov. 2017). Vernacular verse and song were also enjoyed by the nobility, especially when away from the palace proper, as seen, for example, in the detailed description of a popular largescale utagaki 歌垣 folk celebration with native songs and line-dancing held in Kawachi on 770/3/28, according to Shoku Nihongi, just weeks after the Winding Water gathering. Yamaguchi indicates that Emperor Kanmu did not allow the utagaki performances to occur in the palace (Yamaguchi, ibid., p. 81); nevertheless, the Kawachi event brought together around 230 dancers (augmented by some court ladies who were asked to join in), all members of six families of continental origin who lived in the Kawachi area. The festivities had been planned, it appears, to coincide with an outing by the Empress to her detached villa in the area. The kanshi verses from the Winding Water event were apparently not recorded, but Shoku Nihongi preserves the texts of two waka that were recited at the utagaki; these are translated in Edwin A. Cranston, A Waka Anthology—Volume 1: Gem-Glistening Cup (1993), pp. 156–57. 68  Shoku Nihongi, 741/3/20. 69  A notable instance where the poems composed at an imperial event are known to have been only partially retained was an outing to the Kayō Rikyū 河陽離宮 retreat sometime between 813–16, when Emperor Saga wrote a series of ten verses about the pleasures of the locale; five courtiers responded in kind. Only four of Saga’s poems appear to have been preserved, with a total of ten additional poems by five courtiers, who also likely wrote more on this occasion than the small number extant today. The surviving verses from this event are bksrs 96–109; see also note 154 for information on still other Sagaera Kayō poems found in Zatsugon hōwa. For more on this series, and on other Kayō

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civil disturbances, and doubtless general neglect. This loss seems especially marked where family collections are concerned, since multiple copies were unlikely to have existed. One rare glimpse into the world of Heian Sinitic literature is provided by Shikyōki 詩境記 (A Record of the Poetic Realm), a short essay by Ōe no Masafusa 大江匡房 (1041–1111) which sheds light on the vicissitudes of Sinitic verse composition in Japan, showing an awareness of continental precedents as well.70 Shikyōki begins with a broad outline of the history of poetry and poetics in China, from the age of the Odes down to the Later Han and continuing through the Six Dynasties on into the late Tang. It lists prominent poets and notes certain major developments such as the formation of Shen Yue’s 沈約 (fifth century) ba bing 八病 (eight poetic defects), only half of which, Masafusa observes in passing, were followed by the court poet Shangguan Yi 上官儀 (?608–64) and his contemporaries. Ten poets from the Han through Sui dynasties are named, with some very notable omissions; fourteen more from the Tang are singled out as noteworthy, including Shangguan Yi, Wang Bo 王勃 (d. 676), and Chen Zi’ang 陳子昂 (d. 702)—again with certain key figures overlooked. Du Fu is the sole High Tang poet mentioned.71 At the same time, compositions from the Saga years, which number forty in all, see Wiebke Denecke, “The Power of Syntopism: Chinese Poetic Place Names on the Map of Early Japanese Poetry,” Asia Major [Third Series] 26.2 (2013), pp. 40–57. See also the notes to hcmds 84, below. 70  Masafusa’s text, apparently undated, is preserved in Chōya gunsai 朝野群載 (Classified Records of Court and Country, compiled by Miyoshi no Tameyasu 三善為康, ca. 1116, later expanded). Our citations from Shikyōki follow Hosokawa Junjirō, ed., Koji ruien 古事類苑 (1901), in Bungakubu 19, pp. 451–52, which includes emendations to the Chōya gunsai text. For a Shikyōki translation with annotations, see Smits, The Pursuit of Loneliness, pp. 44–51. The opening of Shikyōki is modelled upon Wang Ji’s 王績 (590–644) “Zuixiang ji” 醉郷 記 (Record of the Land of the Drunk), found in Wenyuan yinghua 文苑英華 (Splendid Blossoms in the Garden of Literature, comp. 982–86). See Wiebke Denecke, Classical World Literature: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons (2014), p. 63. Wang Ji, known for his unabashed fondness for drinking, helped to revive eremitic themes in the style of Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (365–427), preferring a simple, unadorned style. For more on this essay, see ibid., pp. 62–65. 71  Such figures as Tao Qian, Xie Lingyun, Wang Wei, Li Bai, Han Yu, Meng Haoran, and Li Shangyin are among those omitted from the account (Ivo Smits, The Pursuit of Loneliness: Chinese and Japanese Nature Poetry in Medieval Japan, ca. 1050–1150 [1995], p. 51).    China’s most famous classical poet, Du Fu, was surprisingly rather little read in Japan, even after he had already become popular in China during the eleventh century, although he is occasionally cited in couplet anthologies. See J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves, annot. and trans., Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: Wakan rōeishū (1997), pp. 17–18. Even in China, Du Fu’s works did not acquire canonical status until well after his lifetime; his verse was admired by Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi but did not become widely popular until the Song dynasty, sometime around the time of the Wang Zhu collection mentioned

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a number of poets whom Masafusa does name have no works listed in two major bibliographies from the Heian age,72 these omissions suggesting that our understanding of which Chinese poets were read in the Japanese court is far from complete. Masafusa next touches upon poetic styles during what he refers to as “recent times,” citing Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen 元稹 (779–831), whom he identifies as responsible for the rise of the lower-register (zoku 俗) mode; he also mentions four other poets, the latest being Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴, who died in 904. Though the Song dynasty (960–1279) was already more than a century old when Masafusa wrote his essay, no reference is made to any literati from this period. This lacuna suggests either a lack of knowledge of contemporary developments in China or perhaps a disinterest in the newer styles. Turning to the Japanese tradition, Masafusa’s account is even sketchier: he mentions no poets by name and collapses 400 years of kanshi practice into several sentences. He states that kanshi arose in the Kōnin and Jōwa eras (810–47), the age of the Saga anthologies; nothing is said about the previous century. Next, using nengō periods, Masafusa identifies three post-Saga peaks in the tradition, which for convenience we will number and refer to using Western chronology, adding a few facts not supplied by Masafusa:

below. Du was canonized as the “sage of poetry” and the “poet-historian” during the eleventh century, and as Stephen Owen observes, “There were certainly more editions of Du Fu in the Song than there were anthologies of Tang poetry.” See Owen, The Poetry of Du Fu (2015), pp. lxv–lxvi.    At least one anthology of Du Fu’s works, titled Zhu Du Gongbu ji (J. Chū Tokōbu shū 注 杜工部集, An Annotated Collection of Verse by Du of the Ministry of Works, 1039, comp. by Wang Zhu 王洙) is known to have been sought by Masafusa, as recorded in Gōdanshō 江談抄 5–5 (Selections from Ōe [no Masafusa]’s Conversations, early twelfth century); see Gotō Akio, Ikegami Jun’ichi and others, eds., Gōdanshō, Chūgaishō, Fukego, snkbt 32 (1997), p. 173. Centuries earlier, ca. 838–39, Priest Ennin 圓仁 (794–864) had apparently obtained a copy of Du Fu’s Du Yuanwai ji (J. To ingai shū 杜員外集), this based on a very early Du Fu collection, ca. 770–71, while he was staying in Yangzhou, according to a bibliographic record Ennin kept. Ennin’s text of Du Fu’s works has been lost. See Shizunaga Takeshi, “Kinsei Nihon de yomareta ‘Toho shishū’ ni tsuite,” in Bungaku kenkyū 109 (Mar. 2012), p. 1. 72  For a comparison between the poets mentioned by Masafusa and those whose works are found in the bibliographic sources Nihonkoku genzai sho mokuroku 日本國見在書目 録 (comp. Fujiwara no Sukeyo 藤原佐世, ca. 891) and Michinori Nyūdō zōsho mokuroku 通憲入道蔵書目録 (late Heian period), see Gotō Akio, Honchō kanbungaku shi ronkō (2012), pp. 282–84; for data concerning allusions in Heian kanshi derived from the works of continental poets named by Masafusa, see pp. 284–87. Gotō asserts that the works of Tang poets (apart from Emperor Taizong, Bai Juyi, Yuan Zhen, and rarely, the Sui poet Xue Daoheng 薛道衡) were not drawn upon for allusive references in Heian kanshi. See also note 151 on Chinese poets known and read in the court.

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 Period i (859–922) embraces a span of some sixty years before and after Kokinshū, the first official anthology of waka. This was also the age of Shimada no Tadaomi and Sugawara no Michizane, whose renowned kanshi anthologies are dealt with further on. Jōgan-kyakushiki 貞觀格 式 (The Legal Code of the Jōgan Period, ca. 871, comp. by Fujiwara no Yoshimi 藤原良相 and others) speaks of the “quality of literature” (bunshitsu 文質) having evolved in style toward what he calls an 暗 (apparently denoting simplicity and plainness here) during the previous sixty years, a change from the flowery showiness and ornamentation of the Saga age.73 Kanshi remained in the forefront of formal verse activity, although waka was acquiring a presence as part of official events.74 Period ii (931–56) saw the rise of kudaishi (topic-line verse, see below), together with the flourishing of other Sinitic subgenres in both the public and private spheres, with a peak of activity in the Murakami years (946– 67), when a new kanshi anthology (non-extant) was commissioned. Around a hundred poems from this period are preserved in Fusōshū 扶桑集 (comp. 995–98). Period iii (999–1011) includes the latter half of the illustrious reign of Ichijō (r. 986–1011), during which time kanshi flourished in several prominent coteries and Fusōshū, Honchō reisō (ca. 1010), and Gōrihōshū 江吏部 集 (ca. 1011) all appeared. Masafusa observes that thirty poets in all were active during this century and a half—presumably he is referring to the better-known ones—among whom he considered six or seven to have been exceptional. This is where Masafusa’s account ends, abruptly terminating about a century before his death and omitting the greater part of the eleventh century. Whether this was because he believed that his readers were already familiar with recent works or perhaps thought that the heyday of kanshi was long gone is unclear. At any rate, the value of Masafusa’s narrative lies mainly in what it suggests about his own interests and tastes, also pointing to the fragmentary state of what is known concerning kanshi history during these centuries.

73  Following the interpretation of Kawaguchi, Heianchō no kanbungaku, pp. 124–25. 74  See Persiani, “Waka After the Kokinshū,” pp. 56–67, where he discusses the return of waka to public life and traces imperial patronage of waka, making valuable comparisons with kanshi practice and official events at court.

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2.3 The Poetic Record and Peripheral Resources As the foregoing account illustrates, our picture of the history of Nara-Heian kanshi is circumscribed by the limits of the surviving literary legacy and critical writings thereon. Roughly two-thirds of the texts listed in Honchō shojaku mokuroku 本朝書籍目録, a late thirteenth-century bibliography, are no longer extant, according to David Lurie.75 This loss supports the surmise that a large proportion of kanshi written during the Heian period has likewise disappeared. Scores of private anthologies survive in name only, leaving us with a corpus of about 4000 Sinitic verses and 1200 couplets, the majority of which are distributed among roughly sixteen extant poetry collections and various couplet anthologies, some complete, others fragmentary. Other sources range from biographies, literary society accounts, and records of versification parties, to shiawase 詩合 (Sinitic verse competitions).76 Further poems are found on paintings and screens and in poetry prefaces (shijo 詩序),77 as well as in 75  Lurie, “Introduction,” The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, p. 16. This bibliography contains the names of nearly 500 texts of Japanese origin but provides few facts regarding dating, authorship, or other information. A convenient 1671 woodblock edition of this text may be accessed at http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2533951, DOI 10.11501/2533951 (Nov. 2017). 76  Poetry contests had been held in China for centuries, but the first Sinitic verse shiawase appears to have been one held in Tentoku 3 (959) under the sponsorship of Emperor Murakami; further matches occurred in 963, 1051, and 1056. For an account of the poetry and ritual decorum surrounding the latter two events, see Smits, “The Poetry of China,” in The Pursuit of Loneliness, p. 69. As with other kinds of poetic occasions, “[p]oetry was to serve the occasion, not the other way around,” Smits observes (ibid., p. 70). Contests continued to be held, albeit infrequently, throughout the Muromachi age, before eventually falling out of fashion. There was a resurgence of waka utaawase 歌合 and kanshi contest activity under the patronage of Regent Fujiwara no Yoshitsune 藤原良經 (1169–1206), a leading figure in Emperor Gotoba’s poetic circle with verse in Shin Kokin wakashū (Shin Kokinshū) 新古今和歌集, compiled 1205.    Records of these Sinitic verse contests constitute an important resource on social verse practice. Few shiawase narratives from the late classical period and beyond are extant, but one detailed account describing a contest held in 1483 by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshihisa 足利義尚 (1465–89) has survived. For further details on these contests, see Horikawa Takashi’s “Koramu 13,” in Wiebke Denecke, Kōno Kimiko, and others, eds., Nihon “bun”gakushi [A New History of Japanese “Letterature”], vol. 1: “Bun” no kankyō— “bungaku” izen (2015), pp. 498–99. 77  Nearly two dozen shijo (for poems) can be found among Michizane’s works, as well as several other prefaces composed for prose manuscripts (shojo 書序). A volume of early shijo pieces originally included in Keikokushū (827) has not survived. Kaifūsō preserves the earliest anthology preface; each of the Saga anthologies also has its own introduction which provides some insights into how works were selected, but these have little to say about individual styles and the respective merits of the poets included. Most extant mid- to

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composition manuals and prose narratives, including setsuwa 説話 (legendary narratives) and kuge nikki 公家日記 (courtier diaries). This legacy is modest, dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands of poems from China’s Tang and Song dynasties and the several tens of thousands of waka preserved in official and private collections, poetry-contest records, prose narratives, and other works.78 Many of the above sources, particularly the poetry competition records and poetic prefaces, are valuable as guides to poetic protocol and the tastes of poetry contest judges, also offering insights into patronage and other social relationships. However, we generally lack prefaces to the major collections that appeared after Keikokushū,79 as well as information about selection critelate-Heian kanshi anthologies lack shijo altogether, two exceptions being Ki no Haseo’s (845–912) personal collection, which has a preface in his own words and Minamoto no Shitagō’s preface to Tachibana no Aritsura’s lost anthology (see below for details). These are both found in Honchō monzui, which also preserves roughly 140 poem shijo and 4 others for books. Ōe no Koretoki’s 大江維時 (888–963) preface to the now-lost Nikkanshū 日 觀集 (Sun-Worshipping Collection, 20 vols., comp. mid-tenth century), is found in Chōya gunsai.    Poem prefaces grew all the more popular as the Heian age advanced, and many survive in such works as Shijoshū 詩序集 (Collection of Poetry Prefaces, ca. 1132–35), Honchō zoku monzui 本朝續文粹 (Further Literary Gems from Our Court, ca. 1144), and Fusō kobunshū 扶桑古文集 (A Collection of Ancient Works from Fusang [Japan], ca. 1142–62). For more information, see Wiebke Denecke, “Prefaces as Sino-Japanese Interfaces: The Past, Present, and Future of the Mana Preface to the Kokin wakashū,” Nihon kanbungaku kenkyū 3 (2008). See also Kristopher Lee Reeves, “Preludes: On metaphorical spaces and the socio-political function of preludes in the Heian court” (2013). 78  The largest known compilation of Heian kanshi is Nihon shiki 日本詩紀, edited by Ichikawa Kansai 市川寛齋 (1749–1820) and published in 1786, in 50 maki with supplementary volumes; a modern edition appeared in 1911. This anthology gathers together some 3,204 verses and 527 couplets by 428 poets composed between 668 and 1159. Nihon shiki has been supplemented by a modern companion text, Nihon shiki shūi 日本詩紀 拾遺, compiled by Gotō Akio and comprising 730 additional poems and 626 couplets by 386 previously unlisted poets (Gotō Akio, Honchō kanshibun shiryō ron [2012], p. 319). These two works are indispensable resources for piecing together the surviving classical kanshi corpus. For further notes on the companion work as well as a recent supplement containing some fifteen pages of Sinitic poems that have been discovered since 2000, see Gotō Akio, Nihon shiki shūi goho, available at http://www.seijo.ac.jp/pdf/falit/228/228-2 .pdf (Nov. 2017). A further source, which gathers together many lesser-known, often fragmentary verse materials, is Gotō Akio’s study Heianchō kanbun bunken no kenkyū (1993). 79  As Shibayama notes, in compiling Honchō monzui Fujiwara no Akihira 藤原明衡 did not include prefaces from any Heian period Sinitic poetry anthologies apart from ones for Ki no Haseo’s collection and for the private literary anthology of Tachibana no Aritsura. Regarding his decision not to include the prefaces to the three Saga-era anthologies, Shibayama suggests that “[he] disregarded the early heyday of kanshi during the 810s and 820s probably because [this activity] predated the consolidation of the Kidendō

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ria, the compilation process, and contemporary commentaries on the poems themselves. Thus, a range of big-picture questions remain concerning kanshi poetics as understood in the day, including, for example, how literati saw both themselves and their practices within the broader traditions of the Sinosphere and the standards by which they assessed styles and aesthetics. Also, what considerations governed the emergence of certain formal preferences and the reception and utilization of texts introduced from the continent? The present volume touches inter alia upon some of these issues; further examination of the full range of unexplored sources as well as the possible discovery of lost or hitherto unknown collections and critical writings may eventually yield answers to many of these questions. 3

The Early Anthologies: From Kaifūsō through the Age of Emperor Saga

3.1 Kaifūsō 懐風藻 Japan’s earliest extant anthology of kanshi, Kaifūsō (Poetic Gems Cherishing the Styles of Old, 751) is of singular importance for understanding the initial period of kanshi production. Compiled anonymously, it preserves works by sixty-four poets. A large proportion of the 119 pieces found in this work are occasional poems written at banquets and ceremonial events, a reminder that court occasions of this kind played a central role in propelling the rise of Sinitic verse in Japan. The thematic range is broad, showing a strong affinity with the late Six Dynasties court style, while at the same time preserving examples of more lyrical informal verse. The primary rationale behind the compilation seems to have been to allow nostalgic reflection upon the reign of Emperor Tenji (r. 668–71) and preserve surviving verse from this era down to the mideighth century, recalling the manners and styles (fū 風) of former nobles and courtiers. As Jason Webb observes, “[Kaifūsō] wistfully recalls a time in which the place of poetry in the Yamato court was more secure, even central, and the sovereign not overwhelmingly preoccupied with the ideology, practice, and the monumentalization of Buddhism,” adding, “Kaifūsō purports to put on display the exempla of a gilded age or, in the case of latter-day works, those that bravely carried on a tradition that was otherwise regrettably in decline.”80 The curriculum in the State Academy” and the importation of Bai’s works (ca. 838). See Shibayama, pp. 99, 132. 80  Jason P. Webb, “In Good Order: Poetry, Reception, and Authority in the Nara and Early Heian Courts,” Ph.D. diss. (2004), pp. 6, 148.

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author of the preface laments the loss of so many “literary gems” during the Jinshin Rebellion (672), implying that by the time of the uprising kanshi composition was already well established in the court.81 During the early Nara decades, new poets flourished in a sort of renaissance, among them Prince Ōtsu (d. 686), Ōmiwa no Takechimaro 大神高市麿 (d. 706), Prince Nagaya 長屋王 (d. 729), Priest Dōji 釋道慈 (d. 744), and Isonokami no Otomaro 石上 朝臣乙麻呂 (d. 750). Chronologically ordered, the poetry in Kaifūsō affords a sweeping overview of the development of the tradition spanning roughly eighty years, offering glimpses of how Sinitic verse was employed at court—its putative political and social functions—and its subgenres, forms, and aesthetics. The preface traces the supposed origins of writing to a period after the semi-legendary Empress Jingū “quelled the West” and Emperor Ōjin “ascended to the heavenly throne,” when the court received “dragon writing” from Kudara, in an account that sets the arrival of writings against a backdrop of nativistic figures and inventions. Various teachers from the Korean peninsula then arrived in Japan, and “the ordinary folk were nudged towards the winds of Zhu and Si, the common people ushered toward the teachings of Qi and Lu.”82 The preface continues with words of praise for the administration and institutional innovations of Prince Shōtoku (574–622). It is related that because the prince devoted himself to Buddhism he had little time to write poetry. The author then proceeds to recall the great peace and prosperity achieved by Emperor Tenji, a time when Sinitic literature flourished amidst great leisure—the byproduct of a harmonious, well-ruled regime—and when literati joined company with the sovereign himself to versify. While this story is “staked on Japanese ground,” framed in terms of both mythology and history, the writer clearly had as his reference point Wen xuan, which itself provided a far-reaching historical context for literary writing.83 By the time of Kaifūsō, versification had long since become an integral part of the rituals, banquets, and royal excursions of palace life, all of which occasions sought to enhance the prestige and self-image of the imperial

81  Few kanshi from Tenji’s reign or before have survived, probably because the capital was destroyed by fire. 82  The phrase “winds of Zhu and Si” refers to the styles and practices of Confucianism. Qi and Lu were two states where Confucius taught and his doctrines were propagated. Citations in this paragraph follow the Webb translation, ibid., p. 151. Ch. 3 of Webb’s study provides a lucid and seminal treatment of the preface to Kaifūsō and the historical matrix in which it was conceived; we have benefited greatly from his insights. 83  Wiebke Denecke, “Anthologization and Sino-Japanese Literature: Kaifūsō and the Three Imperial Anthologies,” in The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature,” p. 87.

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court, while also serving to reinforce a body of norms and traditions at the heart of aristocratic decorum. Despite its position near the beginning of Japan’s recorded literary heritage,84 Kaifūsō was largely forgotten during the Heian age and only in recent times has its historical and literary place begun to be adequately recognized. In certain works of Anglophone scholarship published during the eighties and nineties the verse in Kaifūsō is depicted as derivative and amateurish, seen as paling in comparison to both Man’yōshū 萬葉集 (A Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) and Kojiki 古事記 (A Record of Ancient Matters), two canonical early collections of vernacular verse. Webb notes an unfortunate tendency in the past to dismiss Kaifūsō as largely an attempt at “Japanese self-modeling as a mini-Tang or some such junior sinitic empire,”85 the resulting poems inferior replications of Chinese models. Implicit in the traditional critique is the monolingual insinuation that Kaifūsō would have amounted to a greater literary achievement had the Japanese been writing in their own tongue, an approach that Webb believes “underscores a fetishization of originality that has long driven modern literature studies” and loses sight of the crucial role these poems played in the political and ritual life of the court.86 Other recent studies also have made important contributions towards clarifying the cultural matrix of early Sinitic court verse, much of which was motivated by priorities distinct from individual expression or artistic creativity per se. The court events at which many of these poems were composed offered a forum where courtiers could sing their praises of the sovereign who, according to Confucian ideology, was appointed by Heaven to rule, and whose beneficence brought them to their privileged place in the social and political hierarchy, a position which at the same time obliged them to transcend their traditional clan loyalties in return for imperial largesse. Kaifūsō poets show a remarkable grasp of rhetorical styles and the correct poetic gestures, displaying a more calculated artfulness than is sometimes recognized. Expressions of humility, for example, in the closing couplets of certain poems, are often clearly tactical attempts to elicit praise or recognition, in the hope that declarations of fealty will lead to political favor. While much of the verse in Kaifūsō and the later Saga anthologies was written to serve distinct politico-ritual 84  It bears mentioning that there were a number of other now lost collections of ancient Sinitic works, including Umakai shū 宇合集, the works of Fujiwara no Umakai 藤原宇 合 (d. 737) and possibly other poets of his period, and Kanpisō 銜悲藻, the poetry of Isonokami no Otomaro (d. 750). 85  Webb, ibid., p. 67. We refer the reader to Webb’s thesis, ch. 2, for a critique of Anglophone scholarship and for a fuller explanation of his framework for interpreting the poems. 86  Ibid., p. 65.

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purposes, the compilers also included personal lyrical pieces, some of them candid and even mildly critical (of themselves or others) in their outlook, but all serving to demonstrate that kanshi from the beginning also flourished in private and “unofficial” places. An example is the Kaifūsō pailü “Lamenting Old Age,” a harbinger of the quasi-eremitic theme of finding carefree contentment amidst bucolic seclusion. An old man now with frosty temple hair, Alone and poor, I’ve a right to feel self-pity. On spring days, what need to kill the time? [Line Missing] Laughing, I pick plum blossoms and sit awhile, Then frolic about as though a young man still. Mountains and rivers by nature have no owner; Life and death likewise in Heaven’s hands. ……………………………..87 In 794, some four decades after the appearance of Kaifūsō and midway through the reign of Emperor Kanmu (r. 781–806), the capital was moved to Heian, following a period of roughly a decade in Nagaoka. Politically, the times were turbulent; soon after Kanmu came to power he put down a plot against the throne. Further setbacks presented themselves during the Kanmu years, including the assassination of Kanmu’s chief advisor Fujiwara no Tanetsugu 藤 原種繼 in 785 and its political aftermath, as well as severe famines, floods, and epidemics, not to mention personal tragedies for the emperor’s family.88 But Kanmu proved to be a singleminded ruler, devoting himself to reinvigorating the authority and prestige of the court. He undertook a restructuring of the ritsuryō system, at the same time reviving old palace events and ceremonies and inaugurating new ones. A promoter of scholarship, Kanmu also revitalized the Academy curriculum and raised standards for entry into the priesthood. Though he was well schooled in the Confucian tradition of learning and saw himself as following in the footsteps of sage-kings of antiquity who treasured scholarship, he had little affection for Sinitic belles-lettres, which may explain why there is not a single verse by him in the Saga-Junna anthologies. 87  Anonymous, trans. from Butterflies, p. 48. 88  These misfortunes were attributed to the revenge of the angry spirit of the emperor’s younger brother, Prince Sawara, Tanetsugu’s accused assassin, who starved himself to death after being condemned to exile.

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Instead Kanmu “enjoyed composing waka more than most of his predecessors,” as Andrew Pekarik observes, incorporating such verse into court events in the new capital.89 Kanmu’s biography in Nihon kōki 日本後紀 (The Later Chronicles of Japan) makes mention of his virtuous, filial nature and diligence, also noting, significantly, that “the expenses of his years were high,” alluding to the high costs of military campaigns against the Emishi, which continued until 805, and construction projects. Kanmu’s first son came to the throne as Emperor Heizei. His reign lasted only about three years and was marked by scandal and violent purges, but where literary matters are concerned Nihon kōki for 806/5/18 observes that Heizei, just recently enthroned, was well-versed in literature and that he “worked at creating fine literary pieces” 工於文藻. The handful of extant kanshi attributed to him are at least moderately good, though only six were included in the Saga-era anthologies; this seems likely a reflection of the political odium surrounding his rule, as well as his failed attempt to relocate the capital back to Heijō (Nara) during the Kusuko Disturbance. His obituary in the third national history Nihon kōki for 824/7 is balanced but unflinching in its assessment, with both praise for his astuteness and frugality and censure for his harsh and devious ways.90 3.2 The Flowering of Sinitic Verse during the Age of Saga Immediately after the Kusuko Disturbance was quashed, Emperor Saga (r. 809–23), Heizei’s younger brother and successor, embarked upon a series of administrative and legal reforms to consolidate his own political authority and build new centers of loyalty as a counterweight to the upper aristocracy. These led to the creation of the Kōnin-kyaku 弘仁格 and the Kōnin-shiki 弘仁 式 legal codes (comp. 820, later expanded), as well as institutional reforms that 89  Andrew Pekarik, “Poetics and the Place of Japanese Poetry in Court Society through the Early Heian Period,” Ph.D. diss. (1983), p. 92. He cites an instance when Kanmu composed a waka during a farewell banquet (in 803) “when a Chinese poem might have been more appropriate” (ibid., pp. 91–92). The emperor’s apparent preference for waka over kanshi influenced compositional preferences and practices in the court at the time. 90  The obituary states that Heizei possessed a “profound and keen intelligence” and “eliminated unnecessary expenses and discarded finery and rare luxuries.” The writer adds that “his laws and regulations were strict and comprehensive, his courtiers conducting themselves in a sedate and proper fashion.” But the account also mentions Heizei’s scheming and suspicious nature; he had members of his family killed and arrested many people. The obituary ends by noting cryptically that he “entrusted the affairs of state to a woman,” referring to his collusion with his favorite consort and mother-in-law, the ill-fated Kusuko, which the narrator describes as a “lamentable state of affairs.”

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included strengthening the Academy and establishing both the Chamberlains’ Office (810) and the Kebiishi (Imperial Police, 816), the latter serving to bolster and centralize security in the capital.91 Above all, however, Saga and his halfbrother Junna who succeeded him are remembered today as ardent Sinophiles and champions of literary culture, whose efforts expanded and elevated the practice of kanshi versification at court to a new pinnacle. These endeavors are recalled in an obituary for the emperor in the fifth official history, Nihon Montoku Tennō jitsuroku 日本文徳天皇實録 (The Veritable Record of Emperor Montoku of Japan), for 852/12/20, which notes, “The emperor [Saga] loved letters and instructed his sons [in literature], in the hope that they would all acquire learning and talent.” This steadfast support for Chinese letters was premised upon Saga’s belief in the key role Sinitic verse could play in the building of moral character among officials and consolidating the realm, a conviction embodied in Saga’s rescript of 812, which stated: “For governing the country and managing the household, nothing is better than writing; for establishing oneself and raising one’s reputation, nothing could be better than study.”92 As Heldt observes, “The importance of Saga’s reign to the history of later poetry can also be measured by the ways in which this ruler invested new political significance in the practices associated with writing verse.”93 In elevating the status and profile of Sinitic literature, Saga worked to achieve a closer alignment between Japanese ceremonial observances and the rituals of the Tang court (tōrei 唐禮), codifying these events between 819–21.94 His efforts to bring about a closer conformity with Tang models were not confined to ceremonies but extended to court garb, the rank system at the fifth level and above, and the name plaques for palace buildings, gates, pavilions, and 91  For an insightful overview of Saga’s reforms and innovations, including the adoption of Tang institutions, the heightened role of court banquets and ceremonies, the imperial championing of the Academy and literature, and the important new place of the Kurōdodokoro (Chamberlains’ Office, the emperor’s private secretariat), which served as an intermediary between the ruler and the government bureaucracy, see Edoardo Gerlini, The Heian Court Poetry as World Literature: From the Point of View of Early Italian Poetry (2014), pp. 1–20. 92  Trans. from Webb, “The Big Business of Writing,” p. 15. 93  Heldt, p. 45. 94  It should be noted that by Saga’s day, Japan had been engaged in formal diplomatic relations with Tang China for almost 180 years, with appointments of kentōshi 遣唐使 envoys to the Tang dating back to 630 (Fuqua, p. x). But almost a millennium before, in the second century bc, representatives from Japan had made their way to China, as is recorded in Chinese accounts (Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, p. 227). The earliest documented arrival of Chinese merchants on board a Silla ship to Japan occurs in the annals for 819, and trade likely was going on well before this date, although not recorded. See Fuqua, p. 182. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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so forth.95 Some of the ceremonial observances were new: the Inner Palace Banquet (Naien 内宴) and the Flower Banquet (Hana no en 花宴) were established in 811 and 812, respectively. Others, such as the Double Ninth (Chōyō 重 陽, the Chrysanthemum Festival), had been brought back into court life to join existing events, most notably the Double Third (Chōsan 重三 or Jōshi 上巳) and the Double Seventh (Tanabata 七夕).96 The calendar of grand events featuring the composition of poetry thus became all the more crowded during Saga’s reign,97 although the pomp and ceremony of aristocratic life apparently worsened the financial status of the court, just at a time when advisors were calling for expenditures to be cut, owing to shrinking revenues.98 Ever since the days of Kōnin (r. 770–81) there had been efforts to trim the size of the central government, as part of cost-cutting efforts, which entailed streamlining and rationalizing operations wherever possible and getting rid of certain posts and offices that had been allowed to spring up outside the original institutions provided for by law. The upper nobility and their sumptuous lifestyles were nevertheless maintained, at the expense of the lower tiers of officialdom, although even the literati and intellectuals in these ranks seem to have been comparatively well served during the Saga-Junna era. Not only did Saga increase grants and enrollments at the Academy, he appointed literati to important posts in officialdom as never before, this patronage continuing 95  Pekarik, p. 101, citing the fourth official history Shoku Nihon kōki 續日本後紀 (The Later Chronicles of Japan, Continued). 96  The Double Third was the occasion for the Winding Water Banquet (Kyokusui no en 曲 水の宴 ). For further information on formal events and rituals of the court see Heldt, The Pursuit of Harmony; a Japanese source on important regular calendrical occasions for verse composition in the Japanese court, including sekiten 釋奠 observances to honor Confucius, is Kawaguchi Hisao, Heianchō Nihon kanbungakushi no kenkyū, vol. 1 of 3 vols. (rev. eds. 1975, 1982, 1988), pp. 89–101, 130–34; hereafter referred to as Heianchō Nihon. 97  See Heldt, pp. 51–52. It appears that the festivities of 3/3 and 7/7 were not regularly observed in later times. One notable dry period includes the reigns of emperors Seiwa, Yōzei, and Kōkō (858–87), when neither of these observances is recorded in the sixth official history, Nihon sandai jitsuroku 日本三代實録 (The Veritable Record of the Three Reigns). 98  During the reigns of Kanmu’s sons Heizei, Saga, and Junna, the court attempted to revise taxation and improve its control of provincial governance and the flow of income. Reductions were made within the original offices of the central government, with the size of even the imperial family being reduced as early as Kanmu’s reign. Many lesser princes and princesses were reduced to commoner status, some of their descendants languishing without sufficient support by the end of the ninth century. As a result of these measures, by the late ninth century around half of the offices provided for in the ritsuryō statutes had been eliminated (William H. McCullough, “The Heian Court, 794–1070,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, pp. 37–45). Severe retrenchment and other attempts to scale down expenditures undermined employment prospects for young men aspiring to gain posts in the central administration, causing many to leave the capital and seek their fortunes elsewhere. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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during the reigns of Junna and Ninmyō as well.99 Significantly, in 820 he also raised the rank of professors of letters (monjō hakase 文章博士) two full grades to junior fifth lower, most likely to ensure that they were not outranked by their more privileged students, who had benefited from the shadow-rank appointment system.100 Saga assigned additional new duties to the monjō hakase, which gained them virtual “insider” status as special counsels on political and moral matters, effectively making them akin to imperial private secretaries.101 3.3 Formal Court Verse in the Saga Age and Beyond Saga’s unstinting efforts to promote literacy and literary productivity created a poetic community within the court, with the emperor himself at the center as patron and artistic exemplar. Saga was a talented and prolific poet, mainly composing in Sinitic but enjoying waka versification as well;102 he left a legacy approaching one hundred kanshi, no doubt just a fraction of the total number 99  See Pekarik, p. 100, citing Gotō Akio, “Kyūtei shijin to ritsuryō kanjin to,” in Kokugo to kokubungaku 56.6 (June 1979), pp. 15–19, 22. 100  Yamaguchi, Kanmu, Ninmyō, p. 214. Through this system the sons of high aristocrats were permitted to enter the bureaucracy at a somewhat higher rank and post than normal, based on the status of their father or grandfather. William Ferris explains that the son of a man holding the third rank would typically enter service at age twenty-one at the junior sixth rank, upper, just three grades below the aristocracy, which began at the junior fifth rank, lower. This entry point was one rank higher than for youth from non-elite backgrounds. If good evaluations were received, a bright, aspiring courtier would find himself “on the verge of entering the exclusive society of the Nara court after one evaluation period (age twenty-seven).” For more on this system, see William Wayne Ferris, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan (1998), pp. 213–14. 101  Gerlini, pp. 9–10, 16–17. 102  The following poem, which appears in Nihon kōki (813/4/22) in a passage reconstructed from Ruijū kokushi 類聚國史 (892), was recited by Saga to harmonize with a waka by Fujiwara no Sonondo (Sonohito) 藤原園人 (756–819), about hearing a cuckoo cry beside the pond at Junna’s Nanchiin 南池院 estate, the bird seeming to say “May peace reign for a thousand ages.” Saga’s poem reads: hototogisu / naku koe kikeba / utanushi to tomo ni / chiyo ni to ware mo kikitari ほととぎす 鳴く聲聴けば歌主と共に千代にと我も聴 きたり. “When I heard the song of the cuckoo, along with you, / I too heard it say / “May peace reign for a thousand ages.” There also survives in Ruijū kokushi a rare banquet waka by Emperor Kanmu dated 801/1/4 on the conventional theme of snow being mistaken for plum petals. Poems like these, written during the so-called “dark age of waka,” show that vernacular verse continued to be practiced, written even in the most prestigious (albeit more private) settings, such as imperial residences. The notion of a “dark age” gives the mistaken impression, as Donald Keene notes, that “waka survived only vestigially during the period,” which was not the case; any “darkness” was due to a “decline of interest at the court in poetry in Japanese rather than to any real dearth of waka” (Keene, Seeds in the Heart [1993], p. 221).

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of poems he composed throughout his life. Saga’s leadership and support fostered a vigorous climate for social versification, as seen in the rise of group verse “harmonization,” at a level of direct sponsorship never again matched in subsequent centuries. The contexts for writing Sinitic poetry ranged from formal, official (hare 晴) venues to unofficial, private and informal (ke 褻) gatherings and solitary verse activity. Whereas informal kanshi typically display a plainer diction and a more direct, less rigid style, often with homey or intimate themes, formal occasional poetry is characterized by its courtly and impersonal language and elegant imagery.103 The poem “A Late Autumn Banquet in the Living Quarters of Prince Nagaya” (kfs 66), by Tanaka no Kiyotari 田中 淨足 (fl. ca. 730), exemplifies the themes, diction, and euphuistic imagery typical of formal court kanshi: Little by little autumn draws to a close. Fluttering fluttering, leaves already cold. In the Western Courtyard a banquet has begun; To the Eastern Park “jade tablets” escorted in. Deep in the water scaly ones sport about; Beneath the cliffs chrysanthemums are fragrant. On this day as our lord embraces his guests, A rosy beauty floats in our simurgh goblets. Royal palace banquets, with their rosy goblets reflecting the auspicious clouds and sublime settings that delighted even the fish (as seen in the Kiyotari poem above), can be viewed, as Webb has observed, “as one aspect of ‘theater state,’ at which participants declaimed verses that praised the sovereign, and, with varying degrees of directness, declared their loyalty and affirmed royal prestige.”104 Other such “theatrical” events included imperial birthdays, poetry contests, and royal expeditions to scenic sites, all rich in spectacle. Formal poetry composed on such occasions by and for a select company of nobles and courtiers strove to create a lofty and auspicious atmosphere appropriate to the moment 103  See Smits, “The Way of the Literati,” pp. 115–17 for an informative overview of poem settings (ba 場) and degrees of formality in kanshi versification. Private poetry, like verse written at public venues, could also be composed in a formal register using dignified and careful diction; likewise, public poetry, while always formal in its register, may sometimes en passant slip in personal touches, such as self-deprecating remarks or a wistful allusion to old age, creating a momentary tonal shift towards informality. 104  Webb, “In Good Order,” p. 82, with credit to Joan Piggott, who has written on the “theater state” (referring to the writing of Clifford Geertz) in her book The Emergence of Japanese Kingship (1997), pp. 139–49.

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and setting, adhering closely to the poetics of continental court verse from the late Six Dynasties and early Tang periods (ca. 500–700). As Brower and Miner observe, making a comparison to private or informal verse, “… much more attention and care were lavished on poems meant for the public eye.”105 Poets accordingly deployed the most elegant diction and rhetoric they could muster, creating couplets that aimed for an effect of refinement, erudition, and above all, skillful craftsmanship, displaying little or no personal sentiment. Overall, the objective in palace verse was to strike a dignified tone and celebrate the occasion in a stylish fashion. To this end, courtiers utilized a set repertoire of stock phrases, metaphors, and allusions, referring metonymically, for example, to the nobility as phoenixes and simurghs and to courtiers as jade tablets, as seen above. Common tropes include the ingratiating suggestion that the guests were drunk on the host’s virtue rather than on the wine and the flattering identification of the sovereign with one of China’s sage emperors. The formal and rhetorical norms demanded that poets begin by indicating the occasion and setting, proceeding next to a pair (or several pairs) of cleverly constructed parallel couplets. Static rather than active, these middle couplets usually sketched in the physical scene, employing descriptive imagery and sometimes classical allusions. The final two lines contained conventional sentiments, often praising the host or glorifying the ruler’s wisdom and beneficence, perhaps reminding the assembled guests of their dependence upon his “nourishment.” This tendency towards obsequiousness is a reminder of the role these poems played in the quest for patronage through self-abasement and flattery. Occasionally the last couplet might take a slightly jocular turn, to foster a spirit of bonhomie. Ōtsu no Obito’s octave “A Banquet Held on a Spring Day at the Residence of Prince Nagaya, Minister of the Left” (kfs 84) ends with a note of levity verging on the indecorous: For music and wine this is such a perfect place. The guests arrive, first one and then another. Sated with largesse, all of us very drunk. When passing the wine around do not drag your heels! Here and elsewhere, one is struck by the central role of wine in social poetry, where it greased the wheels of comity and creativity. Moon-viewing parties 105  Robert Brower and Earl Miner, Japanese Court Poetry (1961), p. 18. This work is focused on the waka tradition, but their discussion of formality/informality applies equally well to the social occasions and stylistic variation reflected in kanshi composition.

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with poetry and wine often lasted the entire night, a fact proudly noted in certain informal verses. Banquet poems sometimes performed a more practical role: in one particularly solemn Saga verse farewelling a military officer, written in a hortatory tone, the sovereign reminds this warrior of the challenges lying ahead and enjoins him to serve his nation well. Occasions for court verse included activities held beyond the palace or the city. One example (rus 27) by Prince Ōtomo was written to commemorate a royal hunt; to glorify the emperor, Ōtomo draws a parallel between the present expedition and a many-storied one led by the Zhou dynasty co-founder King Wen. Second Month, and in the paddies the spring plants still small. A thousand chariots sally forth before dawn, taking leave of the city. …………………………………………… This morning, what was it that His Majesty hoped to obtain? Exactly what the Zhou king sought in his hunt by the River Wei! Saga’s fondness for excursions accompanied by his favorite poet-retainers was legendary, immortalized in such poems as his “Written on a Summer Day Spent at Kankyoin with Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu, Major Captain in the Left Imperial Bodyguards” (rus 10):106 Whenever I wish to escape the heat to Kankyoin we go. Here we take up our fishing rods on a pavilion beside a pond. Green willows by the curved bank, dark in the setting sun; Sound of pines on the winding shore, cold this summer season. Reciting poems, tirelessly we grind the fragrant tea; Feeling inspired, the very time for listening to graceful strings. We stare awhile at the pure spring, washing away our cares; So easy to enjoy ourselves on such a peaceful day. Perhaps the most popular extramural locale was Shinsen’en 神泉苑 (Garden of Divine Waters); it was situated just to the south of the palace and featured a large lake edged by lotus lilies and weeping willows. Some twenty-eight processions to this park took place during the final five years of Kanmu’s reign,

106  Butterflies, pp. 52–53. Kankyoin 閑居院 (Kan’in 閑院) was the private residence of Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu 藤原冬嗣, who as minister of the left served Saga as his trusted advisor. See note 109, below, on private estates.

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with forty-three more during the reign of Saga.107 As mentioned earlier, no specific group of professional kanshi poets existed at this time, but the more talented individuals, many of them graduates of the Academy, were called upon to accompany such outings and compose commemorative verse on command. Courtiers did not necessarily relish this task; a poem by Minamoto no Toshifusa (1035–1121) closes by asking why the courtiers are all exchanging nervous glances. The answer immediately follows: since the imperial command has been issued, they must now begin to write.108 There was always the consolation, however, that a well-turned verse might find its way into an official collection or lead to gifts or preferment of some kind. The reigns of Saga and Junna saw the production of three celebrated literary anthologies: Ryōun shinshū, also known simply as Ryōunshū (814), Bunka shūreishū (818), and Keikokushū (827). The emperors not only sponsored these collections but also ensured that a sufficient number of events were held to yield an adequate quantity of poems worthy of inclusion. By all appearances, this was a period of prolific kanshi production, with composition occurring routinely at palace events, as is well documented in the official records. More than sixty occasions were held within the palace or at other sites between 792 and 832; while only five of these date from the twenty years down to 812, fiftyfive took place during the next twenty years.109 Some notations concerning 107  A small park from the original Shinsen’en estate remains, southwest of Nijō Palace in Kyoto. For details, see Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku shi ronkō, pp. 86–89, 95–98. On Saga’s outings to Shinsen’en and the 28 surviving poems (mainly on autumn) composed there by some 15 poets during the Saga-Junna years, see also Kageki Hideo, “Sagatei no shifū: san-chokusen shishū-kō (1),” Heian bungaku kenkyū 63 (1980), p. 20. 108  See cbsk 9-2, translated below. 109  A peak in the frequency of occasions was reached between 812 and 819, when there were sometimes as many as six events in one year. By way of comparison, entries in Nihon kōki (840) indicate that for the period 792–832, waka or ‘uta’ (vernacular songs or verses) were performed at palace events only rarely, with eight instances being noted over this forty year interim. The last notation, for 830/7/6, records that Junna (r. 823–33) recited two banka 挽歌 (elegies) upon the death of Kanmu’s son Yoshimine no Yasuyo 良岑安世 (785–830).    Between 814 and 818 there was a rise in the number of Sinitic verse events held away from the palace at estates owned by the aristocracy and imperial villas (Gotō, “Kyūtei shijin,” p. 14), these providing an opportunity to escape the summer heat (as noted in Nihon kōki for 811/5/1). Frequently named sites for extramural visits include: Nanchiin (the estate of the crown prince, later Emperor Junna); Kazansō 華山荘 (Yoshimine no Yasuyo’s residence); Kankyoin (Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu’s residence); Narabigaoka Sansō 雙岡山荘 (Kiyohara no Natsuno’s 清原夏野 estate); and Nagaoka-tei 長岡第 (Ono no Ishiko’s 小 野石子 residence). Imperial estates included the Saga Bekkan 嵯峨別館 (also known as Sagain 嵯峨院), Shinsen’en, the detached palace Kayō Rikyū in Yamazaki, and Reizen’in 冷然院 (renamed Reizeiin 冷泉院 in 954). See Gotō Akio, Heianchō kanbungaku ronkō

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these events mention music and song (and during Tanabata festivities on the Double Seventh, for example, sumō), followed by the presentation of gifts, such as robes and silk. 3.4 Ryōun shinshū 凌雲新集 The first Saga anthology appeared in 814, following a year when six Sinitic verse occasions had taken place, the highwater mark for official poetry gatherings during the ninth century; elaborate and lavish, these events came at a high cost to the Treasury, leading to calls by Saga’s foremost advisors for restraint.110 The smallest of the three imperially-sponsored collections, Ryōun shinshū (The New Cloud-Soaring Collection), reaches back to 782 and preserves 91 poems by 24 authors, whose works appear in descending order of rank (a feature Gotō Akio associates with its “public” character), rather than according to thematic category or in chronological order.111 In the poetry itself we see movement towards the popularization of the seven-character line length, with half the verses being in this form. A third of the pieces are banquet or excursion poems, many in the “harmonizing” mode (see below), and roughly a quarter are zatsuei on a wide variety of topics, both formal and informal in style, several of them in mixed meter. Sixty-seven verses are octaves, divided roughly evenly between pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic forms.112 Rather than wistfully recollecting the glories and tragedies of the seventh century, as was the case in Kaifūsō, Ono no Minemori 小野峯守 (777–830), author of the preface, focuses on the achievements and magnificence of the Saga court. He invokes the words of Cao Pi 曹丕 (Emperor Wen of Wei, 187–226), traditionally recognized as China’s earliest literary critic and a crucial figure in the development of Chinese literature: “[L]iterary works are the (2005), p. 31. Only a tiny fraction of the verse written at these venues is extant. See Ozawa Masao, Kokinshū no sekai (1961), pp. 43–44. 110  A memorial issued on 814/3/4 by Fujiwara no Sonondo, Saga’s principal advisor and confidant, urged the drastic reduction of such expenses by scaling back certain court banquets, following an earlier call for financial stringency in 807, and advocating informal versifying instead “on an impromptu [off-calendar] basis” (Webb, “The Big Business of Writing,” p. 38). The issue periodically resurfaced during and beyond the Kōnin period (810–23). Years later, on 837/12/8, Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Otsugu 藤原緒嗣 (774–843) presented a resignation petition (jihyō 辭表), reiterating a complaint he had made early in the Tenchō era (824–33) to the effect that the imperial treasury had been drained, owing to a superfluity of officials and extravagant literary banquets. On these issues, see Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku ronkō, pp. 30–35. 111  Gotō Akio, “Saga Tennō to Kōnin-ki shidan,” in Gobun kenkyū 28 (May 1970), p. 20. 112  For more detailed data, see Hatooka Akira, “Ryōunshū to Bunka shūreishū: shifū no tenkai ni tsuite,” Kokugakuin zasshi 80.1 (Jan. 1979), pp. 89–92.

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supreme achievement in the business of state, a splendor that does not decay. A time will come when a person’s life ends; glory and pleasure go no further than this body. To carry both to eternity, there is nothing to compare with the unending permanence of the literary work” 文章經国之大業、不朽之盛 事。年壽有時而盡、榮樂止乎其身。二者必至之常期、未若文章之無窮.113 The first part of this famous passage, “literary works are the supreme achievement in the business of state,” became, as Webb has observed, “a kind of slogan, a frequently invoked reminder of the close interdependence of political rule (經國) and written composition (文章) as articulated by the venerable Wei emperor.”114 Minemori goes on to praise the sovereign for his grasp of his role and for his mighty achievements, using the most formal euphuistic language. At the same time he underscores Saga’s centrality and leadership in the literary activities of the court and his capacity for continual self-improvement as a scholar-exemplar, a ruler whose poems, together with Junna’s, “… are so elevated in repute as to be beyond the visible world of images, and their tones transcend the earthly realm.”115 Further, he reminds the reader that one of the 113  Trans. Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (1992), p. 68. The first part of this dictum is often cited in Western scholarship on early Japanese literature where the rationale for the patronage of Chinese letters is treated. Many scholars see a connection being made between literary works and the successful administration of the state, to the effect that “literature is a great undertaking for governing the state.” Their interpretations follow statements made by Saga and others that placed a more utilitarian slant on Cao Pi, explicitly tying literary activity to the creation of a well-governed realm, as in Saga’s 812 rescript, referred to earlier: “For governing the country and managing the household, nothing is better than writing …” Nevertheless, Owen’s reading seems closer to what Cao Pi intended, given the larger context: Cao speaks not of governance per se but the value and permanence of literary works—and their potential to confer immortality upon their writers. For a treatment of the various reiterations of Cao Pi in the early anthology prefaces, see Wiebke Denecke, “Chinese Antiquity and Court Spectacle in Early Kanshi,” Journal of Japanese Studies 30.1 (2004), pp. 106–10. 114  Webb, “The Big Business of Writing,” p. 13. In essence, this slogan stood for a “Cao Pi-inspired merger of supreme political and literary authority” (ibid., p. 41), although there were also other contexts where this phraseology was invoked as a reminder of the imperium’s participation in the greater East Asian textual tradition. The court’s use of the Cao Pi remark about the “business of state” was perhaps little more than a lofty literary flourish mimicking other textual passages, mainly intended to pay homage to the authority Cao Pi represented. It may also have provided a simple rationale for continuing to compose poetry in the court. See ibid., pp. 40–41.    “Literature” (bunshō) in the utilitarian context of building the nation meant both newly-produced works and, more importantly, the ancient works in China’s textual canon, in particular the Five Classics and official histories, which provided moral instruction and precedents for emulation. 115  Trans. from Heldt, p. 302.

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purposes of the anthology was to prevent the loss of great poems from recent decades. No individual poet is praised (apart from the two sovereigns themselves), nor does Minemori mention any “singular style or achievement of an individual poet—besides the sovereign himself,”116 perhaps to avoid diminishing imperial glory by having mere subjects share the limelight. He adds that while finding a totally perfect poem was not easy, the poems by Saga and Junna were so superlative they did not require close scrutiny: “How could we, your subjects, possibly presume to discuss them?”117 3.5 Bunka shūreishū 文華秀麗集 The second Saga anthology, a slightly larger collection that appeared just four years after the first, Bunka shūreishū (Anthology of Splendid Literary Flowerings, 818) contains 143 poems by some 28 authors, this time arranged by category. Once again, more than half the verses are heptasyllabic, but there are four times as many zekku.118 Saga is the best-represented poet, with 34 poems. Prince Nakao’s 中雄王 preface offers no further insights into the supposed utility of literature in strengthening the realm. Instead, the raison d’etre for this work appears to have been wholly aesthetic. Nakao expresses pride in the quantity of literature produced in recent years—enough to fill one hundred scrolls, he notes—and its growing aesthetic excellence: “It could be said that plain carts have been transformed into imperial carriages by adorning them with flowers, or that waters have given birth to ice by increasing their stern dignity.”119 Nakao also mentions that in the editorial process Saga was considered the final arbiter—hardly a surprise. Although all works date from the period 782–818, most were written during the four years since 814, during which time about 16 kanshi events had been held; the anthology also includes some leftovers from Ryōunshū. One finds a smaller number of banquet and excursion poems (only 18 pieces), but the Bunka shūreishū verse is nonetheless characterized overall by the prominence of social poetry in the “harmonizing” mode (see below) exchanged between sovereign and subject, which accounts for half of the compositions. The collection also has 48 zatsuei (“unclassified verses”), many of them sensual, aesthetic, or sentimental treatments of their subjects, and a section with the title enjō 艶 情, which is larger than that found in Ryōunshū, comprising ornate gongti shi 116  Webb, “In Good Order,” p. 214. As is noted here, this lack of attention paid to the talents of any individual poets is also observed in the prefaces to the second and third Saga-Junna anthologies. 117  Our translation. 118  For these and other statistics relating to this collection, see Hatooka, ibid. 119  Trans. from Heldt, p. 303.

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宮體詩 (palace-style) pieces. These are stylized love poems, inspired by late-

Six Dynasties pieces on well-born lonely Chinese ladies, rather than genuine depictions of the actual loves of poets.120

3.6 Keikokushū 經國集 Compiled in 827 by Yoshimine no Yasuyo (d. 830) and several other literati during the reign of Emperor Junna, Keikokushū (A Collection of Works for Bringing Order to the Realm) followed Bunka shūreishū by 13 years, during which time some 15 official verse events had taken place. Its poetry reaches back to 707, embracing a far longer time span than either of the two previous collections, and yet it draws once again upon the works of Saga most heavily, providing 26 of his poems; he is followed by Shigeno no Sadanushi 滋野貞主 (785–852) with 25. Although only a quarter of the text has survived, this was a vast and ambitious undertaking, originally occupying twenty scrolls and featuring the works of 178 authors, with around 917 poems, 17 fu, 51 prefaces, and 38 exam essays. Keikokushū is the first of the anthologies to include prose selections, taking Wen xuan as its model and adopting a large number of literary categories hitherto not seen, many of high utilitarian value in statecraft (keikoku). As before, most of the verse emanates from Saga’s coterie; about two-thirds of the extant poems are zatsuei, displaying varying degrees of formality and written on a wide variety of topics, such as snow, polo, and visiting an ill friend. The writer of the Keikokushū preface, believed to be Shigeno no Sadanushi, lavishes praise upon Junna and Saga for their erudition, virtue, and literary talents: In my humble opinion, the moral influence of Your Majesty is profound in its simplicity, and culture flourishes under your guidance … The former sovereign Saga has already passed on his imperial seal to our wise sovereign Junna, who accepts its bright glory, exalting his virtue. Together, Your Majesties have encouraged the increased illumination of accumulated learning, and view extensive erudition as an essential aid to the Way of governing the realm. Your Majesties both strive in your wisdom, and Heaven has endowed both of you with great talents.121

120  In this respect, enjō verse is aligned with Wen xuan. As Knechtges writes, “Although the Wen xuan includes a few poems on love themes, the sentiments are those of the abandoned woman pining away for her absent lover. It does not contain any poems on erotic feeling.” See his “Culling the Weeds,” p. 227. 121  Trans. Heldt, pp. 306–307.

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The preface also outlines the history of literature in China, from the Han to the Sui, naming a selection of key canonical texts whose traditions Saga and Junna are credited with aspiring to perpetuate. It sheds new light upon the rationale for writing belles-lettres, a salient theme that is embodied in the following passage: Therefore, the authors of antiquity placed their selves in their writing, making their intentions known through their poetry and other works. Not entrusting themselves to the fleeting moment of their glory, they sought to pass their names on to posterity.122 This reflects Cao Pi’s statement quoted earlier, to the effect that literature had the potential to confer everlasting fame upon its authors. The preface also provides insights into the meaning of the term keikoku (“bringing order to the realm,” or “binding the realm together”) found in the title of the collection, in the context of literary writing: … [L]iterary composition is the means by which images of Heaven above and Earth below are made evident, and the way by which the order governing human relations is illuminated. It fully comprehends the principle and nature of all things, and through it, the ideal essence of each and every one is known. Only when form and content are mutually balanced is the gentleman made.123 Here the writer appears to be saying that the works selected for this anthology reflect an ideal order and heavenly values, providing models for behavior and the creation of a harmonious society. The final sentence suggests that verse could serve as a criterion in evaluating men and judging their suitability for service. Considering earlier criticisms of the literary “extravagances” of the court, the use of “keikoku” both in the title and in the preface, presumably to underline the political utility of verse, may also have been defensive, aimed at justifying the continuing sponsorship of events and the practice of Sinitic verse more generally.124 122  Ibid., p. 306. When Cao Pi wrote of achieving immortality through one’s literary legacy, he was inspired by the memory of four of his literary friends who had recently perished in an epidemic in 217 (see Webb, “The Big Business of Writing,” p. 29). 123  Heldt, p. 305. 124  Webb, “The Big Business of Writing,” p. 39; see also Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku ronkō, pp. 44–46.

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Sinitic Verse Practice: Mid- to Late-Heian

Kanshi Practice Amid the Return of Waka to Public Court Life, ca. 830–900: Emperors Ninmyō to Uda Following Keikokushū, there was an apparent cessation of imperial sponsorship of kanshi anthologies for close to a century and a half, down to the time of Murakami. Nevertheless, during Ninmyō’s years (r. 833–50), kanshi retained its traditional place in the ceremonial life of the court, albeit with fewer active poets on the scene: Kūkai, both Saga and Junna, Sadanushi, Michizane’s grandfather Kiyokimi, and various other important kanshi poets had by now passed from the scene without comparable reinforcements coming in.125 Although native verse did not recover its former high public status until around the time of Kōkō’s reign (884–87),126 it had begun to attract greater interest at court during the Ninmyō era. At least three waka poets later counted among the so-called Rokkasen 六歌仙 (a group of six poet “sages”) came of age during Ninmyō’s reign. Ninmyō evidently had a fondness for waka, and during the latter half of his reign in particular, mentions of waka-related affairs increase in the records, suggesting his role in assisting the gradual return of vernacular verse to court life.127 One further sign of a reawakening zest for waka versification was the 4.1

125  McCullough, Brocade, p. 194. 126  Emperor Kōkō began to hold native-verse banquets, as well as the first waka utaawase, one of several varieties of parlor contests. Haruo Shirane observes that, “[A]lthough poetry contests had been held in China for centuries, it is generally thought that the Heian utaawase matches originated independently” (Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600 [2007], p. 593). Two teams (right and left) were asked to write poems on assigned topics (dai 題), either ex tempore or with some advance preparation. The completed verses were read aloud by a presenter (kōshi 講師) and often evaluated by judges, called hanja 判者, whose opinions were typically recorded. The ritualized staging and delivery of the poems played an important role in creating the majesty and spectacle of these occasions. For more on the gathering momentum behind waka versifying and the patronage it received during the latter half of the ninth century, see Persiani, “Waka After the Kokinshū,” pp. 55–71, and McCullough, ibid., pp. 231–92. 127  Yamaguchi, Kanmu, Ninmyō, p. 340. One notable waka event that occurred in 849, during Ninmyō’s reign, was the presentation by the Kōfukuji priests of a celebratory “Great Thanksgiving” chōka 長歌 (long poem) more than 300 lines in length, on the occasion of the emperor’s fortieth birthday. For a translation see Pekarik, pp. 241–45. McCullough notes that this Great Thanksgiving service was “the only known early Heian public event at which the singing of waka was prescribed” (Brocade, p. 194). Another memorable instance of waka in palace life during Ninmyō’s reign, related in Shoku Nihon kōki for 845/1/8, was a performance in front of an army of spectators by a 113-year old former official named Owari no Muraji Hamanushi 尾張連浜主, who had sought permission (his written appeal included a waka poem) to perform a dance to Japanese-style “longevity music” (chōjuraku 長壽樂) in front of the sovereign. After a slow start, Hamanushi began

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gradual rise in the number of tenjōbito 殿上人 (privy courtiers, mainly holders of the fifth rank or higher) and kugyō (the upper three ranks in the aristocracy) writing waka at court from around the middle of the ninth century.128 Between the years 833 and 849 kanshi occasions were held about twice a year—hardly a robust roster—with a total of 33 documented events, including Double Ninth celebrations, Naien banquets, parties for Tang delegations, and a few imperial excursions.129 The ceremonial poems written on these occasions were conventional seasonal pieces on such topoi as “lament of the crickets,” “tossing and falling in the autumn winds,” “flowers and the moon in early spring,” and “chrysanthemums fresh amid heavy dew.” One outing described in Shoku Nihon kōki for 833/8/25 was held at Retired Emperor Junna’s retreat, the assembled courtiers all composing kanshi on the set topic “hidden retreat by the mountain stream” 幽居山水, with both retired emperors themselves versifying and later granting gifts totaling 10,000 moji of silk floss.130 It has been estimated that in Ninmyō’s court only five or six poets were sufficiently skilled to compose kanshi at banquet events, apparently just a quarter of those typically present at formal gatherings during the Junna years.131 This decline coincides with a drop in the percentage of “literati-officials”—courtiers who had been in the monjōdō (kidendō) track at the Academy—serving at court. There had been a shortage of qualified candidates in the Academy, many also taking longer to complete their studies than was normal and “having grey

dancing with the vigor of a youth, to everyone’s amazement. Hamanushi was called back to the Seiryōden two days later for a repeat performance; he recited a waka, which the emperor greatly enjoyed, and everyone in attendance wept. Hamanushi was rewarded with a robe then instructed to withdraw. 128  The percentage of active waka poets of kugyō status reached 22% of their number in the time of Seiwa (r. 858–76), 47% under Kōkō (r. 884–87), 50% under Uda (r. 887–97), and 67% under Daigo (r. 897–930). By the time of Suzaku (r. 930–46), twenty-five out of thirtythree kugyō, equivalent to 75%, are said to have been actively composing waka. See Yamaguchi Hiroshi, Ōchō kadan no kenkyū: Uda, Daigo, Suzaku-chō hen (1972), pp. 245–47. The growing vogue for native verse among courtiers at the upper end of the hierarchy has been characterized by Yamaguchi as the “poet-ization of the upper aristocracy” 上層貴 族の歌人化 (Persiani, ibid., p. 29, citing Yamaguchi, ibid., p. 537). Regarding social and other factors driving the growth in popularity of waka among the highest echelons of aristocratic society during the latter half of the ninth century, see Persiani, ibid., pp. 10–52. 129  Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 45–46. 130  At this time 10,000 moji amounted to around 1,350 kilograms. See Tsunoda Bun’ei and the Kodaigaku kyōkai, comp., Heian jidaishi jiten, vol. 2 (1994), p. 1779. 131  Yamaguchi, Kanmu, Ninmyō, pp. 215, 320–21. Records from these years typically mention that “only two,” or some other small number of poets were on hand at events, even for the more important ones.

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hair” by the time they finished, according to Shoku Nihon kōki for 837/7/16.132 Accordingly, among officials at the level of sangi or higher, the percentage of literati declined by eighteen percent between 833 and 849, with markedly fewer among the kurōdo and lower ranks as well.133 Not only was there an insufficiency of trained officials with literary expertise, one also suspects that Ninmyō, who seems to have had no particular fondness for kanshi—only one verse by him survives—did not seek literati for responsible appointments the way his father Saga had. The trend of the times was to appoint persons on the basis of family ties, with bloodlines and personal connections mattering far more than Academy training and professional merit. Some of those who replaced the shrinking cohort of literati-officials were persons whom Yamaguchi identifies as “artist-officials” (aachiisuto kanryō), individuals whose main talents lay in the arts—music, waka, dance, and so forth—and whose pursuits and interests were fostered in a milieu in which no effort or expense was spared where artistic indulgences and leisure activities were concerned. This led not only to a depletion of resources needed for other important tasks but also to the neglect of the routine business of the state.134 National priorities—including support for education and agriculture, and the promotion of frugality and fiscal responsibility in governance—resurfaced in Daigo’s court, as evidenced in Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki’s 三善清行 (848–919) “Opinions on Twelve Matters” (914), submitted to the sovereign, wherein he looks back on the Ninmyō years: [Ninmyō] had a particularly fondness for extravagance … which was harmful to agriculture and detrimental to women. Garments that were made in the morning were replaced in the evening. Day in and day out over the months there were changes in fashion … The accumulation of banquets and occasions for festive music and dancing was unlike anything seen before or since … These expenses consumed half the resources of the realm …135 During Ninmyō’s reign, the Fujiwara clan had gained substantial control over the affairs of the imperial house and the civil administration, their influence deepening in the decades that followed. Through the machinations of the 132  133  134  135 

Ibid., p. 321. Ibid., pp. 331–34. For an overview of the poetic culture of Ninmyō’s court, see ibid., pp. 335–38, 465–68. Honchō monzui, book 2, in Ōsone Shōsuke and others, annot., Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei [snkbt] 27 (1992), p. 148.

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faction surrounding his uncle, Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Yoshifusa 藤 原良房 (804–72), Emperor Montoku (827–58), eldest son of Ninmyō, was put on the throne in 850; the heir apparent Prince Tsunesada 恒貞親王 (825–84) had been deposed earlier, in the Jōwa Disturbance (Jōwa no hen 承和の變, 842). Montoku’s enthronement—and marriage to one of Yoshifusa’s daughters just before his accession—paved the way for Yoshifusa’s rise to even greater heights of power: he became chancellor in 857, occupying the highest court post, an achievement that effectively inaugurated the beginning of the Fujiwara regency, which would remain in political control for more than two hundred years. During the Montoku years the statutory twice-yearly Sinitic verse events continued to be held, on the twenty-first day of the First Month (the Naien Banquet) and on the Double Ninth, but palace poetry events appear to have become fossilized, reflecting little innovation or creative energy, with only the bare maintenance of the status quo. The notations regarding these annual events, as recorded in Nihon Montoku jitsuroku (completed 879), are accordingly terse and unenlightening, usually falling back on the laconic phrase “all ceremonial matters conducted as usual” 皆如常儀 or something similar. Montoku does not appear to have participated much in literary activity in the manner of Saga, or later, Uda,136 and although he was tutored in his youth by both Sugawara no Koreyoshi 菅原是善 (812–80) and his father Kiyokimi 清公 (770–842), any verse that he may have written has not survived. McCullough also notes the lack of records indicating that he called for the composition of waka at court events.137 Montoku’s rule was characterized by relative austerity and dedication to governance, as seen in his attention to reining in excess and catching up on formerly neglected affairs of state with the assistance of learned intellectuals serious about their duties. In this connection, Montoku Tennō jitsuroku for 858/8/6 notes that “the net of prohibitions grew gradually denser, the laws quite strict” 至于禁網漸密、憲法頗峻.138 Montoku was by all accounts a 136  Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku shi ronkō, p. 95. The preface to Kokinshū 930, a poem by Sanjō no Machi 三条の町, provides a rare glimpse of Montoku’s artistic side, captured while he was viewing a screen painting of a waterfall in the Table Room of the palace one day; apparently he ordered waka be written about it on the spot. 137  McCullough, Brocade, p. 195. 138  Yamaguchi, Kanmu, Ninmyō, p. 465. Here, Yamaguchi notes the flurry of kanpu 官符 directives issued during 850 by the Council of State after Montoku took the throne (with Yoshifusa as his minister), these numbering seventeen during the first nine months of his rule, a quadrupling of activity compared to the Ninmyō years. The administrative assiduousness of his courtiers did not wane, with thirty-two directives forthcoming in 855 alone.

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sober, rather retiring ruler, who took little pleasure in the usual amusements like poetry writing, hunting expeditions, and excursions to villas. Gotō draws attention to this rather inward turn, which manifested itself in the shrinking of the range of activities among emperors from Montoku to Kōkō (ca. 850–87);139 one suspects that the priority given to administration in Montoku’s case may have left him little energy for other pursuits, especially considering that he had a frail constitution. Later described as having been “too infirm even to hold the customary morning audiences in the Great Hall of State,”140 Montoku passed away at the age of thirty-one. The next emperor was Seiwa (850–80, r. 858–76), Montoku’s fourth son (and Yoshifusa’s grandson), a mere child of eight when he took the throne. Yoshifusa had arranged for him to leapfrog over his older brother Koretaka, the offspring of Montoku’s non-Fujiwara concubine Ki no Shizuko 紀静子 (the poetess Sanjō no Machi). Yoshifusa was formally installed as regent (sesshō 攝政) midway through Seiwa’s reign, in 866, enjoying a high level of authority and honor hitherto unmatched even for a noble. As a patron of Sinitic verse Seiwa did not particularly distinguish himself, nor do any waka or kanshi by him appear to have survived. In a typical year, the chronicles record four formal events and two sekiten observances.141 But like his grandfather Ninmyō, Seiwa was devoted to the arts, with perhaps a keener interest in cultural pursuits than in statecraft, fostering a milieu that was again favorable to aesthetically-inclined officials.142 Seiwa himself suffered from various infirmities, like his father, and over the course of his reign there are only four documented outings to villas

139  A tally of excursions during Montoku’s eight-year reign shows only one recreational trip, as compared to Saga with 143 such events and Ninmyō with 43. No emperor after Saga could match his enthusiasm for outings. See Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku shi ronkō, pp. 86–89, 95–98. 140  Nihon sandai jitsuroku for 871/2/14, cited in McCullough, Brocade, p. 195. 141  The data provided here on poetry events, and the Somedono anecdote outlined below, are derived from Nihon sandai jitsuroku. The sekiten were rites with lectures and versification to honor Confucius, normally held during the second and eighth months in the Daigakuryō. The first mention of these ceremonies in the histories appears to be an entry dated 820/2, but Ozawa notes that they began in 701 (Ozawa, Kokinshū no sekai, p. 49). Denecke observes that sekiten achieved a “much more durable popularity in Japan than in China,” from where the ritual was adopted (“Early Kanshi,” p. 111). Concerning which canonical texts were chosen for study at the events held between 859–95 (which included Shijing, Lun yu, Xiaojing, and four others), see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 1, pp. 131– 33. The poem “The Mid-Autumn Sekiten Rites” (kfs 97) by Fujiwara no Maro 藤原萬里 (695–737) relates the poet’s thoughts at the time of a sekiten observance. For more on these ceremonies see the notes to kkbs 81, below. 142  Yamaguchi, Kanmu, Ninmyō, pp. 503–505.

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and recreational sites.143 He had little interest in (or perhaps lacked the stamina to pursue) hunting or fishing but took pleasure in reading and the classics, according to his obituary in Nihon sandai jitsuroku for 880/12/4, which also notes that he was often preoccupied with Buddhism. He is praised for being enlightened, broadminded and forgiving, and “as calm and dignified as a god.” Seiwa abdicated in 876, taking his vows the following year (at twenty-seven) and dying some three years later after making a lengthy religious pilgrimage to eleven famous mountain temples in 879. At Mount Mizunō, which he decided was where he wanted to die, he practiced severe forms of asceticism, including long fasts, passing away while practicing meditation the year after his pilgrimage.144 Throughout his reign, even after gaining his majority, he left most important decision-making to Yoshifusa. Among his large retinue of consorts and concubines was Fujiwara no Takaiko 藤原高子 (Kōshi, the Nijō Consort, 841–90), who gained renown as a court lady and poet through Ise monogatari 伊勢物語 (Tales of Ise). Nihon sandai jitsuryoku records a rare extramural event from the Seiwa years, attesting to the continuing presence of kanshi in court life: an excursion by Seiwa, then aged sixteen, to Yoshifusa’s Somedono mansion in the spring of 866. The blooming of the cherry blossoms was the main attraction, and Seiwa was escorted on this day by a large retinue of high-ranked princes, lords, and officials. He stopped first to inspect the paddy fields adjacent to the East Gate of Yoshifusa’s estate before going on to enjoy the flowers and the view from a pavilion in the grounds. The young emperor also watched fishing and then practiced archery, shooting the first arrow, after which the activities shifted to banqueting and drinking. Dancers performed to musical accompaniment amongst the flowers, and poets participated in a joint verse-writing exercise on the topic-line “Petals Fall Like Numberless Snowflakes” 落花無數雪, an apparent kudaishi topos (see below). Everyone became intoxicated before the day was over. Emoluments were distributed, and at sunset the procession returned to the palace. On the same day, the poor of the city were ordered to assemble on the banks of the Kamo, and 50,000 newly-minted coins were distributed, along with 2,500 meals. Rapid, ritualized readings (tendoku 轉讀) of portions of the Kongō Hannya-kyō 金剛般若經 (Vajracchedikā-sūtra; Diamond Sutra) were conducted at 43 temples in the capital environs. Seiwa’s eldest son by Takaiko came to the throne as Emperor Yōzei (868– 949, r. 876–84) at the age of seven, with Fujiwara no Mototsune 藤原基經 143  Gotō, ibid., p. 86. 144  Ichiro Hori, “On the Concept of the Hijiri (Holy Man),” in Paul Williams, ed., Buddhism in China, East Asia, and Japan (2005), p. 212.

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(836–91), his uncle, serving as regent.145 Yōzei is largely remembered for his mental instability and depraved conduct, which eventually culminated in the murder of one of his courtiers. Alarmed by his nephew’s cruel and sadistic behavior, Mototsune finally forced the young man to yield the throne to his great-uncle Kōkō, Ninmyō’s son, who was then fifty-four. Although the surviving record for Yōzei’s reign is rather thin, the frequency of major kanshi ceremonial events and banquets appears to have remained much the same. Sugawara no Michizane, already highly respected as a poet by this time, was likely called upon to contribute verse at most, if not all, of the formal events where poetry was required in the Yōzei court. By examining some seventy-six poems written by Michizane during the emperor’s seven-year rule, we can gain a more complete picture of the range of occasions on which kanshi were composed in public at the palace—and in private contexts—during these years. For this period, Michizane’s anthology preserves nineteen poems composed for formal palace occasions (amounting to an average of 2.7 per year), these including not only the regular Naien and Double Ninth banquets, but also diplomatic parties and social interactions with Parhae guests, spring Jijūden banquets, and lectures on history and the classics. Michizane also wrote two poems to commemorate special palace events, one being on the rebuilding of the Daigokuden. These formal, public verses are not particularly numerous and represent only a quarter of the compositions included in his collection from this period. The remaining poems can be divided roughly as follows: (1) poems that typically focus on activities in less formal, non-ceremonial contexts, offering Michizane’s responses to situations arising therefrom, including, for example, verse composed at a gathering of the Shōshikai 尚齒 會 (Age Veneration Society)146 and ones written to congratulate his students; and (2) wholly private poems about the loss of family members, his sorrows over personal setbacks and illness, troubles with slander and criticism, and so forth. While this tally of works by Michizane during Yōzei’s reign is just one snapshot of kanshi composition in all its diversity during the mid-Heian age, it is a reminder that Sinitic verse had a vigorous life of its own beyond the ceremonial environment of the court, providing a means to document almost every event in a poet’s private life. 145  Between Seiwa’s time and the court of Go-Ichijō (r. 1016–36), nine of the thirteen emperors were seventeen or younger when they came to the throne; seven were no older than twelve. Daughters of Fujiwara regents were selected as primary imperial consorts for 170 years down to 1068, when Go-Sanjō was enthroned. Unsurprisingly, these relatively docile younger sovereigns had few conflicts with the powerful Fujiwara. See The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 2, p. 51. 146  Established in 877, this society was modeled on one founded in China by Bai Juyi in 845.

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Yōzei himself probably wrote Sinitic verse when the occasion called for it, but it is vernacular poetry that held his interest. He held one competition after another, often with unusual assigned topoi, but only one of his poems has come down to us (Gosenshū 777), with a handful of others attributed to him in Yamato monotagari. He seems to have inherited some of his mother Takaiko’s poetic proclivities, and following his forced abdication around the age of eighteen he appears to have been surrounded by waka versifiers, many of whom were well connected to the imperial family.147 But whatever innate literary talents he may have possessed, these were overshadowed by his legendarily outrageous behavior as an adolescent. Emperor Kōkō (r. 884–87) was strongly inclined towards waka and doubtless helped to propel its return to official life. Fourteen of his poems have survived, including a spring verse memorialized in Hyakunin isshu 百人一首, with other pieces by him preserved in Ninna gyoshū 仁和御集. He is credited with inaugurating native-verse banquets, as well as the first waka utaawase. At the same time, he maintained kanshi traditions in the accustomed fashion; for Kōkō’s brief reign Yamaguchi logs fourteen ceremonial kanshi events, including several Double Ninth and Naien occasions, but the majority of the formal gatherings were banquets following sekiten lectures. Yamaguchi records just two known topoi from all of the above recorded occasions: “the song of the jade candle” and “the spring dancing girls have no energy,” a kudaishi title.148 The one recreational event noted in the chronicles at which kanshi were likely composed was an outing to the Shinsen’en. Kōkō’s reign seems notable for the frugality exercised by the emperor himself as well as his cordial relationship with Mototsune, who essentially ruled on his behalf as chancellor and even convinced the emperor to demote his own sons from royal to noble courtier status, to relieve burdens on the treasury and limit their political influence. During the years between Ninmyō and Kōkō, we see the rise of important new trends in kanshi diction, rhetoric, and choice of topoi, particularly in informal verse, occasioned largely by the discovery of Bai Juyi around 838. Ninmyō himself had not been the passionate and proactive kanshi patron that his father Saga was, but he is said to have enjoyed kanshi composition and was reportedly delighted when one Fujiwara no Takemori 藤原岳守 (808–51) presented him with a manuscript of poems by Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen, which had turned up on a boat in Kyushu in the year 838, a piece of serendipity that may

147  Yamaguchi, Kanmu, Ninmyō, pp. 607–608 et seq. 148  Ibid., Uda, Daigo, p. 46.

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well have marked the beginning of the Japanese love affair with Bai.149 Many of Bai’s themes, as well as tonal qualities, styles, and his plain diction, were emulated by kanshi poets for generations to come, although by no means supplanting more conventional courtly styles of palace poetry. Bai’s works took kanshi in a new direction towards greater exploration of individual emotion and quotidian personal experiences, as exemplified by the verse of Shimada no Tadaomi and Sugawara no Michizane.150 The introduction of Bai’s verse to the court not only had the effect of further deepening lyricism in kanshi but also reduced its aesthetic and (to some extent) thematic distance from native verse. Throughout subsequent decades, official events where kanshi composition took place increased as patronage and interest in versifying again rose, with sixty-six occasions recorded for the Uda years (r. 887–97), these for a slightly 149  Nihon Montoku Tennō jitsuroku records in an entry for 851/9/26 (within Fujiwara no Takemori’s obituary) that the manuscript had been found amongst the cargo on a ship during an inspection by Takemori, then governor-general of the Government Headquarters in Kyushu. Takemori’s gift of this work to the throne earned him a small promotion in rank. Priest Ennin also brought a manuscript of Bai’s works to Japan around the same time; see note 71. For more on the significance of the Takemori manuscript and what it may have contained see Konishi, A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 2, pp. 150– 51. See also Ivo Smits, “Reading the New Ballads: Late Heian Kanshi Poets and Bo Juyi,” in Wasser-Spuren: Festschrift für Wolfram Naumann zum 65, Stanca Scholz-Cionaca, ed. (1997), pp. 169–72, on the post-Takemori transmission and reception of Bai’s works, in various editions, during the Heian period. 150  Bai Juyi overshadowed all other Chinese poets by far, playing a particularly important role in the stylistic evolution of kanshi. Two-thirds of the Tang couplets in Wakan rōeishū 和漢朗詠集 (comp. ca. 1013) are by him, 138 in all; see Smits, The Pursuit of Loneliness, pp. 55 and 201. Some 535 of Bai’s couplets are found in Senzai kaku 千載佳句 (963), the next best represented poets in that work being Yuan Zhen with 68 and Zhang Xiaobiao 章孝標 with 34 (ibid., p. 66). This distribution points to the idiosyncratic preferences of Heian courtiers, whose continental poetic “canon” was very much at variance with Tang and Song tastes. Smits has observed (citing Kawaguchi Hisao) that Li Bai 李白, Wang Wei 王維, and Du Fu were scarcely read in the Heian court (ibid., p. 35). Rimer and Chaves note that Wang Wei is represented by only one couplet in Wakan rōeishū; Du Fu and Li Bai do not appear even once in this work (see Rimer and Chaves, Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing, p. 17), although Du Fu receives a brief mention in Shikyōki, as noted earlier.    It is notable that a number of lesser-known Tang poets (mostly from the early and late periods) were popular, including Xu Hun 許渾 and Du Xunhe (ibid., pp. 58–66). One surviving volume of an early ninth-century manuscript titled Shinsen ruirinshō 新選類 林抄, in the collection of the Kyoto National Museum, preserves forty poems by twentyone Tang poets, including Wang Wei, Qian Qi 錢起, Wang Changling 王昌齢, Li Bai, He Zhizhang 賀知章, and Huangfu Shi 皇甫湜. This text merits closer examination, since several of the poets included are not generally identified as ones familiar to Heian literati. For a chart listing twenty-two Tang poets known in the Heian court, showing the distribution of couplet citations from their verse and references to them in texts, see Smits, ibid., p. 66.

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wider range of calendrical events than during the reigns of Ninmyō and Kōkō.151 Many of the topoi appear to be topic-lines, including “At blossom time the sky seems to be drunk” 花時天似醉 and “Enjoying the cherry blossoms on a moonlit night” 月夜翫櫻花. After the death of Mototsune in 891, Uda gained a level of freedom likely not seen since the age of Saga and Junna, taking further measures to consolidate imperial authority and keep the Fujiwara at a safe distance. He took Sugawara no Michizane into his confidence and fostered his rapid ascent to a position of great influence as minister of the right.152 Thus, the Uda years became the Michizane years as well, and a golden age of kanshi patronage and vigor. A significant number of Michizane’s kanshi from the decade prior to his fall in 901 were written directly or indirectly for Emperor Uda and the crown prince. Uda, who became quite a connoisseur of kanshi (despite the fact that only one by him survives), began to hold large banquets and gatherings at which sometimes dozens of poets would assemble to versify. One of these functions, held on 897/9/25, produced a series of fifteen verses on autumn, which are preserved in the small collection Zatsugon hōwa 雜言奉和 (Miscellaneous Response Verses, probably tenth century).153 151  For a list, see Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 47–48. Among the 66 occasions are 10 Naien banquets, 25 sekiten celebrations, 8 Tanabata events, 9 Double Ninth occasions, and 2 imperial excursions. On page 41, Yamaguchi gives the somewhat reduced figure of 55 (perhaps he has left out extraordinary [rinji 臨時] gatherings) but indicates that the full roster may have been as high as 74, with an average of around 6–7 events per year, a significant increase compared to the four years of Kōkō’s reign. Yamaguchi notes that the rinji occasions for composing Sinitic verse were most numerous during the early years of Uda’s reign, when he was under the thumb of Mototsune. See ibid., pp. 42–43. McCullough observes that Uda did not hold court events for waka composition that were comparable to ceremonial kanshi events (Brocade, p. 252). 152  On Michizane’s rise and fall from power, see the biographical notes attached to our first translation in the Kanke bunsō poetry section. 153  Uda’s single known kanshi was written on this occasion, part of a fifteen-verse kudaishi series in which all poets wrote poetry on imperial command using the topic-line “Cherishing Autumn and Enjoying the Remaining Chrysanthemums” 惜秋翫殘菊. These poems are a testimony to the continuing vitality of the topic-line verse-matching mode. For details, see Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku shi ronkō, pp. 93–100. Perhaps of greater interest than Uda’s poem itself is the remark that he appended: “My [poetic] skills seem to have developed late in my life, so people should not think badly [of this verse]” 朕才似 晩成、人可不見毀. For the text, see Zatsugon hōwa, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū, vol. 6 (1931), ed. by Kawamata Seiichi, p. 415.    Zatsugon hōwa is a collection of forty kanshi, mostly by ninth- and tenth-century literati. Its title is a provisional but traditional one, constructed from the first four graphs in the title of the first verse in the collection. The other two series preserved in this work are: (1) a group of five rare quasi-ci (i.e. lyric) excursion poems, all written to match poems composed by Emperor Saga on the topic “falling flowers on the river,” with Kayō as the

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The Tang dynasty was on its last legs by the late ninth century, and China’s cultural influence in Japan had long been waning, with the last diplomatic mission from Japan dispatched in 838.154 Perhaps in the wake of this separation from China and, as Yamaguchi theorizes, amidst a consciousness of the fragility of power—and the precariousness of life in an age fraught with natural and manmade disasters—Emperor Uda and his court found refuge in the sustenance provided by literature and the arts: this they saw as a path to an enduring legacy.155 All evidence suggests that Uda strove to recreate the glory days of Saga’s reign by bringing literature, old customs, and ceremonies back to the center of court culture,156 displaying a renewed passion for court spectacle and performance through such traditional activities as sumō and the Winding Water Banquet. Uda was firmly grounded in Chinese learning and philosophical traditions, with a particular interest in the Classic of Changes (Yijing 易經)157 and was convinced of the moral utility of poetry above and beyond its intrinsic artistic appeal. But it is also apparent that the renewed literary vitality of his court sprang from an awareness and appreciation of the essential value of verse in exploring more intimate spiritual and sentimental aspects of human setting; and (2) twenty verses celebrating the seventieth birthday of a certain secretary in the Council of State, on which occasion a gathering was held in the Jōnangū Shin’en 城南宮神苑 garden. 154  Between 630 and 838, the court appointed some nineteen or twenty kentōshi envoys to head missions to the Tang court, including five that did not set sail (Fuqua, pp. 122–30). In 894/9, a mission that had been planned with the intention of resuming relations was abandoned, following a formal recommendation to this effect drafted by Michizane, who was serving on the Council of State and ironically was Japan’s most renowned China expert at the time. Concern for the physical safety of the embassy appears to have been paramount, although the exact reasons for the cancellation are uncertain; whether the decision was made as suddenly as it seems also remains unclear. Kawaguchi suggests that the court had lost its “progressive spirit of exploration and its will to seek new truths” (Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 1, p. 147), but whatever the reasons, as Borgen points out, Michizane’s intention had probably not been to advocate for “broad changes in Japanese cultural history[.]” He also notes that this final act was “only one in a long series of events that led Japan to interrupt its diplomatic ties with China for a period of over five centuries.” See Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, pp. 240–53; quotations from pp. 241, 252. Despite the abandonment of diplomatic exchanges and a series of five court decrees between 831–903 making private importation of Chinese goods illegal (Smits, The Pursuit of Loneliness, p. 52, citing Charlotte von Verschuer, 1988), even after 894 private merchant trade with China and Silla continued to grow. 155  Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 44, 50. 156  Pekarik observes in this connection that while reviving old events and creating new ones as well, the emperor generally “did not attempt the rigorous Chinese authenticity that Saga had demanded” (p. 130). 157  Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 25–38.

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experience, an understanding that was deepened through the court’s reengagement with vernacular verse, which reached new heights during the Uda years. The emperor involved himself in enriching aesthetic experience within the court, fostering the dynamic interplay between art and everyday life through the pursuit of the sensuous, nurturing literary sensibilities and connoisseurship in a manner reminiscent of the aristocratic culture that had prevailed in the courts of Six Dynasties- and early-Tang China. Poetry in both literary Sinitic and the vernacular played a particularly large role in the cultural life of the court during Uda’s reign. The emperor was a champion of waka, although only four of his own poems are preserved in the imperial anthologies,158 and in the tradition established by his father Kōkō hosted frequent waka gatherings and utaawase; these events grew in prestige and began to take place with increasing regularity, sometimes in the presence of the sovereign himself. Not all of these occasions were formal, however; often they were casual, spur of the moment affairs, occurring while the participants were free from their duties and sometimes away from the palace.159 This activity was a prelude to the even more vigorous and continued growth in waka practice and patronage during the tenth century, when the composition and anthologization of native verse became all the rage, with thousands of wouldbe poets of increasingly high rank devoting themselves to this art.160 Uda’s patronage spurred other sorts of group versification events as well, such as kiku-awase 菊合 (chrysanthemum-appreciation contests) and at least eleven recorded occasions that involved the commissioning of waka inscriptions to decorate byōbu (painted folded screens).161 158  Kobayashi Mitsuyo, “Engi gyoshū ni tsuite no kenkyū,” Shinshū Daigaku kokugo kyōiku 9 (Mar. 2000), p. 79. 159  Persiani, “Waka After the Kokinshū,” p. 59, cites a passage from Shinsen Man’yōshū 新撰 萬葉集 (The Newly Compiled Man’yōshū, late ninth-early tenth century—details below) which begins: “In the present period, when not on government duty, the Sage Emperor of the Kampyō era [Uda] convened the court and held poetry contests. Experienced men of letters and gifted retainers presented poems on the four seasons.” He notes that many of the contests were hosted privately by Uda after his abdication in 897, adding: “Much like his sponsorship of kanshi … Uda’s waka patronage had what Japanese-language scholars call a strong “‘personal’ (shiteki) quality,” while noting that this does not mean they were “devoid of political significance” (citing Takikawa Ryōji). 160  There is little consensus on either the size of the aristocracy or the number of courtiers and ladies actively writing waka at any given time; see Persiani, ibid., p. 10, where he quotes several estimates, some ranging as high as 60,000. This figure, from Shirane, Traditional Japanese Literature, p. 19, includes the entire aristocracy, family members as well. 161  Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 51–52.

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Overall, Uda seems to have achieved a synergy between the native and Sinitic literary cultures, doubtless reflecting his personal enjoyment of both, although waka was apparently his stronger passion.162 The emperor was also an avid collector of poems, seeking both new and old materials for anthologization. In 894/2 he asked Ōe no Chisato to compile an anthology of “old and new waka.” But what he received was a collection titled Kudai waka 句 題和歌 (also known as Chisato shū 千里集) containing 110 of Chisato’s new compositions in Japanese, each of which was allusively constructed around an accompanying line from a Chinese poem, Bai Juyi being the dominant source. Significantly, this collection seems to have been the first imperially-sponsored work to appear since the era of Saga and Junna.163 A second commission was the aforementioned Shinsen Man’yōshū, the first truly hybrid verse anthology, which had approximately 555 vernacular and Sinitic poems in complete form. The compilation has been traditionally regarded as the work of Michizane, who has been credited in many accounts with composing the 225 kanshi contained therein as well, but this attribution remains uncertain.164 The poems are 162  Pekarik, pp. 130–31. Whereas only one of Uda’s kanshi survives (see note 153), twenty-five of his waka have been preserved in his personal collection (ibid., p. 130). Four more are found in the imperial anthologies; see Kobayashi, p. 79. 163  The material adapted from the Chinese line was integrated into the Japanese verse through translation, paraphrase, and other techniques, recreating in some fashion the ideas and images of the original line. Seventy-four of these lines are from poems in Bai’s Collected Works; see McCullough, Brocade, p. 256. Chisato’s strategies owe a debt to late Six Dynasties rhetoric and tastes, often reverberating with “faint echoes of the Liang court style” (ibid.) and replete with fanciful conceits and oblique rhetoric. Coming as it did just a decade before Kokinshū (905), Kudai waka forged new stylistic and rhetorical connections between Sinitic and native verse forms and helped to elevate waka to a formal standing at court. The collection further yielded a wealth of allusive material for generations of poets to come. On Chisato’s literary objectives, see Yanagawa Junko, “Ōe no Chisato ni okeru ‘Kudai waka’ no seisaku no ito,” Hiroshima Joshi Daigaku kokusai bunka gakubu kiyō 13 (2005). 164  The collection has come down to us in two textual traditions; the longer version has prefaces in literary Sinitic dated 893 (vol. 1) and 913 (vol 2). Preface 1 explains that Emperor Uda ordered a poetry competition to be held, this believed to have been the “Kanpyō no Ontoki Kisai no Miya Utaawase” 寛平御時后宮歌合 (The Poetry Contest of the Consort Held During the Kanpyō era [887–99]), with the poetry from this event, on the four seasons and love, intended for inclusion in a new work in two books to be titled Shinsen Man’yōshū. Roughly sixty percent of the collection (in both short and long textual traditions) comprises poetry from this contest (McCullough, Brocade, p. 262).    While Michizane may have composed the kanshi in the first volume, it seems likely that the kanshi in the second were composed by others of lesser talent following his death, to bring the project to completion. For more on the identity of the compiler and the authorship of the kanshi, see Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 86–88. A large number of excellent translations from the collection are found in Edwin C. Cranston, A Waka Anthology,

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presented in pairs that juxtapose a waka with a thematically compatible kanshi in its entirety; this was a strikingly novel arrangement, one which enables the reader to compare side-by-side the poets’ handling of materials, aesthetics, diction and rhetorical strategies, and other aspects of the two poetic mediums. Notably, each kanshi was written to complement the waka with which it is paired, rather than the other way around, a process that necessitated some adaptation of the kanshi to the sensibilities and aesthetics of vernacular verse.165 A year after his retirement, Uda went on a two-week falconing expedition known to history as the Miyataki Imperial Excursion, accompanied by some of his favorite courtiers, including Michizane. The entourage set out from the capital on 898/10/20, departing in a splendid procession on horseback through the center of the city, everyone wearing their finest dress and attracting considerable notice. They proceeded to nearby Kawashima and Akame for two days of bird hunting, Michizane himself participating in this sport for the first time, with Uda’s encouragement. Thereafter, the excursion entered a second stage lasting ten days, with a smaller group of eighteen traveling on to Katano, Nara, Mount Tamuke (not far from Michizane’s villa, where they spent one night), the Miyanotaki Falls, Tatsutayama, and other locales. Sightseeing, accompanied by verse composition, was the main form of entertainment; the gentlemen were joined by the poet Monk Sosei 素性 for a few days along the way. Native verse had come into its own, and even Michizane was composing waka alongside kanshi by this time. The versifiers in the group turned out to be better at writing waka than kanshi: no one was able to cap a Sinitic couplet Michizane composed at Ryūmonji, causing him to declare how he wished that Ki no Haseo were still with them.166 In any event, by the end of the expedition, Volume 2: Grasses of Remembrance (2006). McCullough, ibid., pp. 261–75, offers a detailed overview of this work, with further translations. 165  On the juxtaposition of the two varieties of verse and the sometimes off-center poetic pairings, see Wiebke Denecke, Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and GrecoRoman Comparisons (2014), chapter 8, “The Synoptic Machine.” The dynamic in Shinsen Man’yōshū, in which a kanshi is written to complement an existing waka, is the reverse of Kudai waka, where it is the vernacular verse that is “responding” to the Sinitic material, in this case, topic-lines plucked from continental verses (ibid., p. 267). 166  Ki no Haseo (d. 912), a leading kanshi poet and one of Michizane’s most distinguished students, had returned to the capital on account of a foot injury on the second day of the excursion (Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, p. 261). As Borgen relates, Michizane had by this time begun to compose skillful poems in the vernacular on public occasions, contributing to the renaissance of Japanese poetry (ibid., p. 268), this in addition to his far more celebrated Sinitic verse accomplishments. Persiani writes, “Many fine poems were made on this occasion … but many of the participants struggled to rise to the challenge [of writing waka], either failing to provide poems altogether, or producing clumsy efforts that blatantly violated the metrical rules of the genre” (“Waka After the Kokinshū,” p. 24).

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besides Michizane’s Sinitic pieces the party’s poetic endeavors netted a total of nineteen waka by ten poets, which found their way into later anthologies.167 The Flourishing of Informal Kanshi; the Examples of Tadaomi and Michizane From around the time of Montoku’s reign, when public kanshi versification and patronage were at a low ebb, we see a rise in the production of informal kanshi, these displaying a deepening lyricism and revealing more extensively the outlook and personal circumstances of poets as they wrote verse away from the public eye, in solitude at their homes or at gatherings of intimates in casual settings. This trend is also mirrored in the world of waka, where from Uda’s reign on we see, as Persiani notes, a shift from the “public to the private mode,” evident in the increasing popularity of personal verse anthologies (shikashū 私家集) and a growing emphasis upon private topoi and modes of expression, as seen in such official works as Gosen wakashū (Gosenshū) 後撰和歌集 (The Later Waka Poetry Collection, 951).168 The earliest extant compilation containing a significant number of private kanshi is Denshi kashū 田氏家集, by Shimada no Tadaomi, completed around 892; it is also the oldest anthology of kanshi by a single individual. The following poem (dsks 213) exemplifies the refreshing directness, candor, and general absence of rhetorical affectation typical of Tadaomi’s poetry. It also highlights the deepening melancholia experienced by many middle-level officials, who felt they received insufficient recognition for their verse activities and public service. 4.2

The fish longs for the great oceans, the bird tires of its cage. Every day, three times, I reflect upon myself. The deceased Regent, my bosom friend—I long for his virtue in vain; The sagely ruler has viewed me with favor, and yet I’m without success. Dependent on the new, longing for the old, and aging all the while; Pondering how things begin and end, I’m out of clever schemes. Yamaguchi nevertheless opines that these challenges should not be taken as evidence that waka had “not yet permeated the aristocracy” (Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, p. 201).    Our brief sketch of the twelve-day outing is indebted to more extensive accounts found in Borgen, ibid., pp. 260–68, and Yamaguchi, ibid., pp. 201–204. Primary records, including fragments from Michizane’s own account and one in Fukurozōshi 袋草子 (comp. by Fujiwara no Kiyosuke 藤原清輔, d. 1177), also exist. 167  Gotō, in Heianchō kanbungaku shi ronkō, p. 104. 168  Persiani, ibid., pp. 42–45. Gosenshū, compiled during Murakami’s reign, contains many love poems exchanged between men and women and a higher percentage of verse by females than was typical.

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Leaves fall and go back to their roots; spring waters return to their source. How in the world did I end up like the fleabane plant in autumn? Of a similar ilk is “The Shrimp” (dsks 57): Out of the water, shriveled up and dry. Arched back and long whiskers, we call you “Old Man of the Sea.” Rather like a court minister, clad in your crimson robes, Yet reduced in appearance and so unlucky—unfit for auspicious times.169 Tadaomi’s doleful self-identification as a fleabane clump helplessly blown about and as a withered shrimp demonstrates an awakening preference for the informal, homey style of diction and “low” imagery that had become popular by the late ninth century, providing an appealingly lively and vivid counterpoint to the polished but impersonal palace verse. In understanding the growing popularity of informal diction and humble subject matter in verse by Tadaomi and his peers, we must note once more the arrival of works by Bai Juyi in Japan around the middle of the ninth century, which brought into fashion a stronger colloquial style of diction, rhetorical simplicity, and a broader range of topoi, favoring the personal and mundane. Many poems display an appealing personalism, local color, and quotidian detail. The court’s gradual separation from China around the same time doubtless hastened the development of idiosyncratic Sinitic prose styles of a less orthodox variety and contributing to a loosening of syntactic rigor in kanshi. While for the most part avoiding indelicate sentiments, informal kanshi treat a range of personal concerns, such as gloom over aging and the rapid passage of time, longing for an absent or deceased friend, and the disappointment of career reversals. On the positive side were the pleasures of nature and the seasons, especially moon- and flower-viewing and the joys of friendship and informal gatherings. Poems about romantic love, by contrast—common in the continental tradition and of surpassing importance in native vernacular verse—are seldom seen among the kanshi of this period.170 Private verse 169  Trans. from Butterflies, p. 115. Tadaomi was still at the junior fifth rank, upper when he died, never coming close to the lofty heights of his student Michizane. For an overview of Tadaomi’s career, much of which was spent in minor offices with little glory or reward, see Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, pp. 91–93. See also Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 1, pp. 183–89. 170  A rare, almost anomalous, example of a love poem is “Thoughts of the Bedchamber on an Autumn Evening,” by Isonokami no Otomaro: “Away in this village, I often dream at night. / I seem to be talking with you, my beautiful one. / In bed, our joy is how it used to

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was also a vehicle for conveying appreciation, compassion, encouragement, and even discontent, part of the fabric of daily life and relationships among the elite. One noteworthy private kanshi that airs displeasure is hcrs 130, by Fujiwara no Kintō, who angrily confronts a friend for neglecting to visit him, complaining about “empty pledges” made in the past. Following Tadaomi’s anthology there appeared two collections of kanshi by the iconic statesman-literatus Sugawara no Michizane, in 900 and 903, which offer an even larger, more varied selection of realistic and often richly personal compositions that have enjoyed lasting appeal and esteem; these are intermingled with decorous, generally less compelling verses written at court banquets and similar events. Michizane is especially well remembered for the often plangent verse he composed during two periods of exile (or quasi-exile in the first instance) far from the capital. Taken as a whole, his lyrical poetry provides an intimate autobiographical chronicle of the man himself from adolescence on. A highly strung and deeply sensitive person who never hesitated to air his innermost feelings, Michizane reveals the limitless capacity of kanshi to capture the full range of human emotions. In kkbs 300 (composed in 889), we see him suddenly reminded of the fragility of life as he gazes upon ruined plantains, reluctant to move on:171 Rain has fallen; the plantains cannot stand up to the autumn. Lost in thought as on I go, my mind is far away. Everything in the universe—empty just like this. Reflecting thus, I stay my whip, shedding tears on the head of my horse. Another side of this versatile poet—an amusing eccentricity and what was for him a rather uncharacteristic insouciance—comes across in kkbs 248 (composed in 888): Flowers withered, birds all gone, a chilly springtime scene. Driven by the urge to versify, I go out and try my hand. Evening comes but I don’t go home, I stand there loudly chanting. The local folk say, “There’s a scholar who has gone and lost his mind.”172

be. / When I awake, I am a sad and weep in vain … / Mountains and rivers, steep and easy roads; / I toss and turn, recall times with you in bed.” (kfs 118, from Butterflies, pp. 47–48). 171  Trans. from Butterflies, p. 136. 172  Ibid., pp. 134–35.

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As noted earlier, the verse of both Tadaomi and Michizane owes a debt to the style of Bai Juyi. Echoes of Bai’s humanism, as well as his conversational diction and earthy imagery, are evident in the following pair of Michizane poems, the first of which is “An Inquiry Addressed to Old Mister Reed Hamper.”173 Let me put a question to you, snowy-haired old man: “Reed Hamper” is the name you go by—why might this be so? Tell me how old you are and where you make your home. Also explain the reason why you are hunchbacked and lame. The reply, “Answering on Behalf of the Old Man”: “Reed Hamper” is what I’m called because of the craft I practice. I’m sixty and in my dotage now; my home is east of the hills. Septic boils swelled and festered, the sores are what made me lame. I don’t recall what year it was, but I was just a child. Following Tadaomi and Michizane, the gravitational shift of kanshi towards the private sphere continued on into the tenth century, with an even deeper degree of distancing among certain poets from the mannered formalism and flowery diction of palace poetry. Ki no Haseo left a legacy of several dozen kanshi and numerous prose works, including his renowned essay “A Preface to My Sinitic Poems Composed Since the Beginning of the Engi Era [901–23]” 延喜以後詩序 (ca. 905), in which he deplores the pettiness of literati in the Daigo court, their poetic tastes, and the trite seasonal verse often produced in this milieu: They are all like Wang Bi 王弼 and He Yan 何晏 [two third-century scholars whom Haseo despised] and fail to study the works of people such as Pan [Yue] and Xie [Lingyun]. They vary in what they pick up and what they discard, and each has what he accepts and rejects … Since the Engi era began, I have ceased to enjoy talking about poetry. “Wind and moon” I have discarded as useless; “mists and flowers” I’ve all but set aside.174 Although I attend poetry banquets, I do not dare dwell upon what is taking place. I merely avoid the blame that comes from making errors in regulated verse and leave it at that. If I see something and feelings arise, and if at any time my thoughts are stirred, I allow them to be my guide. 173  Ibid., p. 133. The reply poem is found on pp. 133–34. 174  I.e., he has given up writing conventional nature poetry.

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I don’t labor over things or get enmired in deep thought. Harmonizing with others ex tempore is far tougher than preparing a poem in advance. As for my compositions, I [mainly] write and chant my verses alone. I don’t show them to anyone.175 As if inspired by the preface to a famous prose-poem composed by Michizane in 890 (kkbs 516), reflecting the notion expressed in the Great Preface to Shijing that shi 詩 poetry is primarily a vehicle for expressing what is on one’s mind,176 Haseo rejects the wooden pedantry of scholars who as poets were unable to express themselves spontaneously and write in a more personal vein.177 His alienation from the literary world of the Daigo court, now bereft of the two giants of his age, as well as his aversion to the sterile poetics centering around the palace, seem part of a deepening malaise and sense of personal crisis expressed through what Steininger calls “an authorial stance of professional misfortune.”178 This posture becomes a common refrain as the Heian period progresses, with poets bemoaning the mediocrity of their official careers and slow progress up the ladder of success. Such preoccupations doubtless mirror the decline of the Academy itself and the dwindling employment opportunities available to scholars. By mid-Heian the central officialdom had shrunk considerably, and many faced long periods of unemployment or the prospect of leaving the capital permanently for positions in the provinces. Although poetic complaint is already present in early poems such as “Sorrowing over Ill-Luck” (kfs 91, translated below) by Fujiwara no Umakai (d. 737), it is particularly noticeable in Tadaomi’s poetry, as seen earlier. In another of his pieces, written around 866, we discover sentiments that go beyond personal laments and into the larger realm of how kanshi (and by extension the poets themselves) were perceived in court circles: “The Confucianists are questioning whether poetry serves a purpose,” he states, adding in a note below, “Of late, it

175  See Honchō monzui, snkbt 27, pp. 50–54, 254–55. For more on this passage, see Shibayama, pp. 100–101. 176  As noted in Shibayama, p. 88, with credit to Ōsone Shōsuke. kkbs 516 is a rhapsody more than 300 characters in length, with a Sinitic prose preface, titled “On Requesting a Robe Before Dawn.” See Honchō monzui 1–11, snkbt 27, pp. 36, 127–28; and kkbs 516 in nkbt 72, pp. 529–30. Michizane’s reference to the Great Preface cites an imperial rescript by Emperor Uda. The key passage in the Great Preface reads: “The poem is that to which what is intently on the mind goes. In the mind it is ‘being intent’; coming out in language, it is a poem.” See Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, p. 40. 177  For further discussion, see Shibayama, pp. 101–102. 178  Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” p. 164.

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has been widely bandied about that poetry is of no use.”179 These comments likely reflect a growing sense that skill in Sinitic verse did not count for much in advancing one’s career. Michizane’s example would later prove the exception, but for most courtiers below the upper tier poetic abilities earned them little: in Tadaomi’s case, a lifetime of mediocre posts, many of them in the provinces. 4.3 The Era of Emperors Daigo and Murakami, ca. 900–970 Uda’s son Emperor Daigo (r. 897–930) was apparently not the ardent literary patron his father had been. As Edoardo Gerlini writes, “Daigo’s role as a cultural organizer, and his influence in the compilation of the Kokinshū, remain unclear, and his cultural activism seems to have been shallower than Uda’s.”180 But he possessed a respectable level of interest in versification, waka in particular, and left a larger legacy than his father: thirty-five of his waka are found in the official imperial waka anthologies, with another dozen in what remains of the imperial anthology Engi gyoshū 延喜御集;181 four of his kanshi have also survived. Daigo hosted palace banquets featuring Sinitic verse, some of these taking place during the final diplomatic mission from Parhae, which arrived in 919.182 Heldt observes that he was slow to begin holding poetry competitions, 179  See dsks 44, Butterflies, pp. 113–14. In the same poem Tadaomi also complains about a prohibition (instituted 866/1/23) against drinking amongst groups of courtiers, which had evidently led to unruly conduct. This misbehavior may have contributed to the disparagement of poetry composition, a common pastime at informal social events. 180  Gerlini, p. 71. For a discussion of the poetic environment of the Uda and Daigo courts, including their respective poetic interests and levels of engagement in Kokinshū-related activities, see pp. 70–71. 181  Kobayashi, pp. 73–75, 79. 182  Based on Fuqua, p. 190; Japan’s last mission to Parhae (Bohai), by contrast, came far earlier, in 810. Fuqua observes: “After 810, contact between the two countries was generally initiated by Bohai rather than Japan, this suggesting that Bohai had more incentive to maintain the relationship” (ibid, p. 150, citing Ishii Masatoshi). During the period of diplomatic relations, lasting from 726–919 (relations terminated in 926 after Parhae fell to the Khitans), emissaries from Parhae made around thirty-five state visits to Japan, according to Fuqua (ibid.), although the delegation was refused entry to Heian on almost a quarter of these occasions. Seven embassies had arrived in Japan during the Saga years, of which only five had been allowed to proceed to Heian; see Brendan Arkell Morley, “Poetry and Diplomacy in Early Heian Japan: The Embassy of Wang Hyoryǒm from Parhae to the Kōnin Court,” in The Journal of the American Oriental Society 136.2 (2016), p. 351. Morley’s study offers a detailed investigation of the Parhae missions and the relationship between poetry and diplomacy in the early ninth century, with a particular focus on the Saga court and the successful 814 embassy led by Wang Hyoryǒm. A further important source on Japan’s relations with Parhae is Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, pp. 228–40.    Owing to weather problems, seasonal winds, and other factors, visitors from Parhae often remained in Japan for one or two years or even longer, this necessitating elaborate

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his first one occurring some thirteen years into his reign,183 but as one scholar notes, Daigo nevertheless seems to have treated waka events as “more or less official” undertakings; in the case of competitions, he went so far as to recruit specialists from poetic-family lineages to participate.184 These occasions were doubtless an important source of material for the official Kokinshū anthology, which Daigo officially sponsored, although the extent of his involvement in the compilation process remains unclear. Daigo is thought to have convened fewer mitsuen 密宴 (private verse occasions held by the emperor) than his father, but he lent other kinds of support, which served to advance the stature and reception of waka at court. It is worth noting that about a quarter of the poets represented in Kokinshū also wrote kanshi,185 which may explain why both kinds of versification—and patronage for such efforts—continued in tandem, with the energy of one seeming to animate the other. Daigo sponsored more than ten Sinitic verse occasions during his four years as crown prince (893–97).186 He had been under the tutelage of Michizane prior to the latter’s exile and was an enthusiastic devotee of his kanshi, requesting copies of the poems Michizane had written while governor of Sanuki and later requisitioning his verse from the Uda years as well.187 Daigo held Michizane and his family in the highest esteem, enthusing in an octave that their “flowers provisions for their support, travel, and entertainment. The visitors also came in large numbers, making logistics and management all the more challenging; the embassy of 772 had 320 members (Fuqua, p. 190). These embassies became a strain on the resources of the court, and accordingly official greeters were sometimes not dispatched to welcome a party (as in 825), or the incoming delegation was sent back (861). Yet even with the court trying to slow the visitations from Parhae from around 828 on, Parhae remained keen, sending ten additional missions before the last one headed to Japan in 919 (see Fuqua, ibid.). If these diplomatic visits posed challenges for the court, they were even more dangerous for the embassy members themselves. Concerning the first visit to Japan, in 727, Morley notes the sobering statistic that two-thirds of the party perished under attack from Emishi after their ship reached northern Honshū (Morley, p. 345). 183  Heldt, p. 134. 184  Persiani, pp. 58–59. 185  Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 215–16, 410. 186  Ibid., p. 213. 187  The Uda-period verses are preserved in his large private anthology, Kanke bunsō, of which twelve of the original twenty-eight maki survive. Sixteen maki of the original collection comprised works by Michizane’s father and grandfather; the remaining twelve contained works by Michizane himself. Borgen, ibid., pp. 210–12, describes two command composition events involving Michizane and his student Prince Atsugimi (later Emperor Daigo). The first was when the prince was eleven, in 895/3; Michizane was asked to write ten poems on assigned nature topoi in two hours. It apparently took him just half the time to finish the task. A second request came the same year for twenty such poems in two hours. On these two incidents, see also Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 213, 350.

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of literature” were “more precious than gold” and had “surpassed those of Bai Juyi,” whose verse “[would] be left in its box covered with dust.”188 Soon thereafter, in 900/9, he presented Michizane with one of his robes, out of admiration for a kanshi written on the occasion of the Double Ninth (kkbs 473).189 But despite Daigo’s personal enjoyment of shi, his sponsorship of kanshi versification banquets later on in his rule appears to have been less keen, as Heldt notes; he maintained the usual Naien and Double Ninth celebrations, preferring a “more orthodox approach” and restricting participation to “the traditional cast of monnin [文人] scholars affiliated with the university,” unlike his father Uda, who had included large numbers from his personal circle in these events.190 One wonders if Daigo perhaps felt constrained in his support for kanshi activities by the dominating presence of Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Tokihira 藤原時平 (871–909, Daigo’s brother-in-law), who was deeply involved in waka activities at court. By the time of Michizane’s fall in 901, Tokihira was not only the paramount powerholder but also an important poetic and cultural patron, his ascendancy witnessing a particularly fertile period for scholarly production that saw the compilation of histories, legal codes, and Kokinshū.191 As Persiani notes, waka at this point “was not perceived as a ‘state art’ along the same lines as kanshi,”192 however Tokihira vigorously promoted various kinds of vernacular verse activities at court, including the use of waka in ritual contexts, with the larger aims of securing even greater legitimacy for the Fujiwara “rulers,” building cohesion within the aristocracy and deepening Fujiwara connections to the imperial family.193 Vernacular verse thus rose to an even higher level of prominence in court life, also gaining ground as a means for cultivating peer relationships 188  From Borgen, ibid., p. 223; here there is a full translation of Daigo’s laudatory poem. For the original text, see kkks, unnumbered, in nkbt 72, pp. 471–72. Daigo had by this time seen the three collections of poems by the Sugawara family (Gerlini, p. 71). Michizane’s humble response poem is kkks 469; see nkbt 72, p. 472, in which he gives much credit to his family background for his “love of literary beauty” (Borgen translation). 189  The “lingering fragrance” of the robe, which Michizane says he enjoyed each day, inspired another poem, kkks 482, written during his first year of exile. 190  Heldt, p. 135 (citing Takikawa Kōji, “Uda, Daigo-chō no kadan to waka no dōkō,” p. 233). 191  For details, see ibid., pp. 135–36. 192  Persiani, “Waka After the Kokinshū,” p. 63. 193  See Heldt, pp. 136–38. As one example of the new waka-centric banquet rituals, Heldt describes Tokihira’s Wisteria Banquet (Fuji no en) of 902, with its “carefully choreographed circulation of poems,” its complex ritual use of waka, and the adoption of wisteria, “fuji,” as the “new floral symbol of authority.” This lavish event served to commemorate both the instatement of Tokihira’s sister Onshi as consort to Daigo and Tokihira’s own achievement of political preeminence at court. Fittingly, it was held in Consort Onshi’s quarters in the palace.

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and vertical ties, in much the same way that kanshi functioned in public communal contexts. The intermingling of kanshi and waka activities remained a feature of court life during Emperor Murakami’s reign (946–67); Murakami’s own modest corpus of extant verse consists of nine waka in imperial collections and thirteen kanshi,194 along with an anthology of personal poems exchanged with his consorts. Even amidst the growing prominence of vernacular verse, the tenth century saw no retreat from kanshi practice in court circles. Some sixty-four kanshi events occurred during Murakami’s reign, among them the highly significant first shiawase 詩合, the Tentoku sannen shiawase 天徳三年闘詩, held in 959/8 (see below), demonstrating that courtly enthusiasm for kanshi verse experienced a resurgence during his rule. By contrast, there were only fifteen waka events for the same period,195 but, as Persiani observes, Although this was still a small number …, it does show that waka was now a stable presence at court. Kanshi was perhaps still better integrated in the complicated cycle of rituals and ceremonies that dotted the life of the court, but waka was no longer the neglected art-form that it once had been.196 As briefly noted earlier, Murakami also ordered the compilation of a new Sinitic anthology, titled Nikkanshū 日觀集 (comp. ca. 947–57, non-extant), a collection whose creation is significant in that it points to an apparent revival of imperial interest in kanshi anthologization after a long hiatus. According to the preface (the lone surviving portion of this work, written by the scholarpoet Ōe no Koretoki 大江維時 [888–963]), its title was apparently inspired by the notion of “the rising sun,” i.e. Japan, referred to as “fusang” 扶桑 in the title of the earlier collection Fusōshu 扶桑集.197 Nikkanshū included poems by ten of the most illustrious poets of the Heian age, reaching back to Harumichi, Michizane, and Ono no Takamura, among others, with verse spanning the

194  Kobayashi, p. 79. The number of kanshi is from the record provided in Nihon shiki. 195  Persiani, ibid., p. 58. 196  Ibid. 197  Regarding the meaning of Nikkanshū, Gian Persiani explains that “Nikkan (literally, ‘Sunview’) is the Japanese reading of Riguan, the name of the southeastern peak of Mount Tai which was known for its associations with sunrise and sun worship. Koretoki uses it here as an appellation for Japan.” See his article “China as Self, China as Other: On Ki no Tsurayuki’s Use of the Wa-kan Dichotomy,” in Sino-Japanese Studies 23 (2016), p. 51. For additional details on the term fusang, see the notes to fss 1, below.

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period from 834 to 923.198 Koretoki writes, “Long ago, during the Kōnin and Tenchō periods [810–33], there were the Ryōunshū and Bunka shūreishū collections. But in the hundred or more years since then [the compilation of such anthologies] has died off.”199 Koretoki must have been greatly buoyed by the prospect of assisting with such a long overdue undertaking, noting that Sinitic poems had often been neglected in the past following their composition: We in our land spare no effort to seek out the verses of Chinese poets, reciting them but paying no attention whatever to the works of our country. Although poetic drafts have been produced in profusion, they languish in vain, gathering dust. This weighs heavily on my heart; truly deplorable and a cause for lament!200 This passage appears to indicate that notwithstanding the frequency of shiawase and other poetry occasions in the Murakami court (and during certain earlier reigns as well), these events by themselves did not usually result in the preservation of the poems they produced. Koretoki’s criticism recalls an earlier remark by poet Minamoto no Fusaakira (d. ca. 939), who had voiced disenchantment over the lack of support for Sinitic learning in general in a postscript to poem fss 43. He writes: “At this time learned people are stagnating in obscurity, while those with shallow wisdom are advancing,” this at a time when the Academy’s standards, official support, and status were in decline. Perhaps a symptom of this lack of academic and institutional vitality and also a reflection of the political and economic troubles that preoccupied the court,201 Murakami’s reign never saw the completion of a planned history of the state, abandoned a project to compile laws and procedures, and issued what turned out to be the last coinage of the regime, this neglect pointing to a greater problem, namely, that “much of the statutory system survived [by this time] only as an empty shell.”202 Indeed, as previously noted, the Academy had become increasingly irrelevant to building a successful career as an official, 198  Kawaguchi, Heianchō no kanbungaku, p. 202. 199  Koretoki makes no mention of Keikokushū. 200  This passage is preserved in Chōya gunsai, in Kuroita Katsumi and Maruyama Jirō, eds., Shintei zōho Kokushi taikei (jō) (1964), p. 7. For a digitized text see Shiryōhensanjo, comp., Kokan shūei 古簡集影 7, koma 20–21, in the National Diet Library digital collection at http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1015242 (Nov. 2017). 201  These difficulties included not only years of famine but the Taira no Masakado Rebellion (平將門の叛乱, 939–40) and flagrant acts of piracy and destruction by Fujiwara no Sumitomo 藤原純友 between the years 936–41. 202  William McCullough, writing in The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 2, p. 62.

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and instruction in Sinitic studies was by now being fostered primarily in the households of privileged families. There arose so-called bessō 別曹 (dormitoryacademies), which, although initially serving as ancillary attachments to the Academy went on to effectively merge with it, absorbing many of its functions and responsibilities and, as Marian Ury observes, “gradually eclipsing it in importance.”203 This was one of numerous manifestations of the erosion of state authority by powerful families and their institutional structures. The most prominent among these schools was Kangakuin 勸學院, originally founded in 821 by Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu to provide lodgings and supplemental education to Fujiwara youth enrolled in the Academy.204 At the same time, we see broad social changes in kanshi sponsorship, reflecting institutional evolution and power shifts at court attendant upon the ascendancy of the Fujiwara regency and the resultant weakening of the throne’s political authority. From the tenth century onward, as Smits has observed, official patronage of Sinitic verse and sponsorship of literary collections emanated largely from the regency;205 in the next section, we note some important examples of such patronage and support. 4.4 Kanshi Production and Anthologies, ca. 950–1060 Arguably the single most important poetic development of this middle period was the establishment of kudaishi as the preeminent formal verse mode; in time, even private poems were sometimes composed using topic-line conventions. This subgenre remained so much in the mainstream of formal verse activity that in medieval treatises kudaishi norms tended to be conflated with prescriptions for regulated verse in general. It is unclear when the popularity of kudaishi began to subside, but this verse was still being written well into the Muromachi age.206 While kanshi continued to occupy an important place in ceremonial life, court-sponsored Sinitic anthologies had ceased to appear for more than a century following the age of Saga and Junna down until the

203  Ury, “Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life,” p. 373. 204  Other important bessō included (1) Monjōin 文章院, the center of kidendō studies, established around 834 and divided into east and west “rooms,” later becoming the preserve of the Ōe and Sugawara families; (2) Gakkan’in 學館院, established around 847 by Saga’s former consort Tachibana no Kachiko 嘉智子; and (3) Shōgakuin 獎學院, founded in 881 by Ariwara no Yukihira 有原行平. 205  Smits, “The Way of the Literati,” p. 107. 206  Ono Yasuo, “Heianchō kudaishi no seiyaku: daiji o hokku ni noseru koto,” in Wa-kan hikaku bungaku 12.1 (Jan. 1994), p. 22. Owing to the prominence and durability of the kudaishi subgenre, a detailed treatment follows below in a separate section.

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compilation of Nikkanshū, as already noted.207 One important kanshi collection, which appeared as if out of the blue just decades after Nikkanshū, was Fusōshū (An Anthology of Poetry from the Land of Fusang [Japan]). Compiled around 998, it was apparently presented in 1006 to Emperor Ichijō (r. 986–1011) by the de facto regent Fujiwara no Michinaga 藤原道長 (966–1027), on behalf of its late editor Ki no Tadana 紀齊名 (957–99). Although most of this collection has been lost, with only two of the original sixteen maki surviving, it was a substantial work that possessed at least semi-official status and may been envisioned as a belated sequel to Nikkanshū. Much of the extant verse in Fusōshū continues the informal diction and discursive directness of Tadaomi and Michizane. Its content ranges across the public-private verse spectrum, with works by some twenty-four poets, most of whom were active during the first half of the tenth century. The collection in its original form is said to have spanned 170 years, with works by some seventy-six poets from as early as the reign of Ninmyō (833–50). The most compelling selections in Fusōshū tend to be the private poems, whether composed in formal or informal registers. One highlight is a series of dialogic verses exchanged between Tachibana no Aritsura and Minamoto no Fusaakira (see below), these written in a style that shifts back and forth between a chatty informality on the one hand, and a manicured formal diction utilizing elaborate allusions and rhetoric on the other. Every piece of poetic craft is deployed, the two poets demonstrating that private kanshi can be as meticulously composed as those written in formal public settings. Certain other Fusōshū poems are striking for their brooding tone, perhaps reflecting the low morale of those who were less privileged or without secure livelihoods. Koreyoshi no Harumichi and Ono no Takamura (803–52) exchanged a series of eleven poems, one of which (fss 31) includes the following lines: A useless man with white hair, born into a prosperous age: Only fit for spending my days slowly bumbling along. My mind spins around like a whirlwind, I’ve never had any success; Empty fame is exactly like water, and writing things is hard. Years of famine—I didn’t receive the salary of affluent times; Talents meager—like dust in the air, my title as vice-governor.

207  Waka, by contrast, enjoyed a high level of imperial patronage and sponsorship from the mid-Heian period down to the fifteenth century in the form of the chokusen wakashū 勅撰和歌集, a series of twenty-one imperially-commissioned anthologies of native verse that appeared between 905 and 1439.

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In another octave (fss 58), replying to a request for a verse to include in an historical text, Harumichi hesitates, grumbling about the futility of his own lifetime of scholarly endeavors. In vain I’ve labored at drawing cakes to satisfy my hunger. While young I studied earnestly; now old, I am ignorant still. I’ve rubbed my ancient bronzes, but they won’t produce any light; I traversed your deep and vast seas but found the going hard. …………………………………………….. Fusōshū was soon followed, while Emperor Ichijō was still on the throne, by Honchō reisō 本朝麗藻 (ca. 1010). Although only two maki of this work as well have survived (indeed, the greater part of the Sinitic poetry from Ichijō’s court is lost), Honchō reisō was almost certainly an officially-sponsored compilation. Comprising works by twenty-nine of the most influential poets of the day, including Regent Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027) himself, the extant portion preserves some 155 kanshi and thirteen poem prefaces. These works, written between 982–1008, were at the time considered among the finest literary products of the court. All but one of the verses are in heptasyllabic meter, and nearly three quarters are octaves.208 The long reign of Ichijō fell within Michinaga’s ascendancy, a particularly vibrant epoch that produced hosts of prolific and talented poets, novelists, diarists, and literary salons. Sinitic diaries and court records mention occasions involving at least fifty-nine active kanshi versifiers, who participated in 113 known Sinitic verse events and private gatherings in the capital during the Ichijō years. As these numbers suggest, under Michinaga’s ardent patronage and with the backing of Ichijō, kanshi versification enjoyed a period of robust vitality amid a revival of court events and ceremonies that had fallen into desuetude.209 This renaissance, Kawaguchi observes, aimed to recreate the glory days of the Engi (901–22) and Tenryaku (947–56) eras by reviving the classical model of strong central authority and restoring the cultural climate of those times, the likes of which had not been experienced since the rule of Murakami (r. 946–67).210 Yamaguchi Hiroshi’s survey of the notations in contemporaneous diaries and chronicles reveals that two of the most prominent participants 208  Whereas in Michizane’s Kanke bunsō 78% of the poems are in heptasyllabic meter, this longer line, with its more lively and relaxed rhythm, is even more prevalent in both Fusōshū (with 95%) and Honchō reisō (99%). For data concerned subgenres and forms in the collection, see Kawaguchi, Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 434–35. 209  For details regarding the nature of poetic occasions for the poetry collected in Honchō reisō specifically, see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 2, p. 609. 210  Kawaguchi, ibid., pp. 616–18. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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at these events were Ōe no Mochitoki 大江以言 (955–1010) and Ōe no Masahira 大江匡衡 (952–1012), who are recorded as having attended 16 and 27 events, respectively, and are ranked among a group of literati-officials who were effectively regarded as specialist-poets. Fujiwara versifiers were equally prominent at these Sinitic verse gatherings, with Yukinari 行成 (972–1027), Tadanobu 斎信 (d. 1035), Arikuni 有國 (943–1011), and Michinaga attending between 16 and 30 events each; Ichijō himself was present on at least 9 occasions.211 Kanshi gatherings at this most prestigious level were still the preserve of the higher and middle aristocracy, but not everyone invited to attend such functions proved competent at versifying. Fujiwara no Sanesuke 藤原實資, known for the blunt and sometimes acerbic assessments of his fellow courtiers recorded in his diary Shōyūki 小右記, relates an anecdote in which the assembled company all “exchanged sideways glances” upon hearing a zekku that one Tokimitsu 時 光 had presented to Michinaga at a Double Ninth celebration in 997, evidently skeptical that the verse was truly the gentleman’s own work. Sanesuke also expresses contempt for another courtier, Fujiwara no Michitsuna 道綱 (whose father was the regent Kaneie 兼家 and mother, the Kagero nikki 蜻蛉日記 diarist), stating in an entry for 997/7/5 that “he can barely write his own name and does not know the graphs for ‘one’ and ‘two.’”212 Many of the social verse occasions around this time were affairs that continued into a second day. According to Michinaga’s diary Midō kanpakuki 御堂 關白記, at one large-scale versification event (on the theme “What we esteem are sageliness and talent”) held at the palace over two days in 1007/4, there were at least nine courtiers in attendance who did not contribute any poems.213 Serving as poet-host at the Higashi Sanjōin 東三条院 estate (originally the property of his father Kaneie) for almost half of the known kanshi events held during Ichijō’s reign, Michinaga was truly at the center of kanshi patronage in his day, although this aspect of his contributions to cultural life in the golden age of the court is seldom mentioned. As Yamaguchi notes, the aforementioned Sanesuke was among his many admirers, expressing glowing esteem for Michinaga as a kanshi versifier.214 Another important poet-patron was Prince 211  For more on poets’ participation in verse gatherings, see Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku ronkō, p. 222. 212  Ibid., p. 223. Sanesuke’s assessment, while perhaps containing at least a grain of truth, may well reflect jealousy over Michitsuna’s rapid rise and successful career, as Gotō suggests (ibid.). Michitsuna became tutor to the crown prince in 997 and major counselor the same year, his career full of numerous appointments capped by his achieving the junior second rank in 1000. He was doubtless favored by his impeccable family credentials, as the half-brother of Michinaga and, as mentioned, the son of Kaneie. 213  Ibid. Only the official titles of these men were given, perhaps to spare them embarrassment. 214  Ibid., p. 224. Seven of Michinaga’s kanshi are found in hcrs, with forty-three waka in Shūi wakashū. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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Tomohira, seventh son of Emperor Murakami, who led a coterie that met at the Tōkakaku 桃花閣 pavilion at his residence. Tomohira gathered around him numerous literati, many of whom were essentially outside of the power structure or had withdrawn from court life, deriving spiritual sustenance from poetic activity pursued in relative seclusion. Although Tomohira’s private collection is lost, he has the second largest number of poems in the two extant maki, some 18 pieces;215 Ōe no Mochitoki has the most, with 21, and Fujiwara no Korechika 藤原伊周 (the compiler Takashina no Moriyoshi’s nephew), 15. Like most of the kanshi anthologies, Honchō reisō never really attained canonical status, and despite its importance as the only large kanshi collection to appear during the eleventh century, the glory age of aristocratic culture, research on it has been scant. The collection was nevertheless popular in its day, circulating at court and garnering high esteem, being transmitted well into the twelfth century. In an entry in his diary Chūyūki (dated 1137/4/2), Fujiwara no Munetada (d.1141) speaks of having lost his own copy of Honchō reisō in a fire, along with a handcopied text of Fusōshū and a rhyme manual titled Setsuzokuin 切續韻.216 We find in Honchō reisō the first significant quantity of kudaishi, which account for 81 of the 155 surviving poems, testimony to the prominence of this subgenre, particularly in social ceremonial contexts. Many of the poems are in the upbeat phatic mode common in social verse, couched in relatively accessible language redolent with grace and delicacy—and in some cases designed to praise and gain favor with the poets’ superiors. The versifiers tend to rely upon rather predictable allusions, keeping to a fairly narrow range of topoi and mainly avoiding strongly individualistic sentiments. Some of the fresher, more authentic works are ones composed in the farmstead mode, detailing the simple pleasures and preoccupations of poets at leisure as well as a small number that divulge more pessimistic sentiments, politely voicing personal dissatisfaction. There is sometimes a whiff of criticism directed at the foundering administrative system of the day, which saw many talented officials remain without adequate support or recognition, feeling cast aside or forgotten, while others of lesser ability seem to thrive at their expense.217 Among the more memorable poets was the aforementioned Tomohira, who versified 215  Forty-eight of his vernacular verse compositions are also preserved in the official imperial anthologies. 216  These three texts had been received as a gift and were part of a volume bearing the title Inkashū 韻花集 (A Collection of Rhyming Flowers, 1137). See Kawaguchi Hisao, Honchō reisō kanchū, p. 425. 217  Kawaguchi, Heianchō no kanbungaku, pp. 162–63; see pp. 152–74 for a short but perceptive treatment of the style and characteristics of Honchō reisō poetry. See also Kawaguchi, Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 413–83.

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in compelling and thoughtful ways and deserves to be studied more closely as one of the lesser-known literary personalities of his age.218 Another small and relatively little-known kanshi collection worthy of mention, from the same time as Honchō reisō, is Gōrihōshū 江吏部集 (Minister of Ceremonial Ōe’s Collection, ca. 1011), a private anthology of works by Masafusa’s grandfather Ōe no Masahira, whose top posts were professor and senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial. This work typifies the private collection so popular by this time; it includes one waka and some 134 kanshi, topically arranged, under the rubrics Heaven, the Four Seasons, Earth, and Residences, together with thirty poem prefaces, all but one of them composed for banquet poems.219 Many of these verses were written on imperial command, using set topic-lines about natural subjects. Works composed at poetry soirées are especially prominent, together with summer poems relishing excursions to cool scenic spots. There are also various other contemporaneous private collections whose titles alone have come down to us, including Fujiwara no Arikuni’s Kageyu shōkō shū 勘解由相公集, Shamon Kyōkō shū 沙門敬公集 (The Collected Works of Lord Monk [Son]kyō, i.e., Tachibana no Aritsura, comp. 954), and Ki no Tadana shū 紀齊名集, the works of Ki no Tadana (comp. around 999). Gōdanshō 5–27 refers to three more anthologies from the mid-Heian age that likewise have not survived: (1) a collection of poems by multiple authors compiled by Minamoto no Tamenori 源爲憲 (ca. 940–1011), with the title Honchō shirin 本朝詞林; (2) Yasutane shū 保胤集 (the private collection of Yoshishige no Yasutane 慶滋保胤, ca. 931–1002); and (3) Tachibana rōchū shikan 橘郎中詩巻 (containing the verse of Tachibana no Masamichi).220 It is apparent that, while few private collections survive from 218  One such poem is hcrs 146 (not included among our translations), in which Tomohira addresses his friend Tachibana no Masamichi 橘正通 (fl. ca. 960–75), whose collection of kanshi (non-extant, see below) he had just read. Through tears he commiserates with Masamichi on the lack of recognition he has endured, characterizing him as a lowly official in simple blue robes who has toiled away in poverty for years yet is fated to have his poetic gems turn into “grave mounds of dust.” Tomohira concludes by lamenting, “I cannot fathom the principles that prevail under the vast skies of heaven [an allusion to the imperial court], with all those officials of no real worth who wear red and purple robes [a privilege of courtiers holding fifth rank or higher].” 219  A recently discovered manuscript of this work, copied by archivist and historian Matsushita Kenrin 松下見林 in 1663 and now owned by Kawaguchi Bunko, has propelled new research on this collection. 220  See Gōdanshō, in snkbt 32 (1979), p. 185, which mentions the first item by title and alludes to items two and three less precisely as “collections by Yasutane, Masamichi, and others.” Three prefaces by Masamichi appear in Honchō monzui: nos. 289, 290, and 317. Twenty-two items attributed to Yasutane, one of the leading literati of his age, are also found in this work, with further pieces preserved in couplet collections and elsewhere.

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this period, many literati made efforts to compile their own works, perhaps in part because opportunities to have their poems included in official anthologies were so limited. With every manuscript that comes to light in the future, our understanding of the production of kanshi, and its official patronage in periods such as the Ichijō era, will continue to deepen.221 Following Honchō reisō and Gōrihōshū there appeared the monumental Honchō monzui (Essential Literary Works from Our Court, ca. 1060), a canonical anthology comprising 427 model examples of works in diverse prose and poetry genres. Likely inspired in part by Wen xuan, it was designed to serve the needs of students in the history and literature discipline (kidendō). The compiler, Fujiwara no Akihira (ca. 989–1066), utilized fewer than a third of the Wen xuan categories, instead offering domestic genres that were more in line with the practical needs of the Heian court, such as iki 位記 (appointment documents) and wakajo 和歌序 (vernacular-poem prefaces written in Sinitic).222 Akihira’s selections, moreover, occasionally reveal “dissent, criticism, and parody of court life,” as Denecke notes, this being a further departure from Wen xuan.223 Among the lesser-known kanshi subgenres represented are two acrostic forms, jikunshi 字訓詩 (word-gloss poems, see hcmz 33–34)224 and rigōshi 離合詩 (separating-and-joining poems, see hcmz 35),225 as well 221  One postwar discovery is a ten-page fragment named Kōzei shikō 行成詩稿 (early eleventh century?) containing Sinitic poems and couplets likely in the hand of Fujiwara no Yukinari 藤原行成 (972–1027); see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 2, pp. 644–52. 222  Wiebke Denecke, “The Literary Essence of Our Court (Honchō monzui),” in The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, pp. 189–90. See also Butterflies, pp. 163–65. A chart comparing the organization of Honchō monzui and Wen xuan, along with that of Honchō zoku monzui, can be found in Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 3, p. 778. 223  Denecke, ibid., p. 190. This critical bent seems to reflect Akihira’s dim view of the “low impact scholars had on political affairs” and the disenchantment experienced by many underemployed literati as they sought to advance in the bureaucracy (ibid.). 224  This form of poetic word game, apparently seen only in Japan, is a simplified variety of the rigōshi acrostic described below; the first two characters in each line are merged to form the last character in the line, as in the Sakumon daitai couplet 里魚穿浪鯉、江鳥 度秋鴻 (The village fish—carp diving under the waves. / The river birds—wild geese flying through autumn skies). See Butterflies, p. 172 for the whole poem in English. 225  In this variety of word play, practiced in China as well, we see complex orthographic manipulations involving adding and substracting, splitting and combining parts of graphs—the hen (radical) or tsukuri (phonetic) portions—in each line of a poem to yield a set of significant “final” characters that supply a hidden meaning. A simple riddlelike example occurs in Sakumon daitai, wherein a part of the first character in one line becomes the first graph in the next. (Similarly, the first line in the verse has a graph composed of a part of a graph taken from the same position in the final line.) The reader is expected to take note of the unused parts of the characters that are split, mentally combining these to discover the hidden subject of the verse. See Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,”

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as a type of palindrome known as kaibunshi 廻文詩. The latter variety is illustrated by hcmz 36, by Tachibana no Aritsura, which forms a coherent poem read from either direction: The chilly dew of dawn moistens the leaves; The frigid wind of evening rustles the branches. Faint and feeble the cries of cicadas chirping. A line of shadows—geese flying through the skies. Rosy irises adorn the stone-paved path. Golden chrysanthemums grow throughout the hedge. Round and full the moon over towering peaks. Glistening and clear the limpid water in the pond.226

寒露曉霑葉 晚風涼動枝 殘聲蟬嘒嘒 列影雁離離 蘭色紅添砌 菊花黃滿籬 團團月聳嶺 皎皎水澄池

4.5 Sinitic Verse Practice after 1050: The Final Century of the Heian Age The court continued to provide events and venues that called for ceremonial verse composition, including sekiten observances and shiawase, but informal (and semi-formal) verse written away from the palace also flourished at this time. The primary loci for poetic activity, as well as for instruction in Sinitic verse composition and Chinese canonical texts, were the salons of individual poet-scholars and patrons, among them certain high officials such as Fujiwara no Tadamichi (d. 1164). One of the leading kanshi poets of his age, Tadamichi served as regent, among other high posts, from 1121 to his retirement in 1158. While the Ōe and Sugawara families remained prominent in Sinitic literary circles, the Umakai Ceremonial branch of the Fujiwara family rose in importance in this realm during the eleventh century,227 producing numerous poets

p. 251. On the many varieties of word play practiced in Sinitic and waka, see http:// japanknowledge.com/articles/asobi/02.html (Nov. 2017). 226  snkbt 27, p. 134. Read in reverse: “Limpid pond with water clear and glistening. / The moon over towering peaks is full and round. / Throughout the hedge grow chrysanthemums of gold. / Stone-paved path adorned with irises rosy. / Through the skies fly geese, a line of shadows. / Chirping cicadas’ cries are feeble and faint. / Branches rustled by evening’s wind, frigid. / Leaves moistened by dawn’s dew, chilly” (from Butterflies, p. 173). 227  Smits, The Pursuit of Loneliness, p. 67. We have benefited from Smits’ insights into the activities of poet-scholars such as Fujiwara no Mototoshi 藤原基俊 (1056–1142) and various important patrons of this period, from Tadamichi and his brother Yorinaga 賴長 (1120–56) to Prince Sukehito 輔仁親王 (see the notes to hcmds 216), and Fujiwara no Michinori 藤原通憲 (1106–59), among others. Most of these literati were involved both in waka and kanshi salon activities, hosting contests and, in some cases, commissioning compilations. Smits’ book also treats the poetry in Honchō mudaishi, especially the travel, temple, and reclusion verse.

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whose works are particularly conspicuous in the Honchō mudaishi anthology (see below). Writing on the kanshi verse activities of this final period, Smits notes that these poets seldom occupied high positions, many being identified as zuryō bunjin 受領文人 (provincial governor literati).228 The record of kanshi anthologies trails off again for about half a century after the appearance of Honchō monzui. The next significant body of verse— which has survived almost by accident—is preserved on the reverse side of the mid-Heian diary Chūyūki 中右記 and has been provisionally named Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū.229 A once gigantic collection, one likely unmatched in size but now only partially extant, it may have originally had 100 volumes with more than 10,000 verses, according to Kawaguchi’s estimate. As he observes, the extant text includes works by some 163 poets (70% of the total) who would otherwise be unknown to us.230 Many of the poems are descriptive pieces, providing rather pallid sketches of natural scenes, these often lacking in specific and focused detail. There are, however, some more delicate exceptions where one can envision concretely the poets’ physical surroundings. Most of the verse belongs to the kudaishi subgenre and was written by groups of poets attending social gatherings between the years 1004–1126, providing an excellent cross-section of formal and informal styles.231 Simple diction and relaxed social settings are characteristic; one series, for example, relies on the leitmotif “if we’re not drunk we won’t go home,” although more decorous and formal examples displaying little personal lyricism are in the majority. The following poem (cbsk 9–4) by Minamoto no Tsunenobu 源經信 (1016–97), from a set of twenty-three panegyric verses on the topic “pine trees near the pond,” was composed at an event held in the Tobain Detached Palace in 1090, hosted by Retired Emperor Shirakawa: At this charming site since long ago these pines have naturally grown. There they stand beside the pond, inspiring such emotion! The sight of dew from a thousand years ago dripping onto the boat; The sound of wind brushing through the “Five Great Lords” on the banks. Dust-whisks, the bushy branches, both dark and pale on the shore; 228  Ibid. 229  Translated as “A Collection of Kanshi Written on the Reverse Side of The TopicallyClassified Edition of Chūyūki (The Diary of the Nakamikado Minister of the Right).” 230  Kawaguchi, Heianchō no kanbungaku, pp. 260–61. See our anthology notes attached to the first poem from this collection for more information. 231  A preponderance of the works date from the latter half of the eleventh century, a period from which relatively little other Sinitic verse survives, making this collection important for tracing the history of kanshi.

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Dragon scales, bobbing and floating, in the deep and limpid waves. Now, during this royal excursion whose splendor is rarely matched, Fitting it is that these magnificent boughs should all display their virtue! The Chūyūki burui collection was followed by Honchō zoku monzui (ca. 1144), compiled by Fujiwara no Suetsuna 藤原季綱 (dates unknown) and others.232 This anthology consists of some 244 pieces of Sinitic prose and a scattering of poems, composed between 1016 and 1141 by 40 literati, mostly scions of hereditary Confucian scholar families. Around the same time there appeared Hosshōji-dono gyoshū 法性寺殿御集 (A Collection of Poems by the Lord of Hosshōji [Fujiwara no Tadamichi], 1145), a charming but little-studied body of verse illuminating the private side of this illustrious statesman and leading literatus, who was doubtless the greatest poetic patron of his time. “To My Literary Friends” (hdg 71) shows Tadamichi reflecting on a universal dilemma: Indifferent toward my public duties, often dragging my feet. The dust of the world besieges me, never any surcease. Although on the whole I find society a nuisance to endure, On second thought, if I gave it all up, wherever would I go? In another example, hcmds 250, written after he had taken up life as a lay monk, Tadamichi looks back on his life from a Buddhist perspective, seeing all of his achievements as essentially worthless:233 The evening cool has found its way inside the robes I wear. Wind in the eaves beside the pines, moon shining down on the steps. The cares of the dusty world are gone, here where I live out my days. A wandering mind so hard to restrain, a life of striving in vain. I call myself a “worthless tree,” dwelling in the mountains— An old locust tree, generations old, here beside the gate. My cliffside grotto lonely and desolate, no one comes to visit; The old path to this place of meditation I allow to be buried by moss. In hdg 54, “The Wheels Turn and the Time Is Finally Here,” he again addresses the theme of facing an “empty twilight,” concluding with the lines: “Whenever 232  More than fifty of the selections were composed after Suetsuna had passed from the scene, which is why Kawaguchi concludes that Suetsuna was not the sole compiler. See Kawaguchi, Heianchō no kanbungaku, p. 258. 233  Trans. from Butterflies, p. 200.

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I hold a poetry banquet I feel so stricken with grief. / The past is fading away, I observe, as I look around the room.” Below this he adds a despairing yet nostalgic note, observing that the heyday of kanshi seems to have passed: At banquets in former times brilliant poets were present in throngs. The years came and went, and now hardly any of them are left—just two or three. The others have all disappeared. When I look back on the past I can still see them in my mind’s eye, and I recall everything with an unbearable yearning … Tadamichi finds himself isolated as he looks back on the glory days of yesteryear. Yet all was not in fact over, as his next compilation project, Honchō mudaishi (Poems from Our Court Without Allusive Titles, 1162–64), the largest extant Heian anthology—and the last from the period—amply demonstrates. Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩 contains 772 public and private pieces dating from the eleventh century down to the time of compilation; many of the poets belong to the Shiki-ke branch of the Fujiwara. The hallmark of poems within the broad “mudaishi” rubric is their lack of an allusive verse-line as (or within) their titles. Court verse composed during banquets and outings is confined largely to the first maki, the other nine comprising semi-formal to informal verse on a wide range of topoi. The declarative mode is the preferred one and rhetorical plainness the keynote of many of the later works in particular, poets by and large employing fewer Chinese allusions than their counterparts a hundred or so years earlier. Although familiarity with the works of contemporary Chinese poets had waned since the age of Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen, stylistic traces of works by certain minor late Tang poets are evident, and we can often detect among the informal, prosy pieces echoes of their placid tone and emphasis upon simple natural description.234 Many resonate stylistically with the pingdan 平淡 (calm and plain) mode that developed during the mid-Tang and gained currency during the Northern Song (960–1126). Yet despite such resemblances, these poets apparently were not familiar with such figures as Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣 (1002–60) and Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–72).235

234  Smits notes the likely influence of ninth- and tenth-century poets such as Xu Hun and Luo Yin 羅隱 upon the style of poetry in this anthology, particularly with respect to their relatively simple diction, with accessible middle couplets, and penchant for plain natural description. See Smits, The Pursuit of Loneliness, pp. 53–65; see in particular Luo Yin’s “Lingshan Monastery,” translated on p. 64, a likely model for the temple poetry in Honchō mudaishi. 235  Ibid., p. 35.

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As Konishi Jin’ichi writes in regard to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, “The varied stylistic currents within Chinese poetic circles were not reflected in the shih of Japanese poets, whose fixed critical standards consisted only of those widely applied in Japan,” adding that “[kanshi poets] adopted little in the way of new poetic styles from China, not because the Japanese had developed their own styles, but due to certain preferences.”236 Smits similarly observes that “… by the late-Heian period (ca. 1086–1185) kanshi [had become] an indigenized notion,” crediting a remark by Ury, who had observed that “Chinese learning in Heian Japan had become a self-contained tradition, with its roots and objects in its own past.”237 The imagery of many poems in Honchō mudaishi is humble and imbued with local color, the verse often set in the countryside. We note a continuing predilection for unadorned, almost conversational diction, as seen in “An Impromptu Poem Written While Staying at Uwara in Sesshū During My Journey,” by the peripatetic lay priest Renzen 蓮禪 (1083? –1149?): At the foot of a mountain near the coast, here for a visit. Remaining for a month or more, accompanied by friends. Autumn mist enshrouds a line of wild geese in flight. Nights, the noise of the incoming tide reaches the traveler’s hut. Outside, ears of growing rice, their sweet scent on the wind. In the shade of the fence persimmon leaves rustle like scattered showers. “May I ask you local folk, what work is it you do?” “Our livelihood consists of catching fish here in the bay.”238 Another example, “The Journey Back” (hcmds 442) by Tadamichi, also illustrates the endurance of the folksy realistic mode evident in the works of certain poets as far back as the latter half of the ninth century: Seventy years old, a distant journey; walking bowed and bent. I changed houses, for I found that I was sticking to my mats and bedding. Hanging on to the vigor of youth is not within anyone’s power.

236  Konishi Jin’ichi, A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 3: The High Middle Ages (1991), trans. Aileen Gatten and Mark Harbison, with Earl Miner, ed., p. 4. 237  Smits, “The Way of the Literati,” p. 108. The Ury source is “Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life,” p. 389. While these observations about the “self-contained” quality of the tradition seem justified, kanshi poets do not appear to have allusively drawn upon each other’s works to any great extent, unless harmonizing with one another. 238  From Butterflies, p. 208.

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To banish the ailments that come with old age, who would come to my aid? …………………………………………………… The casual intimacy of Tadamichi’s poem, with its indirect mention of perspiration in line two, is reminiscent of Han Yu 韓愈 (d. 824), whose playful verse about losing his teeth in old age comes to mind, although this poet was little known in Heian times. Almost a third of the collection is occasional verse written during visits to mountain temples and sites in the countryside. Many of the versifiers are lower-ranked courtiers who have fallen on hard times and sometimes express regret in the last couplet over a failed career, complaining about their own “stupidity” and rueing the approach of their final days: Tired its steps, the failing horse has long been weary of the road. Short on talent, the wintery pine grows old alone in the valley. Koremune no Takatoki (1015 ? –1097 ? ), hcmds 223

For many years tired of the Way, a scholar with nothing achieved. Gradually approaching my twilight years, I’ve cast my studies aside. Minamoto no Tsunenobu (d. 1097), hcmds 288

To the farmers and the peasants I have the following words to say: I’ve ‘plowed with my pen’ for many long years, yet lack His Majesty’s favor. Fujiwara no Akihira (ca. 989–1066), hcmds 418

Long have I held onto my books, yet still far from the road to glory. Simply awaiting the Phoenix Summons, I long for His sagely favor. Fujiwara no Atsumoto 藤原敦基 (1046–1106), hcmds 419

Do not laugh at this old and weary official of lowly status. When might I hope for the waves of favor that come from the River Fen? Fujiwara no Chikamitsu 藤原周光 (1079 ? –ca. 1165), hcmds 230

The revelation of such sentiments seems to take precedence over thematic originality and clever diction, although the collection also includes a handful of verses that present strikingly novel topoi. Perhaps the most unusual poetic subjects are the entertainers known as “puppeteers” and various townspeople on the fringes of society, such as peddlers of charcoal and flowers, figures seldom glimpsed elsewhere in Heian verse. Also unusual, both for its topos— economic decay and institutional collapse—and its fresh, ear-to-the-ground

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commentary is “An Impromptu Poem Written in Autumn” by Fujiwara no Atsumitsu 藤原敦光 (1063–1144), composed around 1140, every line describing the deteriorating conditions in the capital and the poet’s sense of powerlessness to ameliorate the situation. As Master of the Right Capital Office, I have no freedom at all. A public servant, I rarely succeed; my heart is full of cares. The city gates have been destroyed, the land denuded and bare. The roads have been turned into farmland, used for growing millet. Officers bearing imperial edicts are harrying the people. My own post lacks authority—the Police Chief fields complaints. The poor folk in the capital bear officialdom’s heavy brunt. Lands allotted to the Kawachi people have been seized by the governor. Food and clothing provided for the soldiers have almost all run out, And wood for fixing bridges is becoming hard to find. What makes me ashamed is that even though I am eighty years of age, I remain in the post, half-heartedly, unable to retire.239 Decades earlier, Atsumitsu had become a professor and later head of the Academy, and had he lived to see it, he would have been appalled by what happened to this institution as well, in 1177, when a fire laid waste to its buildings. It seems there was “little impetus to rebuild it,” as Steininger observes, perhaps because the Academy was no longer serving as a center for education, which had largely become a matter of “private, familial inheritance.”240 As Ury notes, a petition written in 1135 complained that weeds had filled the lecture halls, further evidence that the institution had been falling into desuetude long before its final demise; and by the last half-century of the Heian age even the family-based bessō were no longer serving as the primary educational sites. 239  hcmds 280, trans. from Butterflies, p. 201. The urban decay seen in the capital a century earlier is vividly portrayed in Yoshishige no Yasutane’s (ca. 931–1002) Chiteiki 池亭記 (Record of a Pond Pavilion, 982), where he observes that the western region of the city had been stripped of most of its houses “and is now reduced almost to rubble,” while areas adjacent to the Kamo River regularly flooded, the nearby residents being “consigned to a fate similar to that of fish.” The northern fields were subject to drought and little better off, while the eastern side of the city was terribly crowded: all but the rich were fighting to maintain enough space to live, the poor “unable to laugh when happy or cry loudly when sorrowful.” Cited from David J. Lu, Japan: A Documentary History, vol. 1: The Dawn of History to the Late Eighteenth Century (2015), pp. 72–73. 240  Steininger, “The Heian Academy,” p. 182. Ury indicates that at least the Kangakuin, located adjacent to the Academy, was restored after the fire, its lecture halls rebuilt. See “Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life,” p. 374.

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Instead, small schools run by individual scholars had become the norm.241 In these schools Chinese text-based learning and scholarly activities continued, even though for centuries there had been very few, if any, original studies of the Chinese canon, the core of the formal curriculum of the Academy.242 Fujiwara no Michinori’s (d. 1159) private library reportedly contained no books written in the native script,243 emblematic of an enduring devotion to kanbun learning and scholarship, even amidst what had become a flood tide of anthologies and scholarly works in the vernacular.244 Numerous Sinitic collections and works were produced during the last hundred years of the Heian period, such as Fujiwara no Atsumitsu’s Zoku Honchō shūku 續本朝秀句 (Sequel Collection of Exemplary Couplets from Our Court, non-extant), Gōke shidai 江家次第 (Masafusa’s compilation of court rituals and ceremonies), and a compendium of works in Michinori’s library known as Shinzei Nyūdō zōsho mokuroku 信西入道蔵書目録 (A Catalog of Works in Priest Shinzei’s Archives, ca. 1160). Other noteworthy texts include Miyoshi no Tameyasu’s Chōya gunsai (1116), an anthology of model compositions in 30 maki (21 of these are extant), and his Zoku Senjimon 續千字文 (Thousand Character Classic Continued, 1132), as well as Sugawara no Tamenaga’s 菅原爲 長 composition manual for Sinitic titled Bunpōshō 文鳳抄 (Refined Phoenix Writings, early Kamakura period), to name a few.245 Many other practical 241  Ury, ibid., pp. 373–74. 242  Steininger is more categorical, asserting that “Heian scholars produced personal literary collections, official state chronicles, dictionaries and encyclopedias, and innumerable occasional documents, but no original commentaries or treatises on the canonical works studied in the state Academy (in sharp contrast to the large body of doctrinal scholarship produced in Japanese monasteries).” See Chinese Literary Forms, p. 157. We note that Honchō shojaku mokuroku lists a mid-Heian Japanese edition of Li ji by Minamoto no Masakane 源雅兼 (1079–1143), which may have included an original commentary. 243  Smits, “The Way of the Literati,” p. 106. 244  Among the more notable works attesting to the prestige and popularity of waka and the rich scholarly milieu that developed around it during the twelfth century are the following treatises and collections: Toshiyori zuinō 俊賴髄腦 (The Poetic Essentials of Toshiyori, ca. 1115) by Minamoto no Toshiyori; his collection Sanboku kikashū 散木奇歌集 (Curious Poems by a “Useless Tree,” ca. 1128); Kin’yō wakashū (Kin’yōshū) 金葉和歌集 (Collection of Golden Leaves, 1127); Fujiwara no Akisuke’s 藤原顯輔 Shika wakashū (Shikashū) 詞 花和歌集 (A Collection of Word-Flowers, 1151); Ōgishō 奥義抄 (Poetic Profundities, 1144) and Fukurozōshi (Pocket Papers, ca. 1157), both compiled by Fujiwara no Kiyosuke; and Senzai wakashū (Senzaishū) 千載和歌集 (A Collection of Japanese Poems from a Thousand Years, 1187), comp. by Fujiwara no Shunzei. 245  For an overview of native and continental scholarship in the latter half of the Heian period, see Kawaguchi, “Heianchō kōki ni okeru gakumon no tenkai,” in Heianchō no kanbungaku, pp. 229–46.

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works, including dictionaries, manuals, and compendia of a utilitarian nature, as well as diaries, also survive from this period. 5

Allusion and Appropriation in Historical Verse and Kudaishi, and Technical Aspects of Social Verse Practice

Formal public verse, with its various subgenres (including banquet verse, historical poetry, and topic-line verse), draws the most heavily upon the Sinic poetic and historical traditions. Allusive language is employed to elevate the register of the verse by linking it to hallowed continental traditions, thus endowing it with a patina of antiquity; only rarely do kanshi poets allude to events or persons from their native heritage. Through a shared academic curriculum and intensive social interaction, Heian versifiers, like their continental counterparts, drew from a stock inventory of conventionally acceptable phraseologies, tropes, anecdotes, and other literary devices. Although Konishi Jin’ichi observes that “specific diction [derived from Sinitic sources]” can be identified in kanshi expression “only in exceptional instances,”246 our experience suggests that borrowing items of specific diction was more prevalent than “exceptional” denotes. Poets constantly appropriated phrases from Sinitic sources, often weaving an elegant bricolage and repurposing material and ideas to suit the circumstances. Even in China, such borrowing and reconstituting was by no means viewed as unworthy, much less plagiaristic; in fact, quite the reverse was true. Verbatim adoptions and the recycling of classical phraseologies were a mark of erudition and respect for tradition. While conscious borrowing from Sinitic texts occurred, literati were just as often drawing reflexively upon the vast reservoir of language they had been absorbing since childhood through the study and memorization of the Confucian classics and other foundational texts, chief among them Wen xuan, Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 Shi ji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian), and the dynastic histories. Indeed, many locutions had become such a part of the fabric of literary Sinitic that association with a single source, much less the locus classicus, had virtually become lost; often poets were unaware of the source of their borrowing, not even realizing that appropriation was taking place at all. Possession of a shared textual background meant that the briefest reference in a poem to the sound of fulling blocks in autumn, for example, or even just a place-name were sufficient to set off a chain of intended associations in the reader’s mind. Allusions were sometimes used to excess, as seen in fss 37, a 246  Konishi, A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 2, p. 12.

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private poem by Tachibana no Aritsura addressed to his friend Minamoto no Fusaakira, in which Aritsura almost seems to drown in a swamp of allusions designed not only to flatter his interlocutor but to flaunt his own erudition: Heaven indeed has endowed you with an unlimited measure of talent. The Two Bans and the Two Lus—surely not in your league! And consider Scholar Yang—why would anyone take fine quality gold And seek to buy his writings, which have the value of Kunshan jade? Chen Kongzhang’s verse is empty, just good for curing ills; Sima Xiangru’s rhapsodies are simply off in the clouds. Who would imagine your verse could display a brilliance so rare? It inspires the spirits, moves the gods, and the birds and beasts all listen. 5.1 Poems on History Verse in this subgenre of kanshi praises and commemorates historical figures from China’s ancient heritage, including wise rulers, faithful ministers, and military heroes, whose virtuous conduct and wisdom were believed to inculcate strong moral lessons concerning enlightened leadership and selfless service to the realm. This verse draws heavily upon the Three Histories, namely, Shi ji, Han shu 漢書 (History of the Former Han), and Hou Han shu 後 漢書 (History of the Later Han), for its human exemplars and allusions.247 The impulse toward cultural appropriation seen in this subgenre is exemplified by a group of five formal octaves by Emperor Saga and his poetic circle about the imperial concubine Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 (first century bce), preserved in the gafu (Ch. yuefu) section of Bunka shūreishū. While on the surface these poems seem little more than set pieces, they had functions beyond the ceremonial and aesthetic. For one thing, they were a reminder of the dual tragedy of talent (or beauty) going unrecognized and of having to forsake one’s “civilized” homeland for the realm of the “barbarians.” At the same time, poets found in the revivification of figures like Wang and in the composition of allusive court poetry a means to demonstrate their mastery of canonical Sinitic texts and celebrate the court’s self-imagined cultural parity with the great Tang empire. As Denecke describes the process, Heian courtiers were recreating “China within 247  Although it is well known that these three iconic Chinese histories were focal texts for lecture events at court, Nihon shoki, the first official native history (720), also became an important source text for poetic recitation in the vernacular about native emperors and Shinto gods. It was used on six recorded lecture occasions between 811 and 968. While the poems were written in Japanese, Nihon shoki itself is recorded in literary Sinitic and was evidently discussed during the lectures through the use of kundoku. For further details, see Gu, “Heian zenki ni okeru Nihon kanshi,” pp. 164–66.

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Japan,” in other words, “a completely indigenized, naturalized China,” for the sake of “embody[ing] themselves as Japanese in a Chinese guise.”248 Courtiers and nobles composed historical verse in banquet settings throughout the Heian age, while also writing more informal musings on the lessons of history,249 but fewer than thirty examples have survived.250 Associated with academic pursuits, including the Academy examinations, these poems were typically produced during banquet versification sessions that followed lectures on the Three Histories held in conjunction with sekiten events honoring Confucius.251 At these banquets, usually held in the presence of the emperor, the names of historical personages (mostly from China’s Zhou and Han dynasties), were sometimes specifically assigned to individual courtiers as poetic topoi, apparently in accordance with each man’s lineage, position, and other factors. When the circumstances of the selected poets and contemporaneous events are taken into account, the poems can seem to yield deeper political insights. A case in point is a verse on Ji Zha 季札, a noble prince from the sixth century bce (bksrs 43), composed by Yoshimine no Yasuyo, Emperor Saga’s 248  Denecke, “Early Kanshi,” p. 99. Here, Denecke cites the influential earlier writings of David Pollack and Atsuko Sakaki regarding the “imaginary nature of Japanese ‘Chineseness’” and their explorations of the notion of “China within Japan.” See pp. 110–20 for an analysis of methods of appropriation through a number of poetic examples from sekiten verse and poetry of diplomatic exchanges, which continually draw upon and imaginatively reconfigure continental classical texts and examples for the purposes at hand. This altered or reimagined China, particularly conspicuous in the Sinitic verse performed at diplomatic and ritual court events, can also be seen in the mythical and historical intermingling of certain mismatched narratives in the prose prefaces of early kanshi anthologies from Kaifūsō to Keikokushū. See ibid., pp. 102–10. 249  One such example is Emperor Ichijō’s (r. 986–1011) poem “In My Books, Stories from the Ancient Past” (hcrs 102), in which he contemplates the disparity between merely having knowledge of the exemplars of the past and possessing the ability to put their lessons into effect. His poem reads: “In my leisure I turn to books to while away the time. / Recorded therein are past events that have left a deep impression. / The splendid deeds of a hundred kings are seen when we open the volumes; / Sages and wise men of countless ages are known when we open the texts. / I learn about the enlightened reign of Emperor Yu long ago. / As I read of Emperor Wen of Han, his greatness causes me shame. For many years I’ve explored the past, studying Kong and Mo. / Why, then, is this age of ours not a tranquil time?” (Trans. from Butterflies, p. 161). 250  Surviving historical poems include six Michizane verses, four by Tadaomi, and eight further works in Fusōshū. Kaifūsō and Ryōunshū preserve no poems specifically on Chinese history; the second Saga anthology Bunka shūreishū contains five yuefu on Wang Zhaojun and one poem each on Zhang Liang 張良, Han Gaozu, Sima Qian, and Ji Zha. See Gu, ibid., pp. 142–44 for a tally of extant kanshi on historical figures and events in the Three Histories. 251  Gu, ibid., p. 150. On banquet proceedings in general, see pp. 162–63.

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elder half-brother. Ji Zha was famous for the sound political advice he gave to other feudal leaders but is also admired for the moral rectitude he showed in declining his father’s offer of the throne on three occasions, yielding to his older brother. One suspects that the allocation of this poetic task to Yasuyo was no accident; he was likely being reminded of the need to show loyalty and obedience to his brother, Saga (even though the latter was Yasuyo’s junior), in light of historical events several years earlier, when the Kusuko Disturbance, a failed challenge to Saga’s rule, had occurred. Also in the recent past was the Prince Iyo Disturbance (Iyo was Heizei’s half-brother), which led to Iyo’s forced suicide in 807 for suspected involvement in a conspiracy against the state.252 In this way, examples from China’s illustrious past were continually raised and reinforced, bolstering the principles of noble behavior and successful governance. Poets for their part would reveal through carefully chosen words their devotion to the ideal of kunshin ittai 君臣一體: “sovereign and servant united.” Though courtiers and sovereigns alike were accustomed to writing verse on ancient Chinese historical figures, few kanshi allude to events and figures from China’s more recent centuries. A rare instance is a reference to the An Lushan 安祿山 Rebellion of the mid-eighth century, which occurs in Fujiwara no Tadamichi’s poem “In the Snow: The Musings of an Old Man” (hdg 51); knowledge of this event appears to have been gained by a Japanese envoy during a visit to Parhae in 758.253 More remarkable still is the dearth of kanshi about domestic history, recalling figures and events from the archipelago’s own past. There are, however, a few surviving verses on matters of contemporary governance that praise policies and offer advice and approval, as seen in the following octave by Minamoto no Tamenori, “A Poem in Support of an Edict Ordering that Expenditures Be Cut by a Quarter; on Reducing Expenses for Imperial Clothing and Daily Victuals.” Great the merit of our enlightened ruler, succoring the land. Throughout your reign, with thrift and respect, serving the weary masses. Your Majesty’s splendid edict states that expenditures should be cut, And that delicacies served by the palace kitchen must not be in excess. In the time of Yao, the rivers flooded—great the misfortune and grief. In the age of Tang, heat and drought drove people from their farms. 252  For more on the assignment of Ji Zha to Yoshimine no Yasuyo, see Gu, “Heian zenki ni okeru Nihon kanshi,” pp. 136–37. Part 1 of ch. 3 of this study explores historical lectures and banquet poetry, as well as the possible political motives behind the selection and assignment of topoi. 253  Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, p. 231.

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Imperial dynasties can hardly escape their Heaven-allotted span. What need is there to blame yourself and long for those halcyon days?254 Tamenori’s verse, apparently written in response to a 995 edict and two earlier ones calling for economic retrenchment (promulgated in 987 and 988), relies heavily upon ancient Chinese precedents, reassuring Emperor Ichijō that in taking charge of the situation he was wisely following in the footsteps of the sage rulers of antiquity. Another verse by Tamenori praises the emperor for reducing taxation and corvée;255 still another (hcrs 135, translated below) expresses admiration for two officials who visited a prison and extended charity to the inmates. These examples notwithstanding, domestic political and historical circumstances are rarely utilized as topoi or in contructing allusive rhetoric, Heian poets instead framing their accounts of history and contemporary affairs in Chinese terms. 5.2 Kudaishi: Allusive Verse Using Lines from Sinitic Poems One further verse phenomenon that came to the fore early in the Heian age and manifests this omnipresent continental referentiality was the kudaishi 句 題詩 (allusive verse on topic-lines) subgenre. By the mid-tenth century it occupied an exalted position at the center of social verse practice and remained prominent for centuries. Although continental poets, particularly during the sixth and seventh centuries, also composed poetry on topic-lines, this mode of versification did not become an identified subgenre in China, never acquiring the social currency and aesthetic prestige it enjoyed in the Heian court. A species of regulated verse (although non-regulated examples are also known), kudaishi are defined by their use of a line (kudai) from a continental poem in—or as—their titles. The individual words of the kudai were expected to be worked into the opening couplet and then transfigured allusively in the middle couplets. Topic-line verse made its first appearance in the Heian court during the early decades of the ninth century, eventually gaining preeminence as the formal Sinitic verse style of choice for palace events and public ceremonies. In the course of researching the couplet compilation Ruijū kudaishō 類聚句 題抄 (A Classified Collection of Couplets from Topic-Line Verse, probably mideleventh century), Honma Yōichi surveyed the verse of 51 major kanshi poets known from this work, all active after Michizane’s time, who each left 10 or more kanshi, to determine the proportion of their respective oeuvres occupied by kudaishi. His study finds that kudaishi account for more than half the works 254  hcrs 97, translated in Butterflies, p. 160. 255  For a translation, see ibid., pp. 160–61.

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of 23 of these poets.256 Topic-line verse became so popular at court that a waka counterpart known as kudai waka emerged, the earliest collection being Ōe no Chisato’s aforementioned Kudai waka, which successfully formalized the practice into a vernacular subgenre. The Japanese fascination with kudai lines was part of a larger “couplet culture,”257 mirroring the preoccupation of the sixth- and seventh-century courts of the Chinese aristocracy with poetic craft. Japanese literati had been studying all aspects of Sinitic prosody since well before the start of the Heian age, after which we begin to see the appearance of treatises such as Kūkai’s Bunkyō hifuron, diagrammatic charts of couplets, and specialized rhyming dictionaries and technical poetry manuals (shige 詩格),258 all designed to help poets grapple with the challenges of composing regulated verse. Among the principal concerns of poets was the construction of parallel couplets, which occupied the central section of an octave (or longer poem). The couplet was considered the principal verse component above the level of word and phrase and a focal point for analysis in critical treatments. Indeed, skill with constructing couplets was a sine qua non, since these lines were the aesthetic heart of the composition. Poets would closely study the diction and rhetoric of parallel couplets from exemplary poems; artists and calligraphers prized these as well. This preoccupation with “excerpting, discussing, and collecting” couplets began to intensify during the Tenryaku period (947–57),259 manifesting itself in the creation of couplet anthologies such as Senzai kaku (963) and Wakan 256  See p. 18 in Honma, Ruijū kudaishō zen chūshaku (2010). Among the poets Honma selected are Ōe no Mochitoki, with the largest corpus of kudaishi, 76 verses out of 93 extant poems; Ōe no Masahira, with 57 out of 133, and Fujiwara no Tadamichi, with 52 out of 171. Ruijū kudaishō 類聚句題抄 (formerly known as Ruidai koshi 類題古詩) contains extracted poem titles and pairs of middle couplets from 446 poems; 75 poets are represented, all but 13 of whom are known to us from Fusōshū and Honchō reisō. One also finds a scattering of single couplets and the occasional complete poem. All verses were composed between 894–1033; the work as it has come down to us may be incomplete. For details, see ibid., pp. 58–59. 257  Wiebke Denecke, “‘Topic Poetry Is All Ours’: Poetic Composition on Chinese Lines in Early Heian Japan,” in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 67.1 (2007), pp. 14–18, and Denecke, “Kudaishi no tenkai—kan-shi kara wa-shi e,” in Satō Michio, ed., Kudaishi kenkyū: kodai Nihon no bungaku ni mirareru kokoro to kotoba (2007), pp. 49–51. Readers are referred to these two articles for a more comprehensive treatment of the literary culture surrounding versifying in Chinese, including notions of historical precedent and poetic standards, the status of the couplet in verse composition, and the codification of (and training in) poetic craft in China and Japan. Steininger also treats couplets, couplet collections, and aesthetic strategies extensively in his Chinese Literary Forms, ch. 3. 258  Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” p. 15; Steininger, ibid., pp. 83–85 et seq. 259  Denecke, ibid.

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rōeishū (ca. 1013), along with many works that have survived in name only.260 Compilers gathered exemplary couplets (or pairs thereof), miniature rhetorical masterpieces excerpted from their original poems, leaving behind the opening couplet and the lyrical closing lines. Discarding the first couplet meant, of course, that the setting and original context were effectively lost, just as the excision of the final couplet deprived the poem of its lyrical conclusion. The excerpted “middles” themselves were fated to be repurposed by later poets in ways that often had nothing to do with their original meaning or significance in the source poem. An unfortunate corollary of this editorial practice was that the literary corpus of many poets came to be represented more in fragments than in full poems. Whereas Japanese poets appear to have had no scruples about studying and internalizing the rules from technical handbooks, continuing to set great store by the knowledge they imparted, Chinese poets had begun to move away from these works during the Song dynasty, viewing their use as anathema to individual style and creativity.261 In Japan, however, such information remained invaluable to making one’s way in the perilous world of public versification and composing verse by commission. 5.2.1 Kudaishi Forms and Compositional Settings Most kudaishi are heptasyllabic regulated octaves, but verse in pentasyllabic meter, as well as quatrains and longer pailü, were also composed. A predominantly communal medium practiced in group settings, both formal and semi-formal, kudaishi also came to be composed informally, at small private gatherings, and even by poets writing in solitude. The examples most often referenced in recent scholarship are the more decorous ones associated with ceremonial palace events, these seldom displaying much individual lyricism. By contrast, kudaishi composed informally often possess an appealing personalism, while also deemphasizing (in one or both of the middle couplets) 260  Among these are twenty works, all only partially extant, whose titles are preserved in the bibliography Honchō shojaku mokuroku (in Gunsho ruijū 495), including Ikkushō 一句抄 (attributed to Priest Renzen), Shūikaku 拾遺佳句 (Fujiwara no Chikamitsu), Tōsei reiku 当世麗句, Nihon kaku 日本佳句, and Honchō kaku 本朝佳句 (the latter three without attribution). For further details, see Ono, p. 25, n. 21. 261  Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” ibid. Perhaps owing to the loss of interest in such manuals in China, Bunkyō hifuron ended up as the primary repository for much information originally found in the Tang technical manuals. Known at least during the first century of the Heian period were numerous highly popular Chinese treatises, many of them now lost, whose titles were recorded in Nihonkoku genzai sho mokuroku (ca. 891), as Denecke also notes here. One further important compendium from the Song survives in a Ming edition. On modern scholarship and textual collections of surviving works, see ibid., pp. 15–16, n. 24.

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the element of allusive expatiation, using this space to advance the “narrative” instead. Such poems are also more likely to use topic-lines manufactured on the spot instead of ones culled from actual poems, an example being Fujiwara no Tadamichi’s “Gazing at the Moon, I Forget the Summer Heat,” in which the poet imagines the moonlight providing cooling relief: All night long I watch the moon and wander about the tower. Naturally, I forget the heat while enjoying the pristine light. That turbid pearl possesses the power to make the night seem cool; Its snowy light creates the feeling that summer is not yet here. I go out and gaze at the clear sky, lightly clad for now, Then go to bed in my darkened room—the sweat again returns. Wherever the lingering moonlight shines, summer disappears. Who would feel the need to go and welcome autumn now?”262 5.2.2 Terminology Perhaps because this verse was conceived in the main as an outgrowth of the regulated octave, the terms “kudai” and “kudai (no) shi” do not appear as rubrics in the Heian verse anthologies—not even in Honchō monzui. However, the composition manual Sakumon daitai refers to the “kudai” category by name in the section “Choosing the dai (topics)” 出題事, beginning with an oft-quoted remark to the effect that kudaishi are not found in the Chinese tradition (see below for details).263 Similarly, the treatise on writing titled Ōtaku fukatsushō 王澤不渇鈔 (A Handbook of Boundless Imperial Benevolence, comp. 1275–78 by Priest Ryōki 良季) lists “kudai” alongside two other related verse forms within a section called ritsu-bu 律部 (regulated verse): namely, mudai 無題 (verse without allusive titles) and hi-kudai 非句題 (non-kudai 262  hdg 19, translated in Butterflies, pp. 187–88. 263  For the original Sakumon daitai passage, see “Shutsudaiji” (Choosing the Topic), in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū, vol. 6, p. 495, or in Heian shibun zanpen (1984), ed. by Noma Kōshin and others, pp. 45–46 (this text reproduces a Kamakura manuscript known as the Kanchiin-bon 觀智院本). Some useful factual material about topic-line verse appears in the same work within the “Considering the dai” and “Choosing the dai” sections, in parts ii and v, respectively; see Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” pp. 225–26, 252–62. Some of the observations and prescriptions in the above sections (for example, the items related to tan’in rhyme word selection, the use of internal rhyme, and the avoidance of parallelism in opening couplets) apply equally to regulated poetry in general.    Ozawa Masao has published “Sakumon daitai chūkai,” a collated Sakumon daitai text with commentary in Chūkyō Daigaku bungakubu kiyō 19.2 (1984) (jō); and 19.3–4 (1985) (ge).

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verse).264 Elsewhere, within a short discussion of the principal differences between what the author calls the “new” and “old” verse styles (the “new” conform to rules of tonal prosody and the “old” do not), the Ōtaku text identifies kudaishi (which, more precisely, it calls kudai no shi 句題之詩) as one of the new varieties. This style is further described as being a “heptasyllabic form with four rhymes” and, more significantly, “the first type [of ‘new style’ verse] to come to [Japanese poets’] attention” 句題之詩為最初沙汰.265 The author identifies one further sub-type of kudaishi verse: the “old-style kudai” (kudai kochō 句題古調), apparently a form that did not comply with the rules of tonal prosody.266 Lastly, the compiler makes reference to a short kudaishi variety, the zekku no kudai 絶句ノ句題, noting several kinds of formal occasions where such quatrains were composed: genpuku 元服 (coming of age celebrations), rituals marking a change of residence (watamashi no tei 移徒亭), appointment and promotion ceremonies, and events held to commemorate the start of a new season, among others.267 5.2.3 Kudaishi Characteristics and Compositional Conventions There are no early written accounts that shed light on why kudaishi became so popular during mid-Heian times, however we may speculate that courtiers took pleasure in the challenge of exploring the rhetorical possibilities offered by images in the borrowed lines, turning allusive associations to their advantage in order to enrich the classical atmosphere of their poems. For less experienced versifiers, the opportunity to use a ready-made topic-line afforded 264  See Abe Yasurō and Yamazaki Makoto, eds., Kanbungaku shiryōshū (2000), pp. 329, 617. According to a commentary on Ōtaku fukatsushō (dated 1634; NIJL digitized text no. セ-120-12, frame [koma] 13), the hi-kudai rubric appears to designate either a poem with a dai that has only four characters or fewer, or one whose title resembles a kudai line, having five words, but does not in fact function as a kudai. 265  For two instances of the kudai no shi term in the Ōtaku texts, see the Shinpukuji-bon 真福 寺本 (undated, late Kamakura period) in Abe and Yamazaki, pp. 300, 617; a further convenient source is the Ōtaku NIJL digitized text no. セ-1-14-8 (early Edo period?), frame 10. We note that the early Edo Shinnyozō-bon 真如蔵本 text of Ōtaku, in Kanbungaku shiryōshū, p. 647, omits the use of “kudai no shi” entirely and simply states, “the heptasyllabic fourrhyme octave is the first type [of ‘new style’ verse] to come to [poets’] attention.” 266  See the two Ōtaku mss. in Kanbungaku shiryōshū, pp. 615, 646; see also the NIJL セ-1-14-8 text, frame 7. Frame 10 indicates that “old style” verse could be composed in lines of 4, 5, 6, or 7 words, noting that pentasyllabic forms were most common. One example of an apparent “old style” kudaishi, a zatsugon with mixed-line length (3, 5, and 7 character lines, 16 in total) is Keikokushū 146, by Kose no Shikihito 巨勢識人 (ca. 795–?), which incorporates the kudai words into the first two couplets. 267  See the Ōtaku NIJL セ-1-20-12 text, frames 35–36.

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a measure of direction and assistance, which doubtless also contributed to the favorable reception of this form. Further, the assignment of a topic-line helped to confine topical boundaries and ensure the use of decorous imagery and diction appropriate to the occasion, at the same time imposing a degree of compositional uniformity within the group. This contributed, at least notionally, to the creation of a harmonious ethos that transcended hierarchies, both rank-based and generational. On the other hand, since poets were writing on identical topoi and unavoidably recalling many of the same words, images, and associations, this often led to the creation of markedly similar poems. Differences in skill among the participants therefore tended to stand out more conspicuously, making versification events somewhat perilous for the less competent. In composing kudaishi, poets were not required to reproduce the same themes and tone of the original source-poem or even employ the kudai words in their original sense. Thus, the borrowed kudai line often has little relation to the specific content, tone, aesthetics, or rhetoric of the new poem, serving mainly as a convenient source of several elegant images for the poet to manipulate as he saw fit. Poets could either utilize the borrowed line on its own as the title of their poem or else embed it within a longer title, usually introducing it with the phrase onajiku fu su (Ch. tong fu) 同賦, “we all wrote poems using the line ___.” Kudai lines were traditionally derived from diverse sources, either identifiable today or not,268 but later they were often invented on the spot, as Sakumon daitai notes: “[Poets] additionally came up with new topic-lines” 又 出新題也.269 The borrowed lines had yet another function as well, serving as a potential source of a level-tone graph for use in establishing the rhyme category in the verse being composed. 268  Li Jiao’s yongwu collection Baiershi yong, an essential primer for childhood education, was the source for at least some identifiable title lines used in kudaishi, its phraseologies also establishing many popular new tropes in kanshi. As Jennifer Guest notes: “Although it is difficult to conclusively establish a direct path of influence, the Hundred-Twenty Compositions [i.e., Baiershi yong—eds.] was clearly well-suited as a primer and reference text for topic poetry composition, and would have shaped students’ expectations about poetic structure and style.” See Guest, p. 51 (for the quotation) and also pp. 45–52. 269  For the original passage, see “Shutsudaiji,” in Kawamata, Shinkō Gunsho ruijū, vol. 6, p. 495, or Heian shibun zanpen, p. 46. On the phenomenon of fabricating topic lines in the Heian tradition, see Denecke, “Kudaishi no tenkai,” pp. 51–52, 69–71, 81–82; and Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” pp. 2, 21, 46–47. See also Satō Michio, “Setsuwa no naka no kudaishi,” Geibun kenkyū 95 (Dec. 2008), p. 92.

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Kudaishi are typically descriptive, their images evoking visual sensation and tending to focus on subtle seasonal shifts and the phenomena associated with such changes. Accordingly, their titles usually include two or three natural images, linked in the manner of musubidai 結び題 (compound topics) in the waka tradition, an example being “White Snow Blankets the Pines in the Courtyard.”270 The rhetorical strategy was heavily reliant upon the use of substitution figures such as metaphor, metonymy, and simile, with the “narrative and progressive” mode taking second place to the “descriptive and static.”271 As the genre developed, poets more regularly used all the original kudai words (some substitutions were acceptable) and placed them within the opening couplet, then in the next two couplets harked back to these images, using either synonyms or phrases with more distant, sometimes even recondite, allusive associations. It became standard practice to reprise the original words as many as four times each in the two middle couplets.272 The compositional format of the kudaishi octave is shared with regulated octaves in general; Ōtaku fukatsushō diagrams the ideal structure of a regulated octave in a section on “new styles” (defined simply as “heptasyllabic poems with four rhymes” 七言四韻),273 making no specific reference to kudaishi: 270  Three poems from a set employing this kudai are translated in the Chūyūki section of the poetry translations. 271  Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” p. 10. Two simple examples of substitution figures are “golden waves” for moon, and “Eighth Month” for autumn, as Satō Michio explains. See his “Heian kōki no daiei to kudaishi,” in Kudaishi kenkyū, especially pp. 138–41, for these and other examples and more detailed analysis. 272  Satō Michio, in Kudaishi kenkyū, ch. 1, “Kudaishi gaisetsu,” pp. 1–18, discusses strategies in reprising kudai imagery in the middle couplets. Regarding the quadruple reworking of kudai images, see p. 4. 273  For this scheme, as set forth in the Shinpukuji-bon, see Kanbungaku shiryōshū, pp. 331 and 617, also the NIJL digitized text, セ-1-14-8, frame 11. See also Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” p. 7. Sakumon daitai provides a breakdown of the four segments of octaves (again, without any mention of kudaishi) within the section titled “Names for Couplets,” p. 488 in the Gunsho ruijū text; for a translation, see Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” pp. 227–28. The Ōtaku and Sakumon texts also describe tonal protocols for the octave (omitted here). The anatomical terminology seen here is also used in various early Japanese vernacular and Sinitic verse composition guides and commentaries, including Man’yōshū, Kakyō hyōshiki 歌經標式 (a treatise on waka composition by Fujiwara no Hamanari 藤原濱 成, 724–90), and Bunkyō hifuron, ca. 819. Shige 詩格 (The Norms of Poetry), generally (perhaps erroneously) attributed to Wang Changling 王昌齡 (ca. 690-ca. 756), a possible source for the nomenclature seen in Japanese texts, uses “head,” “belly,” and “tail” to refer to the first, middle two, and closing couplets, respectively.

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Hokku 發句 (Opening Couplet): the daimoku 題目 (topic statement) Comments: in the case of kudaishi octaves, these lines ideally contain all the words of the kudai, usually dividing them between both lines, not always in the original order. Sakumon daitai states that the hokku “does not necessarily” contain all of the dai words and it may use a word twice.274 Kyōku 胸句 (Chest Couplet): the hadai 破題 (expatiation on the topic) The poet restates the topic, using allusive variation. Parallelism occurs here and in the next couplet. The kyōku may include an anecdote reference, but these more usually appear in the third couplet. Poets did not always differentiate between the functions of the second and third couplets. Yōku 腰句 (Waist Couplet): the honmon 本文 (historical and literary allusions) These lines (sometimes termed the hiyu 比喩, similes and metaphors) further develop the topic, using figurative language or anecdotal allusions from primary sources. The honmon can also occur elsewhere in the poem, especially in the final couplet, where it may be combined with a jukkai remark (see next item). Rakku 落句 (Concluding Couplet): the jukkai 述懐 (expression of feelings) This is where we typically find personal sentiments. These lines may take the form of a jikenku 自謙句 (self-abasing couplet), particularly if the poet is requesting aid. Some recent scholars have interpreted this diagram as a prescriptive format for kudaishi,275 however, the scheme was doubtless intended to map out the structure of regulated verse in general, as already noted, and resembles the traditional quadripartite format that includes: (1) qi 起 (“beginning, introduction”); (2) cheng 承 (“elaboration, continuation”); (3) zhuan 轉 (“turning,” usually involving a transition from natural description to human affairs);276 and (4) he 合 or jie 結 (conclusion).277 This model embraces the “tripartite” structure, a standard feature of regulated verse described by Stephen Owen as 274  275  276  277 

The comments under each couplet name are our own. Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” p. 7. See Cai Zong-qi, p. 167. For a lucid treatment of this four-part scheme, see Cai, pp. 165–68. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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comprising “topic, descriptive amplification, and response” and traceable back to second- and third-century Chinese poets. Owen also notes that towards the end of the seventh century the tripartite format was “generically codified in regulated verse and continued to dominate the majority of ‘old style’ poems, ku-shih.”278 As Min Wang observes, “the tripartite form remained at the heart of the Chinese lyric.”279 Placement of the topic-line words into the poem was accomplished in a variety of ways. Sakumon daitai indicates that the normal practice (jōrei 常例) was for poets to situate all of them within the first couplet, while noting that words might legitimately be positioned elsewhere, even in the final couplet.280 It appears that kudaishi from the latter decades of the tenth century onward show a greater level of compliance with this convention than those composed earlier, with a particularly high level of adherence seen among the kudaishi in Honchō reisō (1010). A survey of these shows 46 compliant examples, with nearly all the remaining 28 just missing the mark.281 Some of the most accomplished kudaishi specimens were composed at the majestic “Tentoku 3 Sinitic Verse Competition” (Tentoku sannen shiawase 天 徳三年闘詩), which took place on 959/8/16. The season was autumn, and the event was held at the palace in the presence of Emperor Murakami. Such an occasion, whose greater purpose was to celebrate and enhance the grandeur of the imperium, demanded a display of unsurpassed poetic decorum and finesse. From start to finish, the poets exploited the prestige and authority of Sinic textual traditions, incorporating highly wrought and often panegyrical 278  Owen, The Poetry of the Early T’ang, pp. 9–10; see also pp. 234–42 for more on the tripartite form. 279  Min Wang, The Alter Ego Perspectives of Literary Historiography: A Comparative Study of Literary Histories by Stephen Owen and Chinese Scholars (2013), p. 105. 280  See Sakumon daitai in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū, p. 496 for rules related to placement of the kudai words; for the section that describes allusive styles for incorporating or referencing the kudai that create literary interest, see p. 497. Words from the kudai were typically split 3/2 between lines one and two; a common variation was a reverse split (2/3). These practices are described in Ōtaku fukatsushō (NIJL セ-1-20-12), frame 13. We see the two patterns illustrated in a pair of verses pitted against each other in round 7 of the Tentoku 3 contest; see Kanbungaku shiryōshū, p. 588 for these. In contests, it was certainly not grounds for losing if a poet deviated from the conventional first-couplet placement, changed the order of the graphs, or used complex substitutions. 281  Ono Yasuo indicates that during the maturation period of kudaishi in the Chōhō and Kankō eras (ca. 999–1011), when the Honchō reisō verse was being composed, situating all of the kudai words in the opening couplet became routine (Ono, “Heianchō kudaishi no seiyaku,” pp. 19, 24). This anthology was the first to include an appreciable number of kudaishi examples, all written between 990–1010 and generally displaying formal standardization. For the sake of comparison, we note that in Michizane’s corpus of 519 poems (ninth century) only around twenty are clearly identifiable as kudaishi. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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allusions to monumental works, including verse associated with the seasons, most notably pieces by the autumnal poets par excellence Song Yu 宋玉 (third century bce) and Pan Yue 潘岳 (247–300). Half of the kudai lines used in the contest poems appear to have been invented ones.282 The conventions regarding placement of the kudai words into the opening couplet were not yet rigid: eight poems of the twenty submitted do not adhere fully to this practice. Nevertheless, in their allusive techniques the verses are a dazzling showcase for the kudaishi art, which was then approaching its pinnacle of technical and rhetorical craft and tonal grace.283 Anomalies remained common, however, even as late as the twelfth century; in the fifty-four kudaishi preserved in Tadamichi’s collection Hosshōji-dono gyoshū, for example, the formal desiderata were not taken very seriously, perhaps owing to the private settings in which some were written. Elsewhere as well, it was not uncommon to find poets omitting one or more kudai words (particularly the “empty” function words), and we see marked variation in the degree of attention paid to deploying allusive variation. Deviation from the compositional norms was surely in part a reflection of the challenges inherent in juggling a host of other more onerous constraints pertaining to regulated verse, especially the rules governing tonal patterning, end-rhyme, and couplet parallelism. Indeed, a mass of daunting “ills” and pitfalls fill the pages of poetic treatises, all of which conspired to make the writing of regulated verse a daunting undertaking. 5.2.4 Kudaishi Antecedents The question of Chinese antecedents for kudaishi has often been raised in recent scholarship. Several investigators have identified possible precursors among Six Dynasties and early Tang verse, but even though prototypes can be found their compositional settings appear to have been rather different from the communal, often ceremonial, contexts in which they proliferated in the court. A passage in Sakumon daitai provides a useful point of departure in considering the matter of Chinese precedents: 282  See Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” p. 22. 283  There have been several valuable studies of the Tentoku 3 shiawase, among them: (1) Nakajima Tomoe, “Tentoku sannen hachigatsu jūroku nichi dairi shiawase no kenkyū,” in Tokyo Seitoku Tanki Daigaku kiyō 19 (1986), pp. 37–52; (2) six sequential articles providing translations and commentaries on the first seven contest rounds, by Tsuda Kiyoshi, Nakaya Kenji, and Ono Yasuo, all titled “Tentoku sannen hachigatsu jūroku nichi tōshi gyōji ryakki” (1–6)—for further details, see Denecke, ibid., p. 36, n. 67; (3) Denecke, “Kudaishi no tenkai,” pp. 52–69; and (4) Reeves, pp. 66–80, on shiawase dynamics and literary and ceremonial aspects.

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Poems by Chinese poets were about specific things at hand and never utilized kudai (topic-lines). It was much the same in our land up to the Jōgan era [859–76].284 However, since middle antiquity [mid-Heian times], [poets] have shown a liking [for such verse].285 [Kudai came from

old five-and seven-character poems and were lines appropriate to the seasons; additionally, poets created new dai (topic-lines)] 唐家詩、隨物言志。曾無 句題。我朝又貞觀以往、多以如此。而中古以來、好句題。[句題古五言 七言詩中、取叶時宜句也。又出新題也.]286

Although the text states that Chinese poets “never utilized kudai,” this assertion is mistaken, given that both the borrowing of title lines and the kudaishi-like re-use of the material did occur in late Six Dynasties and Tang verse, albeit infrequently. Noting this error, Ozawa Masao in his commentary suggests that the writer possibly meant that such lines were not used in private poetry in

284  “Up to the Jōgan era” reflects a domestic variant usage of yiwang 以往, which in conventional Chinese parlance would mean “since [the Jōgan era].” 285  Ozawa Masao observes in his commentary that “middle antiquity” probably designates the period from the eleventh century forward, while noting that this dating is rather too late, since kudaishi were already popular by the mid-tenth century. See “Sakumon daitai chūkai (ge),” p. 27.    An investigation by Ono Yasuo found only 11 kudaishi from the years 859–88 but 58 from the period 889–922, by which time the genre was becoming commonplace at formal composition events. See Ono, “Heianchō kudaishi no seiyaku,” p. 25, n. 5. 286  Sakumon daitai, cited from the Kanchiin-bon in Heian shibun zanpen, pp. 45–46; Shinkō Gunsho ruijū, vol. 6 (1931), p. 495 has a nearly identical text. The bracketed comment at the end of the passage is written in a smaller hand in Heian shibun zanpen, as if an annotation; in Gunsho ruijū this material is treated as part of the text.  We note that an early Edo woodblock edition of Ōtaku fukatsushō (NIJL セ-1-14-8, owned by Zentsūji) contains a commentary which begins with language that seems to echo the content of the first three sentences of the Sakumon daitai passage just cited, while also providing some additional information: “In general, Tang poets did not compose using kudai. They spoke their minds about things they encountered. Our court in recent times has shown a liking for such verse, and from the Jōgan era down until the present, what people have been talking about are the modern styles [regulated verse]. Among these we find various kinds, including nisemono no tai 似物體 [the figurativeimagery style], yūgen no tai 幽玄體 [the abstruse and mysterious style], the hōhotsu no tai 髣髴體 [the oblique and obscure style], and so on. We shall set this matter aside for now” (frame 34) 凡唐家無句體、即事言志、我朝近來好之、貞觀以來致今、所論 者近代體也、凡近代有種種體、似物體、幽玄體、髣髴體等也、可委之. The com­ mentary does not explicitly indicate whether these three “modern” styles (which also come up in the context of the allusive reworking of kudai in Sakumon daitai) were associated exclusively with topic-line verse—which seems doubtful—or were found in regulated verse in general.

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China.287 Also, while it is true that kudaishi became popular in the mid-Heian period, as stated in this passage, they were already being written (albeit not in a fully-realized form) as early as the Saga era (see rus 6, below).288 One early example of a continental prototype, cited by Ozawa Masao, is a poem by Bao Zhao 鮑照 (414?–66), which uses the first line of a verse in Ruan Ji’s 阮籍 (210–63) series “Poems from My Heart” 詠懷詩, namely 夜中不能寝 (“I couldn’t sleep this night”),289 reproducing the final three characters and a pair of substitutions for 夜中 within the poem. Additionally, we have identified several examples by Zhang Zhengjian 張正見 (d. 575), one titled “The Milky Way at Dawn Glimmers” 秋河曙耿耿, which reads (with bold font added to mark the five borrowed kudai words): 耿耿長河曙、濫濫宿雲浮、天路橫秋 水、星衡轉夜流、月下姮娥落、風驚織女秋、德星猶可見、仙槎不復留.290 The borrowed line comes from a long poem by Xie Tiao 謝朓 (464–99).291 This same Xie Tiao line is also employed in a verse by Chen Run 陳潤 (fl. eighth century), with all five kudai words deployed in the poem: 晚望秋高夜、微明 欲曙河。橋成鹊已去、機罷女應過。月上殊開練、雲行類動波。尋源不可 到、耿耿复如何. Yet another example, this time by Tao Gong 陶拱 (fl. ca. 785), is “The Autumn Sun Is Suspended in the Clear Light.”292 Its title 秋日懸清光 is derived from the sixth line of a poem by Jiang Yan 江淹 (fifth century) and all

five kudai words are worked into the opening two couplets.

287  See Ozawa, “Sakumon daitai chūkai (ge),” ibid. 288  Other early examples are bksrs 134 and 135, and kks 146. kks 160–63, four exam poems, also appear to be proto-kudaishi composed on a set kudai (隴頭秋月明), from a poem by Yang Shidao 楊師道; none of these incorporates all the kudai words into the opening couplet and only one reproduces all the words in the poem. For further details, see Ozawa Masao, “Kudaishi to kudai waka” in Kokugo to kokubungaku 29 (Oct. 1952), p. 13. 289  Ibid., p. 12. 290  Ono Yasuo writes that Zhang, whom he identifies as a kudaishi poet, was known in Japan, this evidenced by the inclusion of a collection of his works among the titles in Nihonkoku genzai sho mokuroku (comp. Fujiwara no Sukeyo, ca. 891). See Ono, “Heianchō kudaishi no seiyaku,” p. 15. 291  The Xie Tiao poem in question is “Composed while in Temporary Service at the Lower Capital; I Left Xinlin in the Evening and Upon Reaching the Imperial Capital Offered This Verse to My Co-Workers in the Western Bureau” 暫使下都夜發新林至京邑贈西府同 僚. It is the fifth line of this twenty-line poem that Zhang borrowed to use as his fiveword kudai. For a partial translation, see Kang-i Sun Chang, Six Dynasties Poetry (1986), pp. 131–32. 292  The four opening lines of Tao’s poem, a twelve-line pailü, read as follows: 秋至雲容斂、 天中日景清。懸空寒色淨、委照曙光盈. The verse follows a typical quadripartite rhetorical structure; for a translation, see Denecke, “Topic Poetry,” pp. 30–31. Wang Wei also wrote a verse using this same topic line, Quan Tang shi 127.1293 (“Topic Poetry,” p. 30, n. 56). This verse itself resembles a kudaishi in that it utilizes three words from the line, together with appropriate substitutions for the remaining two.

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In his survey of Xianqin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi 先秦漢魏晉南北 朝詩 (Shi Poems from the Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, comp. 1983–89) and Quan Tang shi 全唐詩 (The Complete Works of

the Tang), Ono Yasuo discovered “several tens” of shi that use borrowed poemlines as their titles and deploy these words in the opening couplet. Among the many poets he cites are Yuan Zhen, Cai Ning 蔡凝 (sixth century), Emperor Jianwen 簡文 (r. 550–51), and Luo Binwang 駱賓王 (ca. 640–84).293 Ono further observes that some of the same borrowed lines employed by Chinese poets were also utilized by Heian versifiers.294 Another of Ono’s discoveries is a group of Chinese civil service examination poems, in which all the words in the title—whether from an existing poem or created for the occasion—are present in the first couplet.295 The above examples doubtless paved the way for the rise of kudaishi in Japan during the ninth century, even though there is no indication that poetry utilizing topic lines rose to the level of a subgenre in China. Instead, it was in Japan that such allusive poetry came to flourish as a recognized form, reflecting the high esteem in which Heian poets held the ancient masters of Chinese verse. Kudaishi not only developed a body of conventions within a ritualized social matrix but came to occupy center stage in formal verse composition. In this respect, kudaishi versification was indeed a “Japanese” phenomenon— and one of the most enduring fixtures of Sinitic verse in the Heian age.296

293  Ono, “Heianchō kudaishi no seiyaku,” pp. 14–16. 294  Ibid., p. 15. 295  Also of interest is a series of twenty pentasyllabic octaves by Zhao Gu 趙嘏 (ninth century) titled “Xixi yan” 昔昔鹽 (Evening After Evening: Prelude), wherein each poem takes as its title a line from a Xue Daoheng 薛道衡 (540–609) poem, itself titled “Xixi yan.” (In Zhao Gu’s series, the title 昔昔鹽 is understood as the homophonous 夕夕鹽.) Several words from a Xue line are worked into each piece in an irregular fashion. Stephen Owen observes: “There are other cases of ninth-century poets basing a series of poems on lines from an earlier poem—usually dating from the late fifth or early sixth century.” See Owen, The Late Tang, p. 244. 296  While it is beyond the scope of this Introduction to go back earlier than the immediate precedents for kudaishi in China’s Six Dynasties period, we note that Ozawa Masao (in “Kudaishi to kudai waka” [1952], p. 11) has endeavored to trace the origins of kudaishi back to nigu shi 擬古詩 (“imitations of old verse”) and to early gushi and yuefu from the Later Han and Wei-Jin periods. We share Denecke’s assessment that these do not constitute convincing prototypes—see “Topic Poetry,” p. 13, n. 18. Ozawa observes as a point of similarity between yuefu and kudaishi that the opening line and the title in many of these old poems are identical—we also see this in the Nineteen Old Poems 古詩十九首. However, this identicality merely reflects a common editorial practice whereby the first line of an untitled poem was provisionally utilized as the poem’s title.

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“Harmonization,” Topic Assignment, and Technical Aspects of Social Versification Instead of receiving poem lines to use as topoi, literati at compositional events were often assigned a short imagistic phrase (daiei 題詠)297 to be used by everyone present in setting their verse topic, establishing the thematic keynote for the occasion and fostering a sense of friendly competition and camaraderie. Alternatively, poets were each assigned their own separate topics. Well before topic-line verse became popular at court in the mid-ninth century, pairs or groups of poets were also practicing various kinds of “harmonizing” up and down the hierarchy through “matched” verse exchange, producing what is called washi 和詩 “harmonizing verse.” Embodying the unifying ideal expressed in the Bunka shūreishū preface by the words “… Heaven is exalted and Earth lowly, the lord intones and his ministers harmonize with him,”298 these bidirectional matching activities became particularly fashionable in Saga’s court, although they are sometimes seen even in Kaifūsō.299 Communal kanshi composition of this nature was more than simply a recreational pastime; as Borgen explains, “Symbolically, [courtiers] were demonstrating both that they were harmoniously working together to administer the land and that at the same time their land was a civilized one in the accepted Chinese sense of the term.”300 Insofar as response verse (hōwa) also provided an avenue for praising the sovereign, it soon established itself as an enduring social pastime 5.3

297  Daiei compositions were common in Six Dynasties and early Tang China, continental poets leaving substantial legacies that provided models for Nara and Heian Japanese versifiers. 298  Trans. by Heldt, p. 304. 299  Saga not only requested impromptu poems on specific topics (such compositions designated ōsei 應製, “written on imperial command”) but also presented his own verses, gosei-shi (御製詩, “imperial verses”), to which courtiers offered respectful matching replies (hōwa 奉和). In Saga’s court, courtiers were also able to initiate such an exchange with the emperor and receive a poem in response. Harmonizing poems where rhyme- (or rhyme-category) matching was not a feature are generally called washi; examples are the pairs rus 17/70 and rus 62/12. Regarding correct terminological distinctions between non-rhyme matching and rhyme-matching verse, see Matsuura, p. 16. See the Introduction below for more on the phenomenon of harmonizing verses that use rhyme-matching.    Heldt notes that in Six Dynasties China, where verse-matching activities also occurred, “individual lines of a poem were distributed among the poets present” (Heldt, pp. 346–47, n. 53, citing Ozawa Masao, Kokinshū no sekai, pp. 284–98). See ch. 16, “Poetry and the Life of the Court,” by Stephen Owen in The Poetry of the Early T’ang for a discussion of group compositional practices and the role of verse in court life during the early Tang. 300  Robert Borgen, “The Politics of Classical Chinese in the Early Japanese Court,” ch. 8 in David R. Knechtges and Eugene Vance, eds., Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture: China, Europe, and Japan (2005).

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among the aristocracy. When Emperor Saga himself was present, he would sometimes respond to courtiers’ verses, demonstrating that amity and social ties were being built from both directions.301 Harmonizing poetry accounts for roughly a third of the verse in the Saga anthologies,302 the largest proportional number being found in Bunka shūreishū: 65 out of 143 compositions (45%).303 When writing on individually-assigned topics at court events, a popular selection method was for each versifier, in descending order of rank, to draw his topic from a basket of slips, in a procedure known as tandai 探題. This random topic selection, as Heldt observes “was designed to enable an unscripted virtuoso display of the official’s poetic literacy.”304 In daiei verse the main themes were seasonal and celestial phenomena, with poets adhering to what Haruo Shirane refers to as “a commonly shared body of poetic associations with respect to the seasons, nature, and famous places based on centuries of poetic practice.”305 As Brower and Miner note concerning the tradition of setting topics in waka composition during the mid-classical age, this practice “… gradually led to the fixing of the convention of the poet’s formal relation to his materials,”306 a phenomenon that likewise prevailed in Sinitic composition. Poets might add their own slant on a topic, reconfiguring conventional images, tropes, and other material, but the ability to intertextually weave old into new and yet stay within the accepted norms mattered most. 301  Gotō notes that while hōwa verse was also practiced in the courts of Heizei, Junna, and Uda, harmonizing verse composed by sovereigns (tennō kara no washi) in response to the verse of their subjects—even those of low rank—is characteristic of Saga alone. Saga wrote two such poems in 827 to Koreyoshi no Harumichi, who at the time only held the junior eighth rank, upper and was serving as the junior secretary of Ōmi. Harumichi sent four hōwa in return. Another Saga washi is rus 19, written to harmonize with a poem by Shigeno no Sadanushi, who was likewise of low rank and still at the Academy. See Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku shi ronkō, p. 50. 302  Kojima Noriyuki, “Konin-ki bungaku yori Jōwa-ki bungaku e: Saga Tennō o chūshin to suru ōsei hōwa no shifū o megutte,” Kokugo kokubun 34.9, p. 17. 303  Gotō Akio, “Saga Tennō to Kōninki shidan,” in Gobun kenkyū 28 (May 1970), p. 22. This figure includes thirteen ōsei poems (sometimes referred to as ōsei hōwa verses), “harmonizing on imperial command.” 304  Heldt, p. 53. Some events allowed more preparation time than others. In a discussion of sechien 節宴 (annual banquets), where topic-line poems were typically composed, Heldt notes that roughly three hours were permitted for composition. As poets prepared their verses, musicians and dancers performed. “Those unable to come up with a poem would raise their hands in defeat” (Heldt, p. 54). For the Tentoku 3 shiawase competition, by contrast, considerably more time was granted for preparation: about ten days. See Reeves, p. 67. 305  Haruo Shirane, “Performance, Visuality, and Textuality: The Case of Japanese Poetry,” in Oral Tradition 20.2 (2005), p. 222. 306  Japanese Court Poetry, p. 302.

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Besides writing on set topoi, groups of poets also harmonized by using either the same single rhyme word, a predetermined series of rhyme words, or a word in a specified rhyme category;307 these practices, referred to as wain 和韻 (rhyme-sharing), can be seen even in Kaifūsō.308 In China, rhyme-assignment and various matching practices had become popular during the late fifth-early sixth centuries, accompanying the rise of verse-banquets and foreshadowing the adoption of these conventions in Japanese social poetry, where their use came to be considered a mark of cosmopolitan sophistication.309 The growth of rhyme-matching conventions in the Japanese court was doubtless indicative of an increasing awareness of, and interest in, the new regulated-verse prosody and its characteristic end-rhyme.310 Three basic varieties of wain were commonly used, both in China and Japan, this plurality of practices attesting to the level of interest in this aspect of harmonizing: Iin 依韻 (also called dōin 同韻): utilizing rhyme words in the same phonetic category of rhyme.311 Yōin 用韻, where the very same rhyme words are utilized by all poets, although the order of their appearance does not have to be identical to those in the focal poem. Jiin 次韻, an exact form of sequential rhyme duplication, also called hon’in 本韻, in which the same rhymes were implemented in the same order in each matching poem. 307  There were around thirty such rhyme categories in use during the mid- to late-Heian period, this estimate based on Ruijū kudaishō categories. See Honma, Ruijū kudaishō zen chūshaku, pp. 68–70. Of these, nine were particularly favored, while an equal number of others were scarcely used at all. Matsuura Tomohisa identifies preferences in Ryōunshū that are even more lopsided; six rhyme categories saw eight or more uses each, and by contrast ten of the categories were hardly ever employed. See Matsuura, p. 12. 308  kfs 83, by Prince Ōtsu, shows the prince using rhyme words in the same category as ones found in “An Excursion to Yoshino” (kfs 32) by Fujiwara no Fuhito 藤原不比等 (659– 720). See Gu, “Heian zenki ni okeru Nihon kanshi,” pp. 93–94 for a discussion of eight kfs examples written between 719–26. 309  On rhyme-matching practices in China, see Gu, ibid., pp. 47–55 passim. Gu speculates that the Japanese did not acquire knowledge of rhyme-matching techniques directly from Chinese texts, more likely devising the practices on their own in the natural course of things. Ibid., pp. 81, 89. 310  Ibid., pp. 81–89. 311  Examples include the pairs kfs 83/kfs 32, kfs 119/kfs 32, rus 28/rus 12, and rus 31/ rus 70.

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A few early examples of jiin matching have come down to us, most notably kfs 110/111 (a pair of quatrains likely both by Priest Dōyū 釋道融, fl. 730),312 however the practice did not gain momentum until the age of the Saga anthologies.313 Later in the ninth century its use surged, evident in certain works by Tadaomi and Michizane; the latter began using this technique around 867, when he was twenty-three.314 Whereas in Saga’s court jiin was practiced by pairs of poets, by Michizane’s time three or more were often involved, sometimes also using the same poem title, as seen in kkbs 200–209. The popularization of this activity around this time is thought to reflect a vogue in China credited to Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi, who were among the first to make extensive use of rhymematching, including jiin, which until their time appears to have been utilized infrequently, judging from the paucity of recorded examples.315 Bai and 312  If both are by Dōyū, this would seem to be an instance of “harmonizing with oneself.” kfs 64 and 107, although appearing to be jiin verse—and seen as such by Kojima—were both written at the same event, where rhymes to be shared were supplied to all poets at the outset—a situation which Shimonishi Zenzaburō does not consider genuine rhymematching, presumably because it was prearranged and compulsory. See Shimonishi, “Nara, Heian jidai no shōwashi,” in Kanazawa Daigaku kokugo kokubun 5 (May 1976), pp. 31, 34.  Gu observes in “Heian zenki ni okeru Nihon kanshi,” pp. 75–76, that there are few known examples of jiin in China prior to the Yuanhe period (806–21), perhaps because the “source poem” and the matching one (or ones) were often preserved in separate collections and not seen as connected (ibid., pp. 79–80). 313  bksrs verse pairs utilizing this type of rhyme include: nos. 117/118 (pentasyllabic quatrains), 90/92 (pentasyllabic octaves), 99/105 (heptasyllabic quatrains), 97/103 (heptasyllabic quatrains), and 37/39 (heptasyllabic quatrains). kks pairings include 82/84 (a pair of pentasyllabic octaves by Wake no Hiroyo 和気廣世 and the crown prince, the future emperor Emperor Heizei). See Gu, pp. 64–69 for a detailed discussion of these. A contemporaneous poem by Priest Kūkai, Shōryōshū 性靈集 16 (ca. 814/3), written in response to a verse received from Saga accompanying a gift of cloth (rus 24), also utilizes jiin. See Butterflies, p. 54, for translations of both. For a broad survey of this practice throughout the Heian age see Shimonishi, ibid., pp. 28–35. 314  Among the many examples cited by Gu are kkbs 109/110, 200–209 (a set of ten jiin poems), 352/53, and 419/420; Michizane rhyme-matched with himself, with friends, and with foreign guests on diplomatic occasions (see pp. 69–75). His first known jiin poem is kkbs 15 (ibid., p. 74). The longest extant jiin sequence appears to be the Fusōshū series of twenty-two verses exchanged around the 930s by Aritsura and Fusaakira, mentioned earlier, in which the same five rhyme words are used in the same order throughout. 315  Citing the research of Bian Xiaoxuan, Gu writes that Yuan sent 55 such poems to Bai, and the latter some 26 to Yuan (p. 78). She observes that rhyme-matching in Chinese verse arose during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420–589) but was seldom practiced prior to the age of Bai and Yuan. The first actual record of jiin matching in China seems to be a pair of late-fifth century quatrains preserved in Luoyang qielan ji 洛陽伽藍記 (The Monasteries of Luoyang, ca. 547), compiled by Yang Xuanzhi 楊衒之 (d. 555), as noted by Gu (ibid., pp. 48, 55). Some critical writings from the late Northern Song and Qing (see, for

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Yuan exchanged poems, and often both the original item and its reply were found side by side in their collections, which enabled later versifiers to readily observe the technique in action, thus facilitating its imitation. Once jiin caught on in Japan, it remained popular throughout the Heian age, being seen in verse from such later collections as Honchō reisō, Gōrihōshū, Hosshōji-dono gyoshū, and Honchō mudaishi.316 As with the other kinds of harmonizing, rhymematching added an extra element of difficulty, but poets seem to have relished the discipline and structure imposed by such conventions, and they remained pervasive in social verse throughout the Heian age. In another variation, poets sometimes received a predetermined set of rhyme words, either for use individually or by the whole group, a phenomenon referred to as rokuin 勒韻 (“reining in the rhyme”).317 This practice was already in place by the early eighth century, an example being kfs 23, composed at a banquet by one Ki no Komaro 紀古麻呂 (fl. ca. 705), who uses a set of four preassigned rhyme words.318 A further convention at least as common was one where poets randomly drew a rhyme word for individual use, this known as tan’in 探韻 (drawing rhymes).319 Some occasions likely began with a tan’in drawing by one poet (again, probably the most senior person present), who would compose a verse which was then followed by rhyme-matching response poems by others present. In still other instances, courtiers were permitted to come up with their own rhyme words independently. In fact, by the time of Sakumon daitai, tan’in had come to denote the free choice of rhyme words.320 Considerable space has been devoted thus far to the phenomenon of formal social verse, including historical poems, kudaishi, and verse forms on assigned topoi, as well as their rhetorical and technical conventions; much of this formal verse, as we have seen, was essentially ceremonial and thus impersonal in tone. At the same time, a large segment of Heian kanshi focuses on individual pursuits and private musings, covering a broad range of subject matter, example, citations 1 and 4 in Gu, pp. 76–79) go so far as to assert that Bai and Yuan effectively launched rhyme-matching practices, although as Gu notes a few somewhat earlier specimens appear in the poetry of Li Duan 李端 (743–82) and Lu Lun 盧綸 (737?–98?); see p. 80. 316  Shimonishi, pp. 33–34. 317  Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” p. 253. 318  Here and elsewhere, the verb 得 (get, obtain) is generally used to indicate the poet’s receipt of the rhyme word or words, without any indication of the procedure involved. 319  On the practice of tan’in in Ryōunshū, see Matsuura, p. 16. Instead of tan’in, the terms tanji 探字, “drawing graphs,” and bun’in 分韻, “assignment of rhyme words,” are sometimes employed. One of the earliest uses of 探 in notes to poems to denote this convention occurs in rus 22. 320  For the passage in question, see Steininger, ibid.

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some of it novel and “uncourtly,” with topoi that run the gamut from paper kites and spiders to sickness and aging. Private, informal verse treats the world outside the court and the poet’s inner life: the pleasures of country life and travel, friendship and socializing, and life’s everyday circumstances, both good and bad. Much of this lyrical verse is to a greater or lesser extent also ‘nature’ poetry, revealing an acute awareness and appreciation of the changing flora, fauna, and seasonal scenery, as well as the affective significance of nature as an ever-changing and regenerative force. The pervasiveness of such themes and imagery bids us to examine the treatment and place of nature in kanshi more closely, particularly in verse written away from the environs of the palace. 6

Natural Motifs in Sinitic Verse: Some Observations

Nature can be seen as the principal animating force behind kanshi composition, whether it is the focus of the poet’s attention or simply the backdrop. As James Liu observes with reference to continental verse, nature is not seen as “a physical manifestation of its Creator,” as in the English “Nature poet” tradition, but “something that is what it is by virtue of itself.” He adds, “[T]he Chinese mind seems content to accept nature as a fact, without searching for a primum mobile.”321 Rarely was nature overtly treated as a malign force, although passing references to the elements, especially the wind, sometimes reflect an awareness that nature can be pitiless. Kanshi poets likewise show a matter-offact understanding of natural change and the forces of nature, recognizing, although seldom cheerfully, that they are subject to its perpetual cycles. While natural beauty was a source of joy, its seasonal transience and power to regenerate itself readily evoked melancholic thoughts on the brevity of human life and the finality of death. In the following excerpt from “Lying Sick Abed on an Autumn Night” (rus 78), Nakashina no Yoshio 仲科善雄 (fl. ca. 800) sees his own impending demise in the leaves blowing through his garden and remembers that he too is at the mercy of Fate—and nature’s whims: ………………………………… No one here; within these four walls I’m hidden. At caring for my health I am poor; At knowing Heaven’s will I am not adept. Just the trees, blowing in the wind, Tossing, shedding their leaves, and making me grieve. 321  Liu, The Art of Chinese Poetry, p. 49.

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Spring and autumn were, in almost equal measure, the two most affecting seasons and the favorite times for versification about nature; of the seasonallyidentifiable poems in Saga’s corpus of 95 verses, 39 are set in spring and 21 in autumn, yet only 4 describe winter and 6, summer.322 But whatever the season, the repertoire of associated topoi and images was circumscribed and fairly predictable. Highly attuned to nature’s cycle, poets never tire of describing its myriad manifestations, always striving to discover the novel and unusual amongst the familiar and seeking imaginative ways to present commonplace scenes. Moonlight, for example, is variously imagined as having a cooling effect at the height of summer and the power to melt the snow in the treetops in winter. Even in the depths of winter poets managed to find something compelling to describe, as in the following kudaishi by Fujiwara no Atsumoto (d. 1106), with its melding of Confucian and Daoist imagery, on the line “white snow blankets the pines in the courtyard” (cbsk 4–2): White snow in whirling flurries, the year draws to a close: Filling the pine trees in the courtyard—chilly as I gaze. Branch tips entwined with willows by the wall, dotted now with “catkins.” Foliage brushing the ming plants near the steps, odd that the month’s not over. Wind in the grove of aged scholars, combing their pure white hair; Smoke rising from magic stoves, turning to silvery pellets. In my sixties, decrepit and fading; a shame that it’s hard to be lazy. Studying by night, holding a book, I watch the flakes of snow. Rather than just a feature of the landscape mentioned in passing, the ancient snowy pine trees remain the focus of the poet’s attention, serving as a mirror image of his own old age and physical decline. At the same time, the phrase “grove of aged scholars” evokes sturdy rectitude and resilience, a reminder of the need to continue the pursuit of learning to the end of one’s life. In this way, nature and human affairs are closely intertwined, every plant, tree, and seasonal or celestial phenomenon inspiring lyrical feelings and evoking traditional associations. In China, the notion of poets responding to seasonal changes was, as Knechtges writes, well established by the Liang dynasty (502– 87),323 a sensibility that Sinitic versifiers in Japan embraced and developed. In particular, kanshi poets relished creating precisely drawn, close-up portraits 322  Kageki, p. 13. 323  Knechtges, “Culling the Weeds,” p. 227.

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of individual natural objects and seasonal phenomena, composing eibutsu studies of their every physical aspect and the cultural lore associated with them. Michizane wrote numerous poems on natural topoi, a typical example being his quatrain “Willow Fluff” (kkbs 394); this verse has the added appeal of including a waka-like lyrical response to its subject, the poet sensing an affinity between himself and objects in the natural world, which inspires his concern for their fragile beauty and transience. Spring snow, whirling in profusion, around the willow branches. Seeing it I know that this fluff over time will lie fallen on the roads. Poets versifying on this topic feel such bitter emotion. Don’t let the fluff be the first to be scattered by the furious winds! Whether in eibutsu or in other varieties of nature verse, classical waka included, poets also enjoyed examining natural processes, at times displaying a curiously analytical bent reminiscent of late Six Dynasties-early Tang poets writing in the yipang 倚傍 “oblique” reasoning style.324 This is seen in Saga’s verse “A Heptasyllabic Poem on a Night in the Mountains” (kks 141), in which he seeks to deepen his understanding of the workings of nature, showing a finely-honed, perhaps more native-inspired sensibility to the most minute phenomena: Shifting lodgings, last night I slept among heira vines. While I dreamed, the mountain roosters heralded the dawn. Without my noticing, clouds arrived—somehow my robes got damp. And then I learned the house was standing near a deep ravine! In Tadamichi’s “Dark the Grove, Hard to See the Moon” (hdg 20), we see a similar sort of problem-solving impulse amidst focused reflection. Observing his immediate surroundings closely and intently, as if practicing shikan 止観

324  Brower and Miner note that this term, applied pejoratively by “unsympathetic” Tang critics when discussing late Six Dynasties verse, literally means “leaning to one side” or “going off on a tangent.” They observe: “The T’ang critics would have argued that these lines lead the reader off on a tangent, that they focus on the poet’s mental processes rather than on the natural scene, and further, that such treatment has no purpose other than to call attention to itself.” Characteristic stylistic elements include “… [e]laborate metaphor, surprising conceits, subjective and sometimes apparently irrational analysis, elegant poses, and above all, a pervasive use of reasoning …” (p. 169).

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(“contemplation and insight”),325 Tadamichi is absorbed in the same train of thought from start to finish. A moonlit night—but why is this enough to break my heart? In the grove in my courtyard it is dark, for the moon is blocked from view. By pushing aside the bushy branches I could let the beams shine through; If I leaned against the withered trunks, could they possibly block the light? From the dark branches of the warm trees any snow would melt away. But the summer tips of the green pagoda trees are far from autumn’s frost. Submerged in the pond the pine canopy trembles in the wind. Upon the water I see golden waves, then all at once they’re hidden. We are reminded of a tanka, “The Moon and the Hills,” in the ushintei 有心體 style of “intense feeling,” written in 1121 at an utaawase sponsored by Tadamichi himself, in which a court lady reflects on viewing the moon through trees in a spot that does not offer a clear line of sight: この間より　出づる月の　うれしきに　西なる山の　西に住まばや

In my delight to see / The moon come up between the trees, / I wish only that / I might live west of those western hills / And watch its rising sooner still.326 This preoccupation with the affective beauty of nature was of course shared with China, where nature poetry “as a primary poetic subject in its own right” emerged relatively late.327 One of the earliest pioneers was Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385–433), traditionally regarded as the father of the shanshui 山水 (mountains and water) style of nature verse, which set out to capture and replicate the charm and grandeur of mountainous vistas, forests, lakes, and rivers. Xie marvels at all the beauty encountered on his expeditions into the wilderness, experiencing spiritual rejuvenation and often sorrowing that he lacks a bosom 325  Shikan, identified with the esoteric Tendai sect of Buddhism, which was practiced by most courtiers, embraces the notions of calming and concentrating the mind to overcome illusions (止 śamatha) and the close observation of objects to discover their true nature (観 vipśyanā). See ibid., p. 257 on poetic adaptations of the concept of shikan (in the case of waka verse but also evidenced in kanshi) in an age when, as the authors note, “the art of poetry was regarded as a way of life and just as surely a means to ultimate truth as the sermons of the Buddha.” 326  Trans. in ibid., p. 255. 327  Cai, p. 3.

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friend to share his pleasure. His verse was entirely unlike that which was to follow during the Liang dynasty (502–87), when as Knechtges writes, “… landscape poems, if they can be called that, primarily are static descriptions of small scenes much in the manner of the yongwu.”328 Heian nature kanshi bear scant resemblance to Xie’s style and tend to be closer to the Liang pieces: small portraits of rural scenery and domestic farmsteads that are reminiscent of the tianyuan 田園 (fields and garden) subgenre pioneered by Tao Yuanming, whose bucolic verse struck a particular chord with Japanese literati.329 Many courtiers owned rural cottages to which they would repair on days off (and after retirement), celebrating this rustic lifestyle in such poems as “The Farmhouse” (rus 73) by Ono no Nagami 小野永見 (fl. ca. 800). I built a cottage that stands among three paths. I water my garden to provide myself with food. Coarse distiller’s grain is fine for filling my stomach, A rocky spring enough to delight my senses. Pines cast shadows deep within the water; The sound of bamboo moving in the wind. I pay the trifling land tax due in peacetime, Living alone in my lodge on this little hill.330

328  Knechtges, “Culling the Weeds,” p. 226. He further observes that while Xiao Tong, the editor of Wen xuan, wrote such poems himself, Wen xuan “contains virtually nothing resembling the Liang court pieces, which describe outings to scenic places in a bland and insipid fashion,” often lacking heartfelt emotion, despite their technical skill and refinement. Xie Lingyun, by contrast, was highly regarded by the compilers, as seen in their inclusion of a sizable number of his poems in Wen xuan (ibid.). He was nevertheless one of the major Six Dynasties poets omitted from Masafusa’s discussion in Shikyōki. 329  We note as an aside that although Chinese and Japanese poets often set their verse near rivers and lakes (and in the countryside generally), depictions of seaside locales, by contrast, are relatively uncommon, even though in Japan coastal locations were closer to centers of civilization than they were in China. One exception is a series of ocean-travel poems in Honchō mudaishi by Priest Renzen (d. ca. 1149), which trace his journey by boat around coastal areas and ports along the way. Poets in both traditions tended to view such settings as alien, associating them with loneliness and separation, although Renzen, while expressing homesickness on occasion, found sufficient interest in the places and people he encountered in this series to record sundry details. 330  Trans. from Butterflies, pp. 56–57. “Three paths” in line one alludes to the walkways transversing the garden of the Han dynasty recluse Jiang Xu 蔣詡 for use by him and two friends. This became a conventional metaphor for the garden or abode of a scholarrecluse. Tao Yuanming’s “On Returning Home” employs the phrase.

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“Secluded Dwelling” (kfs 108) is an even earlier such poem, composed by Tami no Kurohito (民黒人, fl. ca. 732), a courtier-turned-hermit who found happiness living the simple life: I ventured away from the noisy, dusty world, Searching for an enchanted cassia grove. In the cliffs and valleys no signs of the mundane world; On the mountain roads some young men gathering wood. The springs and rocks diverse wherever I go, But wind and mist the same in every place. If you want to know why mountain folk are happy, It’s the pure winds that blow through the pines.331 Though many courtiers could not imagine living anywhere but the capital, others dreamed endlessly of leaving court life behind for the tranquility and seclusion of the countryside, where they could cultivate their poetic skills and enjoy artistic and religious pursuits. Reclusion as a topos in poetry reflected a lifestyle either actually practiced by the writer or simply imagined in the abstract: courtiers, and even emperors, envisioned a semi-fanciful realm of eremitic freedom, where hermit and priest often became fused in their minds.332 Thus, in kanshi addressed to Buddhist monks (or merely describing their way of life) one detects a romantic conflation of their ascetic religious lifestyle with Daoist hermitage and its ideals of freedom, an existence characterized by moral purity, envied and admired even by Saga himself. Saga’s reverence for wise, noble men living in obscurity reflects a long canonical tradition in China stretching from deep antiquity to the fifth century. Accordingly, the emperor and his entourage often went on outings to retreats and temples, where they would enjoy the scenery and cultivate relationships with recluses like Harumichi or priests such as Saichō and Kōjō. In the verse they wrote on these occasions every feature of the landscape becomes a Daoist emblem, the scenery portrayed using rhetoric and imagery redolent with the romantic charm and exoticism of otherworldly realms: mist-enshrouded wilderness paradises draped in moss and vines, set amongst pines, bamboo, and cypresses, 331  See Butterflies, pp. 45–46, for this verse, one of two attributed to Kurohito. 332  For an illuminating study of this conflation, see Tian Yunming’s article “Sōryo to in’itsu hyōgen: juyō to saikōchiku,” in Nihon kenkyū 47.3 (Mar. 2013). Tian discusses the use of Daoist eremitic vocabulary, concepts, and tropes in eighth- and ninth-century kanshi portrayals of persons who have taken vows and left the court. In reclusion, the respective worlds of the “monk” and “hermit” are allowed to merge, linked by a shared state of physical and spiritual separation from the human world.

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near craggy cliffs and gurgling streams. “Stopping at Bonshakuji” (bksrs 73) depicts Saga pausing to immerse himself in the timeless tranquility of the scene, where an all-encompassing calmness overtakes him: By the temple door, on the cloudy peak, all footprints have disappeared. Like long ago, today once more this mountain I have climbed. Down a wondrous secluded rocky face a waterfall gushes forth; From ancient and vast cypresses and pines aged vines hang down. This temple never tainted by the dust of the mundane world; Here upon the dharma mats just priests in simple robes. At once my vexing thoughts recede, the summer still is cool. I prepare to depart but linger on, for a while unable to leave. While many courtiers were not in a position to go into reclusion, verse from as early as Kaifūsō offers glimpses of an escapist impulse, which flowered into endless idealizations of this lifestyle. Those who could not shed their responsibilities contented themselves with experiencing life as a quasi-monk for the day. Temple-visiting poetry, like the verse immediately above, becomes a pervasive strain in Heian kanshi; Honchō mudaishi offers the greatest single concentration of such poetry, some 260 pieces in all, as well many composed at other secluded sites in the countryside. Temple verse grew in appeal as the period deepened, often reflecting forlorn and melancholic sentiments: poets typically begin by describing the natural surroundings, then toward the end trail away into brief references to private miseries and perhaps religious aspirations, hinting at an inner struggle between remaining in service and taking vows. Many conventions in diction, tropes, theme, and structure are recurrent, particularly in opening and closing couplets.333 A wistful longing to receive the tonsure was never far below the surface among the late Heian poets; but even if renouncing the material world was beyond them, they could at least draw consolation from the Buddhist notion that glory and fame, like all dharmas, were empty. Poet-officials who broach the subject of personal failure and dissatisfaction with their achievements emerge as subgroups among both kanshi and waka versifiers. Yamaguchi and others have written about the verse of this “misery stratum” or “the malcontents” (chinrin kadan 沈淪歌壇),334 a changing constellation of mainly low-ranked waka poets who emerged in the later decades of the ninth century. Their 333  See the notes to hcmds 522 for further details. 334  For a discussion of poetic complaint in the age of the Kokinshū, see Yamaguchi, Uda, Daigo, pp. 145–47, 450–64. There is also a discussion of the chinrin kadan in his

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laments (chinrin no uta 沈淪の歌, so-called poems of obscurity or ruination) conveyed the desire to overcome the ravages of aging, free themselves from career-related woes, and achieve success at court with the help of influential patrons. One especially prolix lament, a waka in eighty-nine lines, is Kokinshū poem 1003, by Mibu no Tadamine 壬生忠岑, which vividly communicates the poet’s despair over a demotion from head of the Imperial Bodyguards to the Right Gate Guards, while also expressing the hope that he can live long into the emperor’s reign: … Five sixes are the total / of the years I have spent / in this miserable state. / Long, too, was the time / before I served our sovereign, / and thus I suffer / both from retarded status / and from advanced years … / I long for a sip / of the rumored elixir / that wards off old age / and grants immortality, / for it is my wish / to watch, eternally young, / our sovereign’s eternal reign.335 In kanshi, the unhappy sentiments of malcontents are typically more pithy and to the point, with despair and self-deprecating comments mainly confined to the last couplet. An example, perhaps somewhat more discursive than usual, is “Speaking My Mind on a Summer Day at a Buddhist Temple” (hcmds 764), by Fujiwara no Chikamitsu, where the poet reveals that he has come to see his career as a vain enterprise and vows to “head off into the mists”: Taking it easy has always been the thing that I love most. In a room among pines at a quiet spot I absorb the abstruse discussions. ………………………………………… Lazy by nature, time after time I go on trips to temples; I’ve much time off, so day after day I visit monasteries. Tea at midday to dispel boredom; it hardly works at all. Old wine to banish melancholy; halfway to getting drunk. I’ve long wished for a permanent refuge in a hidden moonlit valley. White haired, I’ll head off into the mists enshrouding these ancient hills. A retired scholar who is sick of The Way—this is what I am. My posts and my scholarship, nothing achieved; I secretly feel ashamed.

earlier monograph Ōchō kadan no kenkyū: Murakami, Reizei, Enyū-chō hen (1967). See also Persiani, “Waka After the Kokinshū,” pp. 16–20, for some notable waka examples. 335  McCullough, trans., Kokin Wakashū, pp. 224–25.

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Seeking reclusion is never represented in Heian kanshi as a refusal to serve a bad ruler or as a means of self-protection, as was sometimes the case with Chinese poets, although political factors cannot be ruled out as a private motive for some. Moreover, eremitic kanshi, while manifesting a serenity reminiscent of Tao Yuanming are typically devoid of Tao’s sustained self-reflection and philosophical discursiveness, the poets remaining reticent about their reasons for taking this final step. Although many kanshi in Honchō mudaishi conclude on a lyrical note, the poet in seclusion is often so distant from worldly cares that any attempt at profundity (or self-justification, so often seen in Tao’s verse) seems out of place; we see this detachment in Chikamitsu’s poem “Spring Thoughts at My Home in the Mountains” (hcmds 450), which simply closes with a comforting, even if rather commonplace, remark. Ever since building this bamboo cottage on the outskirts of the city, The scenery at this place of mine has brought me so much joy! Pink and powdery blossoms flutter, covering me at dawn as I dream; By the blue pennants the wine is ready; I take a springtime cup. Woodland mists engulf my cottage, spread then roll away; Mountain sparrows, tame by the eaves, fly off and then return. Never say that my hermitage offers little to keep me alive: My garden will surely provide the means to see me through my years. Like Chikamitsu, few of the reclusive kanshi poets appear to have dwelled in total isolation, many instead living “on the outskirts of the city” and perhaps retaining professional ties with the court. They may have had a vegetable garden, but it is questionable how dependent they were upon farming for their subsistence. We find no references to the poverty, toil, and uncertainty detailed in the verse of Tao, Du Fu, and Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101), as exemplified by Su Shi’s poem “Eastern Slope.” Abandoned earthworks nobody tends, collapsed wall tangled in vines— who’d waste strength on land like this? Work all year for no return. But here’s a stranger, alone, Heaven against him, nowhere to go, pitching in to clear the rubble and wrack. Weather too dry, soil lean; pushing through brambles and weeds,

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wondering can I scrape out a handful of produce, I sigh and let go the plow— my barn—when will I fill it up?336 In Heian kanshi, by contrast, country life at its worst is depicted as humble and frugal, the ability to lead a peaceful existence in a picturesque setting more than compensating for any privations. Chikamitsu’s disenchantment with bureaucratic service, seen earlier, may have been conditioned by the prevailing Buddhist eschatological doctrine of mappō 末法 (the Last Period of the Dharma), according to which the world had already descended into a final degenerative phase of disorder and strife predicted to last 10,000 years. During the mappō age (believed to have begun in 1052, by the usual Heian reckoning), the Buddha’s teachings were still held to be true, but their prescriptions were no longer followed, causing moral corruption to set in throughout society. A sequence of natural disasters, as well as battles fought among rioting monks coming down from Enryakuji, were viewed as evidence of this supposed unraveling of the world.337 There were also two large local uprisings, in 1156 and 1160, fought mainly in the Heian area between forces supporting separate factions of the Fujiwara and their military commanders, who backed different contenders for the throne. These conflicts brought destruction and disruption to life in the capital and were a precursor to the internecine strife of the Genpei Wars (1180–85). It was a time in the capital that, in the words of one scholar, “… calls to mind scenes from a Buddhist hell. Robbers, burglars, and bandits roamed the city; civil disorder was rife; the homeless and diseased proliferated; the police were ineffectual; and, as epidemic and famine took their toll, the dead lay thick upon the ground.”338 Many courtiers living in these fraught times and experiencing the weakening of the aristocratic power structure retreated into nature, enjoying verse and the arts and placing faith in the mercy of Amida, who had vowed to lead true believers to the Western Paradise. Fujiwara no Sanemitsu’s 藤原實光 (1069–1147) “An 336  Watson, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, pp. 304–305. 337  In 1134, for example, a storm struck the capital, destroying many homes, only to be followed by a huge fire started by rampaging monks in 1138. Another major fire occurred in 1151, laying waste to a large part of the city. Further catastrophes are described in Hōjōki 方丈記 (An Account of My Hut, 1212): several earthquakes, the great conflagration of 1177, which leveled a third of Heian-kyō, and four severe famines between 1150 and 1181. In the last of these, over 20,000 people died of starvation, with corpses piling up along the Kamo river banks. 338  Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan, Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in TwelfthCentury Japan (1999), p. 51.

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Impromptu Poem Written on an Autumn Day at Zenrinji Temple” (hcmds 599), written on the edge of despair, embodies the zeitgeist that set in as the Heian period ebbed and the future seemed filled with uncertainty: An old temple east of the capital—Zenrinji is its name: In order to gain some karmic merit I brought my friends on a visit. Nighttime hall, lamps extinguished; chime stones silent in the chill. Autumn hills, leaves fallen; monkeys distant in the night. Secluded caverns—on paths the tracks of priests chanting sutras; Silent valley—beside the stream no sounds from the secular world. Though old and clinging to the passing years, please don’t laugh at me. Whenever I think of the remaining leaves I cannot bear it at all. “Remaining leaves” is not merely a wistful seasonal reference of a literal nature and a metaphor for the poet’s twilight years; more significantly, it seems to reference future generations, whose imagined fate filled Sanemitsu with a sense of apprehension. Sojourning at a temple, an oasis for reflection and composing verse, provided in these times of adversity a comforting sense of connection to a bygone era, helping to temper world-weariness and assuage the miseries of growing old in an uncertain world.

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Poem Translations

∵

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Kaifūsō 懐風藻 (Poetic Gems Cherishing the Styles of Old, 751) Ochi no Atai Hiroe. Relating My Feelings Literature is something I find hard; Zhuang and Lao are the ones whom I enjoy. Now that I am past my middle years, Why should I labor over anything at all? 越智直廣江

述懷

文藻我所難 莊老我所好 行年已過半 今更爲何勞 Source: Kaifūsō (kfs) 58, in Kojima Noriyuki, annot., Kaifūsō, Bunka shūreishū, Honchō monzui [Nihon koten bungaku taikei], hereafter nkbt 69 (1964), p. 123; quatrain (pentasyllabic). Title: Atai/atae 直 following the poet’s surname is a kabane 姓 hereditary title, one of more than thirty used to denote rank and political standing among the provincial nobility during the Yamato period. These were streamlined and reorganized during the reign of Emperor Tenmu, in 684, into a system of eight honorary noble titles, yakusa no kabane 八色姓, which gradually disappeared from use. The eight, in descending order, were mahito 真人, asomi (ason) 朝臣, sukune 宿禰, imiki 忌寸, michinoshi 道師, omi 臣, muraji 連, and inagi 稲置. Anthology: The earliest extant kanshi anthology, Kaifūsō was compiled privately by an anonymous scholar-courtier and bears a preface dated 751. Relatively neglected by generations of scholars despite its temporal proximity to the far better known and loved Man’yōshū (comp. ca. 759 or later), the extent of its circulation in later centuries is also unknown. Ōe no Masafusa makes no mention of it in Shikyōki (see the Introduction). It features the works of sixty-four poets. A large proportion of its 119 compositions, which date from as far back as 672, are public occasional poems, utilizing rhetoric and diction in the highest formal register and composed at court banquets, during imperial excursions to scenic sites, and at other palace events celebrating the glory of the court. Especially appealing, and in marked contrast to the public palace poems, are

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_003

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several informal, private pieces on topoi ranging from friendship and nostalgia for the past, to laments on old age and homesickness, and the pleasures of life in bucolic seclusion. As would be expected, this early collection overall shows a strong affinity with the Chinese court style and classical topical models; imagery and poetic diction likewise tend to be conventional, with allusions drawn from Lun yu, Wen xuan, Yutai xinyong 玉臺新詠 (New Songs from a Jade Terrace, sixth century), Daoist texts, and the encyclopedia Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 (A Categorized Collection of Literary Writings, ca. 600), as noted in McCullough, Brocade, p. 93. All but seven poems are pentasyllabic, the rest heptasyllabic. More than half the verses are octaves, with about a fifth being quatrains. The longest poem has eighteen lines. Six poems in this collection come with prose prefaces in literary Sinitic, four of them attached to social banquet verse. Prose biographies are provided for nine of the poets, four of them renowned monks who had studied in China, a particularly esteemed group. The verses are arranged by their date of composition and the status of the author: Kaifūsō provides the ranks and offices of each poet alongside his name where his first poem occurs. Since these notations are at times extensive, we have situated many of the details in our biographical notes. For further discussion of this anthology and its times, see Webb, “In Good Order,” especially ch. 2–3; Wiebke Denecke, “Anthologization and Sino-Japanese Literature,” pp. 86–91; Denecke, Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons, pp. 66–69; and Rabinovitch and Bradstock, Butterflies, pp. 33–36. McCullough, ibid., pp. 86–97, also offers valuable details and insights. Line two: “Zhuang and Lao” are Zhuangzi 莊子 and Laozi 老子, China’s two preeminent Daoist philosophers. Biography: Ochi no Atai Hiroe (fl. ca. 720s) was a Confucian scholar and legal expert. The biographical annotations accompanying this poem indicate that his posts included junior assistant head of the Ministry of Justice and professor of law (myōbō hakase 明 法博士, the latter appointment granted in 720). In 721 Hiroe was called to serve as tutor to Prince Obito 首親王 (the future Emperor Shōmu, r. 724–49), with a promotion to the senior sixth rank, upper. He received substantial gifts of textiles and metal implements to honor his accomplishments and in 723 was promoted to the junior fifth rank, lower. Kaifūsō identifies him as professor and junior assistant head of the Ministry of Justice, at the same rank. A family history indicates that he held the title of shukuju 宿 儒 (Confucian Elder) during the latter half of the 720s. Comments: Ochi no Atai Hiroe, now past middle age, has turned to studying Daoist texts for pleasure and edification, apparently preferring them now to the canonical works upon which his career was built. The vanity of striving for wealth and power is a key concept in Daoism and becomes a common motif in Heian kanshi, especially among lower-ranked courtiers who had reached middle age with their aspirations still unfulfilled. Ochi no Hiroe might well have considered himself one such scholar.

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Sources for biographical details on poets and others mentioned in the poem notes: A variety of secondary sources, studies, and genealogies have been consulted in the preparation of biographical notes for the poets and others referenced in the present anthology. The following texts have been particularly valuable: Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū (2011), annot. by Nakamura Shōhachi and Ino Hiroko, pp. 531–91; Ueda Masaaki, Nishizawa Jun’ichi, and others, eds., Dejitaru-ban Nihon jinmei daijiten + Plus (2015), Heian jidaishi jiten (1994), comp. by Tsunoda Bun’ei and the Kodaigaku kyōkai; Heian jinmei jiten: Chōho ninen (1993) and Heian jinmei jiten: Kōhei sannen, 2 vols. (2007–2008), comp. by Makino Hirozō; Honchō reisō kanchū (1993), comp. by Kawaguchi Hisao and others, pp. 393–408; the biographical appendix in Kaifūsō, Bunka shūreishū, Honchō monzui, nkbt 69; the appended biographies in Kokufū ankoku jidai no bungaku: Kōnin-, Tenchō-ki no bungaku o chūshin to shite, vol. 2, bk. 2 (1979), comp. by Kojima Noriyuki, pp. 1839–50; Nihon kanbungaku daijiten (1985), ed. by Kondō Haruo; Nihon kodai jinmei jiten, 7 vols. (1958–77), comp. by Takeuchi Rizō, Yamada Hideo, and Hirano Kunio; Nihon kodai jinmei jiten (2009), ed. by Abe Takeshi; Nihon koten bungaku daijiten, 6 vols. (1983−85), comp. by Ichiko Teiji and others; Nihon koten bungaku daijiten (1998), comp. by Ōsone Shōsuke, Hinotani Teruhiko, and others; Nihonshi jiten, rev. ed. (1996), comp. by Uno Shun’ichi and others; Ōchō kanshisen (1987), comp. by Kojima Noriyuki; Shinchō Nihon jinmei jiten (1991), comp. by Ozaki Hideki, Haga Tōru, and others; and Sonpi bunmyaku, 4 vols., with index vol., in Kuroita Katsumi and the Kokushi taikei henshūkai, comp., Shintei zōho Kokushi taikei (1977). For additional biographical details concerning individual poets, see Butterflies.

Tanaka no Asomi Kiyotari. A Late Autumn Banquet in the Living Quarters of Prince Nagaya Little by little autumn draws to a close. Fluttering fluttering, leaves already cold. In the Western Courtyard a banquet has begun; To the Eastern Park “jade tablets” escorted in. Deep in the water scaly ones sport about; Beneath the cliffs chrysanthemums are fragrant. On this day as our lord embraces his guests, A rosy beauty floats in our simurgh goblets. 田中朝臣淨足

晚秋於長王宅宴

苒苒秋云暮 飄飄葉已涼

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西園開曲席 東閣引珪璋 水底遊鱗戲 巖前菊氣芳 君侯愛客日 霞色泛鸞觴 Source: kfs 66, in nkbt 69, pp. 131–32; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: On Prince Nagaya (684?–729), a powerful political figure during the Nara period, see kfs 69. On the poet’s honorary title asomi, see kfs 58. Lines one and two: The use of a parallel couplet for the opening is relatively unusual. Line three: The term quxi 曲席 is synonymous with quyan 曲宴 (J. kyokuen) and denotes an informal banquet. Line four: “Jade tablets” is a metonym for courtiers, who in ancient China carried these aloft during court ceremonies to indicate their rank. Line six: References to fish sporting about in the depths of ponds functioned to create an auspicious tone and exalt the majesty of the sovereign: his reign is so glorious and enlightened that even the fish are happy. This trope harks back to the Wen Wang zhi shi 文王之什 section of Shijing, a group of poems celebrating the virtue and accomplishments of King Wen (11th century bce) and the blessings bestowed upon him by Heaven. Two of these odes contain references to fish, most notably Ode 242, “Ling tai” 靈臺 (The Spirit-Tower). The fish are depicted as dancing around in the pond, ostensibly out of love for the king. Shi ji has a story relating how King Wen’s son King Wu saw fish jumping out of the water onto his boat, supposedly a sign of their desire to become his “subjects.” Line eight: This “rosy beauty” is literally pink clouds or mist, traditionally viewed as auspicious. The simurgh was a benevolent mythological bird-like creature and an emblem of grace and elegance. In courtly verse simurghs and phoenixes are conventional symbols, invoked in flattering references to courtiers and aristocrats. Images of simurghs and mythical creatures often decorated wine-goblets and and other objects. A plausible alternative rendering of “simurgh goblets” would be “the goblets of the simurghs,” i.e. those that the nobles were holding. Biography: Tanaka no Asomi Kiyotari (given name 淨足, also written 清足, fl. ca. 730s) is identified in kfs as governor of Bizen; he also once served as vice-governor there. Many governorships and other posts in the provincial bureaucracy became sinecures, although district level officials were generally drawn from the local elite. The kfs table of contents lists Kiyotari as governor of Sanuki, at the rank of junior fifth, lower, within the gai (external) rank system (kfs 66, in nkbt 69, pp. 509). His promotion to the fifth rank occurred in 734.

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Comments: This is an archetypal palace banquet poem. The poetic conventions seen in palace kanshi are nearly all of Chinese origin, some dating back to the beginning of the first millennium bce. In China, courtly palace poetry reached its apogee during the sixth and seventh centuries. Versification held a special place in the ceremonial life of the Nara and Heian courts, serving to commemorate events and lend them dignity, strengthen the bond between the sovereign and his subjects, and enhance harmony among courtiers. Depending on the occasion, poet-participants were expected to compose ex tempore poems that were celebratory in tone and often centered around a phrase, poetic line, or image supplied by the host. This verse eschewed private lyricism and eccentricity, striving instead for tonal elegance and appropriateness of register. To this end, it employed refined diction and a time-honored repertoire of themes and images, also adhering to standard patterns governing structure, topical development, and tonal prosody. Allusions to Chinese historical events, persons, and geographical features or places (such as the Eastern Peaks and Western Courtyard in this poem) are seen throughout court kanshi, a reminder to all that the Heian court surely matched its Tang counterpart in sophistication and erudition.

Prince Nagaya. A Banquet Held in Early Spring at the Saho Mansion Scenery lovely at the Golden Valley Hall. The year begins; spring at the Pool of Gathered Plants. Pines in the mist, a pair putting out green foliage; Cherries and willows, each displaying new growth. On lofty peaks dark clouds above the path; The fish aroused dart about near waterweed banks. Gushing springs—the movement of dancers’ sleeves. A rushing sound—the rustling of pines and bamboo. 長屋王

初春於作寶樓置酒

景麗金谷室 年開積草春 松烟雙吐翠 樱柳分含新 嶺高闇雲路 魚驚亂藻濱 激泉移舞袖 流聲韻松筠

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Source: kfs 69, in nkbt 69, pp. 133–34; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: The Saho Mansion (Sahorō 作寶樓, with Saho also written as 佐保), belonged to Prince Nagaya himself—see his biography, below. Numerous poems in kfs were written at banquets and parties held at this location. Line one: “Golden Valley” (Ch. Jingu 金谷) refers to a sumptuous park known as the Jingu yuan 金谷園. It was situated on the estate of an enormously wealthy but cruel and corrupt aristocrat named Shi Chong 石崇 (249–300). Shi made many enemies during his lifetime and was eventually executed; at the time of his arrest he was in the middle of a banquet at this very park. Nagaya is somewhat grandly likening his own estate to Shi’s. Line two: The Pool of Gathered Plants (Jicao chi 積草池) was a pond in the Shanglin Park of the Han dynasty emperors. In the middle stood a massive tree made of coral, called the “beacon tree” ( fenghuo shu 烽火樹) because it reputedly glowed in the dark. An anecdote relates how Shi Chong (see previous note) once intentionally smashed the coral tree of a wealthy rival. As if hoping to rub salt into the wound, he then gave the man some of his own coral trees, which were larger and more impressive. Line seven: The poet may be likening the sight and sound of the flailing white sleeves to a spurting spring. Line eight: The commentary suggests that the “rushing sound” is an oblique reference to Zhong Ziqi’s ability to hear the sound of water flowing when his friend Bo Ya played lute music associated with rivers. For more on the famous friendship between these two men, see the notes to dsks 213. Biography: Prince Nagaya (684?–729) was a powerful political figure and leading literatus. The son of Prince Takechi 高市親王, grandson of Emperor Tenmu, he married Princess Kibi 吉備内親王, his cousin and the daughter of Empress Genmei. Nagaya was appointed to the senior fourth, upper, in 704, attaining the senior third rank in 716. His early posts included head of the ministries of the Imperial Household (709) and Ceremonial (710), and major counselor (718). After the death of Minister of the Right Fujiwara no Fuhito in 720, Nagaya emerged as the most influential political figure at court, the following year being appointed minister of the right at the junior second rank. In 724, after Emperor Shōmu came to the throne, Nagaya was further elevated to minister of the left. That same year, he was accused of privately pursuing sorcery (sadō 左道) targeting Crown Prince Motoi 基皇太子, who had died prematurely as an infant, and of trying to mount an uprising later known as The Prince Nagaya Disturbance (Nagaya Ō no hen 長屋王の變) against the court. Nagaya was forced to commit suicide, along with his wife, his son Prince Kashiwade, and three other princes. Nagaya’s curse is said to have fallen upon his political enemies in the Fujiwara family—Muchimaro, Fusasaki, Maro, and Umakai—who were instrumental in sending him to his death: all died of smallpox, one after another, in 737. During the late 1980s, Nagaya’s name resurfaced after the Sogō Department Store was built on the site

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of an estate almost 60,000 square meters in size just southeast of what was once the Heijō-kyū (Heijō Palace), believed to have been associated with Nagaya. A vast trove of more than 35,000 mokkan 木簡 (documents inscribed on wooden slips), as well as countless other rare archaelogical artefacts, were found during the excavation, but the construction work went ahead nonetheless. When Sogō went bankrupt some twelve years after opening, this was likewise attributed in the media to the curse of Nagaya. An important literary patron, Nagaya was also a waka and kanshi poet of distinction, frequently holding poetry banquets with leading literati and foreign diplomats. In addition to five poems in Man’yōshū, two other kanshi by Nagaya survive in kfs, which appear immediately before the present one.

Ōtsu no Muraji Obito. A Poem Written to Match One by Chancellor Fujiwara [no Fuhito], Written During a Visit to Yoshino River [Using the previous rhymes] The setting a remote secluded residence, Mountains vast, like the kindness of the Emperor. Flowing and rolling, lapping over rocks the waves; Whirling and tumbling, responding to the qin the fish. Minds emptied, we gaze at the forest and plains; Happy and contented, amidst the wind and haze. If you wish to learn the songs of joyous banquets, Then drink your fill and forget the world of dust! 大津連首

和藤原大政遊吉野川之作 仍用前韻

地是幽居宅 山惟帝者仁 潺湲侵石浪 雜沓應琴鱗 虛懷對林野 陶性在風煙 欲知歡宴曲 滿酌自忘塵 Source: kfs 83, in nkbt 69, p. 144; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: Yoshino, near Nara, was famous for its cherry blossoms and autumn foliage, making it a popular destination for imperial outings. Obito’s poem uses the same endrhymes as those in kfs 32, by Fujiwara no Fuhito. Rhyme-matching was a common practice, employed mainly in occasional verse, both formal and informal. A note in the

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text states that Obito was sixty-six when this poem and the next were written. On the kabane title muraji, see kfs 58. Line four: The image of the fish whirling in the waters in response to the qin (a zither-like instrument, the ancestor of the koto) is meant to imply the existence of a cosmic order in which the natural and human worlds form one harmonious unity. At the center of this universe is the sovereign, whose beneficence is seen as radiating out to all of creation. A related trope has the fish rising to the surface of the pond and gazing toward the emperor, as if paying homage. See also the notes to kfs 66, above. Line eight: Wang chen 忘塵, literally “forget the dust [of the world],” is closely associated with Buddhist separation from the secular world, with all of its entanglements and burdens. Since leaving the court was not an option for most aristocrats, an alternative was to follow Obito’s suggestion: let’s drink our fill, and at least for the day set aside our cares and responsibilities. Biography: Ōtsu no Muraji Obito (fl. early eighth century) was a priest and a master of yinyang divination and geomancy. He took Buddhist vows around the beginning of the eighth century, adopting the name Gihō 義法, and went to study in the state of Silla, in what is today Korea, returning to Japan in 707. Obito came back to the court in 714 to serve as a yinyang expert, becoming one of the most renowned practitioners of his day. He received various gifts from the court in 721, by which time he had reached the junior fifth rank, upper. A biographical note in Kaifūsō indicates that Obito headed the Bureau of Divination at the rank of junior fifth, lower, recording also that he served as assistant master of the Office of the Empress’ Household. Obito is known to have still been active in 730, when he reportedly began grooming a successor.

Ōtsu no Muraji Obito. A Banquet Held on a Spring Day at the Residence of Prince Nagaya, Minister of the Left The sunlight has moved over to the water. Scenery beautiful in the spring courtyard. Plum blossoms in the garden already smiling; Willows by the gate not yet sporting eyebrows. For music and wine this is such a perfect place. The guests arrive, first one and then another. Sated with largesse, all of us very drunk. When passing the wine around do not drag your heels!

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大津連首

春日於左僕射長王宅宴

日華臨水動 風景麗春墀 庭梅已含笑 門柳未成眉 琴樽宜此處 賓客有相追 飽德良爲醉 傳盞莫遲遲 Source: kfs 84, in nkbt 69, pp. 144–45; octave (pentasyllabic). Lines three and four: Personification occurs here, creating a play on words: “smiling” means in bloom, while the eyebrows in the next line are slim catkins. Both are commonplace metaphors used to describe spring scenery. In octaves, the two middle couplets, the aesthetic focal point of the poem, were expected to each be grammatically parallel. These were typically descriptive and static rather than narrative, and poems were often judged by how successfully the parallelism was executed. Here, lines three and four exactly match, but the parallelism is imperfect in the next couplet. Line five: Music and wine: more literally, the metonymic “qin and goblet.” Line six: For the phrase xiang zhui 相追, we have followed the nkbt commentary. Alternatively, this could mean that the guests are sociably seeking each other out. Line seven: Banquet poems frequently closed with a grateful acknowledgement of the host’s hospitality, suggested here by “sated with largesse” bao de 飽德: it was less the wine that had made them drunk than the host’s overwhelming generosity, a conventional trope. Biography: See the notes to the previous poem. On the poet’s honorary kabane title, see kfs 58.

Fujiwara no Asomi Umakai. Sorrowing over Ill-Luck 1



5



The sagely mourn that their years are slipping away, While enlightened rulers hope for daily renewal. A Zhou divination, and the old recluse was brought back; A Shang dream, and a man was obtained for service. Flapping and rising; yet our wings are not the same. Entirely forgotten; no different from the fish. In his cap from the south, he labored playing Chu music;

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With credentials in the north, growing tired of barbarian dust. As a student I modeled myself on Dongfang Shuo, But I am older now than Zhu Maichen. Although in grey hairs I’ve already grown rich, Ten thousand scrolls later I’m poor, all for naught.

藤原朝臣宇合

悲不遇

賢者悽年暮 明君冀日新 周占載逸老 殷夢得伊人 搏舉非同翼 相忘不異鱗 南冠勞楚奏 北節倦胡塵 學類東方朔 年餘朱買臣 二毛雖已富 萬卷徒然貧 Source: kfs 91, in nkbt 69, pp. 154–55; pailü (twelve lines, pentasyllabic). Lines one and two: Umakai appears to be pointing to a paradox: while rulers always wish to govern well, worthy officials like him languish in obscurity, their talents not fully utilized. Lines three and four: For the third character in line three we have followed the Gunsho ruijū text, substituting zhan 占 (to divine) for ri 日. Here, the poet raises two famous cases in Chinese history where kings accidently discovered worthy ministers in the most unlikely places. Umakai is obliquely suggesting to the emperor that he exercise the same imagination in seeking and discovering the talent he needs, which includes noble men like himself. The first anecdote is one that involves a hunting trip made by King Wen 文王 (twelfth century bce) of the Zhou dynasty, who had been advised by a diviner that he would not find a black horse, a dragon, a tiger, or a bear but instead a valuable assistant who would render great service if employed. On the banks of the Wei River he met Lü Shang 呂尚 (known also as Lü Wang 呂望), who had fled there to escape the tyranny of the Shang ruler and was fishing in the wilderness where he lived. Realizing he had found his man, the king brought him to the court to serve as his chief minister. He turned out to be a wise military strategist, assisting the kings Wen and Wu in overthrowing the Shang and establishing the Zhou dynasty. Lü Shang’s biography is contained in Shi ji 32.

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The other story concerns Emperor Wu Ding 武丁(r. ca. 1324–1265 bce) of the Shang. He had a dream one night, in which he was told that he would obtain the services of a worthy man named Yue 説, and upon waking had his servants search the land for a man with this name. He was found in a group of convict laborers and brought into the presence of the king, who recognized him immediately from the dream and made him his chief minister. Since Yue had been found in a place called Fu 傅, the king named him Fu Yue. Line five: This harks back to a discussion about large and small birds in Zhuangzi and their respective capabilities, symbolic of the important differences among men who serve. For further details, see rus 47. As may be evident, Umakai is pleading to be recognized and employed as one of the “large” birds. Line six: Umakai’s allusion is again to Zhuangzi, to a passage in the chapter “The Great and Most Honored Master” 大宗師, where the following words are put into the mouth of Confucius: “Fish disregard each other in the river and lakes, just as people disregard each other in their pursuit of The Way” 魚相忘乎江湖、人相忘乎道術. This alludes to the Daoist ideal whereby men do not live in an organized society but instead individually pursue a free and easy natural lifestyle like the carefree fish, in accordance with the Dao. Umakai is indirectly alluding to the first part, without concern for the larger context, lamenting that he had been forgotten by the court. Lines seven and eight: Both allusions refer to the miseries of homesickness (and, more importantly, patriotic devotion to one’s homeland) experienced while in captivity far from home, a situation in which the poet metaphorically finds himself while away leading warriors on the frontier to the far north (see the next poem). A man from the state of Chu named Zhong Yi 鍾儀 was a captive in the northern state of Jin during the sixth century bce. Two years after being taken prisoner, he was noticed by Duke Guan during an inspection of the army, because he was wearing a southern style cap. Zhong, a skillful qin player, was compelled to play the qin and sing songs from his home state. The duke was moved by Zhong’s patriotism and love for his home and released him. “Barbarian dust” alludes to the story of Su Wu 蘇武 (140–60 bce), who was sent on a mission to the northern nomadic region beyond the Han realm occupied by the Xiongnu tribes and then held in captivity there for some nineteen years. Emperor Zhao Di dispatched an envoy to request his release, but the Xiongnu told him that Su was already dead. The Han envoy then lied to the Xiongnu, concocting a story that the Emperor had shot a goose with a letter tied to its leg indicating that Su was still alive— a bluff. At this point, Su was finally released. Lines nine and ten: Dongfang Shuo 東方朔 (153–93 bce) was an official, author, and comedic figure in the court of Emperor Wu. He reputedly memorized ten thousand scrolls during his education and career, as alluded to in the final line, where the thrust of Umakai’s complaint is evident: he is a well-read and hardworking

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official whose education has not yet brought him the career rewards he felt he deserved. In line ten, Umakai laments that although older than Zhu Maichen, he has not yet achieved his desire to gain an appointment at court; since Umakai himself died in an epidemic around age 43, the references to old age, here and below, almost seem to reflect an imaginary persona rather than the poet himself. Zhu was a poor scholar who made his living gathering firewood. His wife constantly scolded him for imagining that he had any prospects of becoming an official, but Zhu, already in his forties, assured her that he would gain a post by the age of fifty. She divorced Zhu, but he went on to enjoy an illustrious career. For a detailed account, see Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: Antiquity Through Sui, 1600 BCE–618 CE, ed. by Lily Xiao Hong Lee and A.D. Stefanowska (2007), pp. 256–57. Biography: Founder of the Shikike 式家 branch of the Fujiwara, Fujiwara no Asomi Umakai (694?–737) was the third son of Fuhito (see kfs 83, above). On the poet’s honorary kabane title asomi, see kfs 58. Umakai was dispatched to the Tang court in 717 as an assistant emissary. He returned in 718, taking up the governorship of Hitachi the following year. Umakai also gained an appointment in 719 as azechi-shi 按察使, a post roughly equivalent to provincial censor, charged with oversight of the three eastern provinces of Awa, Shimōsa, and Kazusa. In 724 he was appointed jisetsu shogun 持節將 軍 (general with a special commission) and was sent to suppress an uprising of Emishi in Mutsu province. His highest posts include head of the Ministry of Ceremonial (724) and consultant (sangi 参議), awarded in 731/8. In 732 he was selected as special defense officer for the Saikaidō circuit, yet another provincial appointment, which was not to his liking, judging from the next poem. Nevertheless, that same year he was awarded the senior third, his highest rank. Umakai perished in the smallpox epidemic of 737, together with three of his brothers. Seven kanshi by Umakai have survived: six in kfs (poems 88–93), one of which, poem 89, titled “Sent While in Hitachi to Judge Yamato, Who Remains in the Capital,” a pailü, has a long private prose introduction, which is unusual in its sentiments. This poem, composed in 719, was addressed to a friend, one Yamato no Koazumahito 大倭 小東人 (689–769; given name later changed to Nagaoka 長岡), whom he had not seen for three years. He commiserates over the drudgery of his friend’s work assignment— Koazumahito was at the time helping compile the Yōrō Code—and the fact that he was holding only the junior seventh, upper rank, which Umakai believed was lower than he deserved. Umakai’s poem “Rhapsody on Jujubes,” found in Keikokushū, appears to be the earliest extant fu (rhapsody or prose-poem) in the kanshi tradition. Six Man’yōshū waka, all competent but unremarkable, are also attributed to him. Umakai may have assisted with the compilation of Hitachi fudoki 常陸風土記 (comp. 717–24), a gazeteer. A collection of kanshi bearing his name, Umakai shū, is no longer extant.

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Comments: Umakai had reached a high rank, especially for someone relatively young, but if the sentiments of the poem are to be taken at face value, he hoped to receive greater recognition. The Japanese court was a highly stratified and hierarchical world, one where lineage and personal connections generally played a larger role in determining rank and career success than individual talent and effort. This state of affairs often bred frustration, among men from less influential families in particular, all the more so as they approached the end of life with their aspirations unmet. This poem is perhaps the earliest extant kanshi example of the poetry petition. Directed at the court and motivated by career disappointments and the desire to be recognized, these entreaties sought to air dissatisfaction and seek redress, often using subtle rhetorical strategies, such as praise for the sovereign’s rule and self-abasement. As Persiani notes, these petitions were often submitted “… prior to the biannual conferral of appointments (jimoku 除目) in the hope of increasing their chances of receiving an appointment” (Persiani, p. 19). For a more detailed treatment of this genre of writing see Steininger, Chinese Literary Forms, especially pp. 115–18.

Fujiwara no Asomi Umakai. Written While Serving as Special Defense Officer for the Saikaidō Region In previous years I served in the Tōsan region. This year I have traveled to the Saikai circuit. A traveler I have been throughout my life. How often do I tire of frontier duties! 藤原朝臣宇合

奉西海道節度使之作

往歲東山役 今年西海行 行人一生裏 幾度倦邊兵 Source: kfs 93, in nkbt 69, p. 156; quatrain (pentasyllabic). Title: Saikaidō 西海道 (the Saikai circuit) encompassed the island of Kyushu. From 732 Umakai served as special defense officer for this region, and this poem was evidently written during his tenure there. “Special defense officer” (setsudoshi 節度使) was a temporary regional post established during the Nara age to improve military discipline and defense readiness in four strategically important regions. Umakai seems to have concurrently held the office of governor-general of Dazaifu 大宰府 (Government

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Headquarters in Kyushu, in modern Dazaifu). Because of its relative proximity to the Korean peninsula, it was an area of critical strategic importance. Line one: Tōsan 東山 (Tōsandō 東山道) consisted of the entire northern Honshū region, an area where court armies fought Ainoid aboriginal peoples (Emishi) throughout the eighth century. Umakai took up a major appointment there in 724/4, returning to the court seven months later after a successful campaign. Biography: See the notes to the preceding poem. Comments: This simple and terse composition seems to provide the context for the previous poem, a more formal piece studded with tedious allusions.

Priest Dōji. In early spring, while I was at Tsugenoyamadera, Prince Nagaya held a banquet at his residence. I promptly declined an invitation to attend. I, Priest Dōji, wish to state the following: on the twenty-fourth of this month I undeservedly received an invitation to a splendid gathering. I was awestruck to be given this summons and did not know how to respond. The fact is, I received the tonsure when I was a young man and have lived as a Buddhist ever since. When it comes to writing poetry and public speaking, I have never distinguished myself. What makes me even more uncomfortable is the knowledge that the Buddhist and lay worlds are far apart—incense vessels and wine cups are entirely different things! For a mediocrity like me to attend such an elaborate event would thus offend Buddhist law and weigh upon my conscience. Now, suppose fish and hemp were to change places, or the square and round tried to alter their shapes: I fear they would lose what Nature had intended for them and act contrary to the essence of their being. Examining my situation and feeling perturbed, I have wasted no time in preparing this statement. I respectfully include a poem declining the invitation to attend your exalted gathering. With deference I present what follows, ashamed that it may defile your eyes and ears. 1



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The Buddhist and lay worlds are totally separate realms, Just as gold and lacquer are truly hard to equate. Buddhist vestments cover this cold body of mine; My begging bowl sufficient for warding off hunger. From mossy vines I fashioned curtains. My pillow a rock, I sleep inside a grotto. I took my leave, abandoning all worldly ties; Purified my mind, adhering to the truths of the Void. Staff in hand, I ascend the precipitous peaks;

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15



Opening my robe, I take in the gentle breezes. Peach blossoms in the snow chilly and cold; Bamboo stream in the mountains surges and flows. Spring catches me unawares, and though the willows are changing, The lingering cold still inhabits my body. Priest that I am, residing in the realm beyond, Why trouble myself to attend your palace banquet?

釋道慈

初春在竹溪山寺於長王宅宴追致辭

沙門道慈啟。以今月二十四日。濫蒙抽引。追預嘉會。奉旨 驚惶。不知攸措。但道慈少年落飾。常住釋門。至於屬詞吐 談。元來未達。況乎道機俗情全有異。香盞酒盃又不同。此 庸才赴彼高會。理乖於事。事迫於心。若夫魚麻易處。方圓 改質。恐失養性之宜。乖任物之用。撫躬之驚惕。不遑啟 處。謹裁以韵。以辭高席。謹致以左。羞穢耳目。 緇素杳然別 金漆諒難同 納衣蔽寒體 綴鉢足飢嚨 結蘿爲垂幕 枕石臥巖中 抽身離俗累 滌心守真空 策杖登峻嶺 披襟稟和風 桃花雪冷冷 竹溪山沖沖 驚春柳雖變 餘寒在單躬 僧既方外士 何煩入宮宴 Source: kfs 104, in nkbt 69, pp. 166–68; pailü (sixteen lines, pentasyllabic). Title: For notes on Prince Nagaya, see kfs 69, above. The temple Tsugenoyamadera was in the village of Tsuge in the Yamabe district of Yamato province. Biography: Priest Dōji (675?–744), born Nukata 額田, was a native of Yamato. One of the most eminent priests of the Nara era, Dōji from early childhood was fond of

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learning and recognized as extremely gifted. During his youth he took Buddhist vows, training at Hōryūji in Nara. In 702 he went to China and lived at the Ximingsi 西明寺 temple in Chang’an, where he achieved mastery of Sanron 三論 teachings. He remained in China for sixteen years, gaining renown as one of the “hundred high priests” of the Tang court, where he lectured on the Wisdom sūtras. After returning to Japan in 718, he was awarded the tax revenue from fifty households in recognition of his scholarship and virtue. In 729, Dōji became a risshi 律師 (precept master), at the third level in the Buddhist hierarchy. He is said to have brought back to Japan a form of meditation known as Gumonji-hō 求聞持法, an esoteric practice believed to promote the ability to memorize sacred texts, which became popular among the clergy. See Ryūichi Abe, The Weaving of Mantra: Kūkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse (1999), p. 151. Scholars believe that Dōji provided the plan for the rebuilding of Daianji, one of the so-called Seven Great Southern Temples of Nara, which was transferred from its previous location in Asuka, in 729, and reconstructed on the model of Ximingsi. He may have also been instrumental in the creation of the Daianji engi, which describes the origins of this temple (Donald McCallum, The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan [2009], p. 94). While serving as chief abbot of Daianji, Dōji was asked to give instruction on Daihannya-kyō 大般若經 (The Great Wisdom Sutra) and Konkōmyō-kyō 金光明經 (The Golden Splendor Sutra) in Daigokuden 大極殿 (The Great Audience Hall), in the palace. See nkbt 69, pp. 164–65 for the original Kaifūsō biography of Priest Dōji. Dōji had a reputation for his outspokenness and unyielding ways, as is evident in the poem above. His obituary in Shoku Nihongi 續日本紀 (the second of the Six National Histories, 797) states that upon his return from China, he criticized certain aspects of the Buddhist establishment and its teachings, finding them shallow and empty compared to what he had experienced in Chang’an. He was also intent on establishing minimum standards for the ordination and conduct of monks and nuns. Only two kanshi by Dōji are known: kfs 103 and 104. Comments: This poem includes a sequence of scenes from the priest’s daily life to illustrate that since he lives in a different world it would be incongruous for him to attend the banquet. The poem is preceded by a long preface of a relatively personal nature, written in the kei 啓 (啟) documentary style. It is one of only two such personal prose introductions attached to poems in this collection, the other four being public formal banquet-verse prefaces. There was precedent for priests to speak fearlessly to royalty when faced with having to compromise their principles: Dōji’s rejection of the prince’s invitation is reminiscent of a text written in 404 by the Chinese priest Huiyuan 慧遠 (334–416), titled “A Monk Does Not Bow Down to a King,” in which the ruler is put on notice that a monk’s adherence to Buddhist doctrine trumped any

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secular loyalties. In his rhetoric of distinguishing between “fish and hemp” and “the square and round,” and in his basic conceptions regarding the irreconcilable differences between the lay and Buddhist worlds, Dōji shows a debt to the biography of the Tang monk Hui Jing 釋慧淨 (b. 578) in Xu gao seng zhuan 續高僧傳 (J. Zoku kōsōden, Biographies of Prominent Monks, Continued), who in a similar fashion constructs an argument to justify opposing the ruler’s wishes. See Tian Yunming, “Sōryo to in’itsu hyōgen: juyō to saikōchiku,” in Nihon kenkyū 47.3 (Mar. 2013), p. 18.

The Recluse Tami no Imiki Kurohito. Sitting Alone in the Mountains Mist and clouds—farewell to the lay world’s dust! Mountains and rivers—majestic where I live. At a time like this if I couldn’t versify, The wind and the moon would surely think little of me. 隱士民忌寸黑人

獨坐山中

煙霧辭塵俗 山川壯處居 此時能莫賦 風月自輕余 Source: kfs 109, in nkbt 69, p. 172; quatrain (pentasyllabic). Biography: Tami no Imiki Kurohito (fl. ca. 732) was from the Anki (Amuki) 奄藝 郡 district in Ise. A courtier of Korean origins, he was said to be a descendant of the influential Yamaki no Atai 山木直 family. Around 732 Kurohito was serving as senior secretary of Harima, at the junior sixth rank, upper. Later, for reasons unknown, he left public life and went into reclusion. Imiki 忌寸 is the fourth of the eight kabane titles. Comments: This is the second of two poems by Kurohito in kfs, the other being poem 108, “Secluded Dwelling,” which describes the poet’s life in the countryside as a recluse; for a translation see Butterflies, pp. 45–46. In China there had been since ancient times a long and storied tradition of reclusion. An individual might choose to live on the edges of society or perhaps in the deep wilderness without human ties to escape the pressures of officialdom and pursue spiritual pleasures. Kurohito’s poems may be the earliest surviving kanshi on eremitism.

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Isonokami no Asomi Otomaro. Banished to the Southern Wilds, I Send This Poem to My Old Friends in the Capital Far, far away, I’ve journeyed a thousand miles, Wandering listlessly, regret filling my heart. On the wind the orchids send forth their scent; When the moon appears cassia shadows lengthen. A line of geese in the clouds, their cries resound; Delicate cicadas cling to the trees, droning on. Thinking of you, I feel the pain of separation, As idly I pluck this white-cloud qin of mine. 石上朝臣乙麻呂

飄寓南荒贈在京故友

遼敻遊千里 徘徊惜寸心 風前蘭送馥 月後桂舒陰 斜雁凌雲響 輕蟬抱樹吟 相思知別慟 徒弄白雲琴 Source: kfs 115, in nkbt 69, pp. 177–78; octave (pentasyllabic). Line eight: “White-cloud” probably refers fancifully to decorations on the musical instrument. Biography: Isonokami no Asomi Otomaro (?–750) was the third son of Isonokami no Maro 石上麻呂. At some time during the 730s he was appointed ambassador to China but did not take up the position, becoming instead the governor of Tanba. Returning to the capital in 738, he served as left controller, then was banished to Tosa, in Shikoku, the following year for supposedly engaging in adulterous relations with Kume no Wakame 久米若賣, whose husband Fujiwara no Umakai (see kfs 91 above) had died in the smallpox epidemic of 737. Otomaro’s affair with this lady is the subject of Man’yōshū poems 1019–23. Kume no Wakame herself was also punished, being exiled to Shimōsa and then pardoned in a general amnesty in 740. Otomaro received a pardon three years later and made a remarkable comeback. First, in 744, following a promotion in rank to senior fourth, lower, he became the provincial inspector (junsatsushi 巡察使) for the Saikaidō circuit. In 746, he was appointed head of the Ministry of Popular Affairs, governor of Hitachi (apparently a sinecure), and right major controller. By 749, Otomaro was head of the Ministry of Central Affairs

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and middle counselor: Kaifūsō identifies him as holding these two posts at the rank of junior third. A private two-maki collection of Otomaro’s verse, Kanpisō (Poems Harboring Sorrow), is lost. His surviving poems, kfs 115–18, were likely part of that collection and composed during his Tosa exile. Comments: Homesickness for the capital is a common theme in kanshi, perhaps most famously in the exile verse of Sugawara no Michizane. Retirement aside, courtiers usually only resided away from the capital after joining Buddhist orders or when serving in a provincial post—or, as is the case here, when sent into exile. The parallel couplets in the middle of this poem contain a series of conventional images associated with separation and impermanence. The orchids in line four symbolize ties of friendship, their scent arousing memories of happier times in the capital. As the moon rises, the exiled poet feels increasingly lonely, recalling moonlit evenings enjoyed with friends and family. Wild geese are idealized as messengers capable of bearing tidings back to one’s home, possessing a freedom and mobility that the poet can only envy. Cicadas represent the poet’s own sense of personal fragility and impermanence, awareness of which deepens in late autumn as the insects gradually die off.

Isonokami no Asomi Otomaro. Presented to the Provincial Secretary as He Prepares to Return to the Capital After Being Assigned a New Post I nurse resentment here on the southern frontier, While you recite “The Poem of the Northern Expedition.” My verse arises from the melancholy of autumn— How saddening the pagoda tree in decay! We play the qin, watch the scenery fade; Walk in the moonlight, seldom meeting anyone else. We gaze at each other as on the horizon we part: Do not become a stranger once you are gone! 石上朝臣乙麻呂

贈掾公之遷任入京

余含南裔怨 君詠北征詩 詩興哀秋節 傷哉槐樹衰 彈琴顧落景 步月誰逢稀 相望天垂別 分後莫長違

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Source: kfs 116, in nkbt 69, p. 178; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: The secretary, identity unknown, is thought to have been serving in Tosa (the “southern frontier” in line two), to which Otomaro himself had recently been exiled. On the circumstances of his exile, see the previous poem. Line two: This is a reference to “Rhapsody on the Northern Expedition” (correct title “Beizheng fu” 北征賦, by the historian Ban Biao 班彪, 3–54) and alludes to the secretary’s imminent return north to the capital, a privilege Otomaro wistfully envies. Line four: The pagoda tree in decay: the poet sees himself pining away in exile, his career stagnating. Biography: See the notes to the previous poem. Comments: While parallelism occurs in the first two lines of this poem it is barely present in the middle couplets, where it would be expected. Its mood of anguish may explain why Otomaro has departed from this basic convention. Male friendship is a prominent topos in kanshi, far more common than romantic love, which is hard to find in Sinitic verse from the Nara-Heian age.

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Ryōun shinshū 凌雲新集 (The New Cloud-Soaring Collection, 814), Compiled by Ono no Minemori and Others Emperor Saga. On the occasion of the Double Ninth Festival at Shinsen’en we all wrote poems using the verse-line “Late autumn, and we have a bountiful harvest.” From this line we took the rhyme, which belongs to the rhyme category you 尤. 1



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10



御製

Autumn sky above so boundless and vast! Climbing high, we gaze into the distance. Massive fields have yielded a bountiful harvest— From this point on the year’s work will end. Fragrant dogwood on the banquet mats is offered; Seasonal chrysanthemums in our wine cups float. The forest bare: leaves all blown away. The ponds clear: the muddy runoff has receded. Crickets now cease their chirping before dawn; Reeds and rushes are changing color on the islets. The Double Ninth—always the perfect time for a banquet, Especially in years with a splendid autumn harvest! 重陽節神泉苑同賦三秋大有年。題中取韻、尤韻成篇。 旻氣何寥廓 登高望悠悠 大田獲豐稔 從此歲工休 芳萸筵上薦 時菊盞中浮 林洞逢搖落 池清爲潦收 蟋蟀藏聲曉 蒹葭變色洲 重陽常宜宴 況復有年秋

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_004

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Source: Ryōun shinshū (Ryōunshū, hereafter rus) 6, in Kojima Noriyuki, comp. and annot., Kokufū ankoku jidai no bungaku: Kōnin-, Tenchō-ki no bungaku o chūshin to shite (exp. ed., 1968–2002), vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), of 9 vols., pp. 1395–1403; pailü (twelve lines, pentasyllabic). Anthology: Ryōun shinshū (The New Cloud-Soaring [i.e., surpassingly exemplary] Collection), completed 814, was the first and smallest of three imperially-sponsored anthologies of literature in Sinitic compiled during the early ninth century under the sponsorship of Emperor Saga. Containing ninety-one works by twenty-four poets, all members of the imperial family or the nobility and mostly belonging to Saga’s coterie, the collection consists of poems written between 782 and 814. These are arranged by author in descending rank order. Saga has twenty-two items, the largest number of any poet, while Ono no Minemori 小野峯守 (777–830), the chief compiler and author of the preface, and Kaya no Toyotoshi 賀陽豐年 (751–815) each have thirteen. Much of the verse is squarely situated within the traditions of Sinitic court poetry, describing royal excursions and palace banquets, but the incidence of private, informal poems is beginning to increase. Heptasyllabic octaves account for four-fifths of the compositions; the verses in kfs, by contrast, are mostly in pentasyllabic lines. Overall, the poetry displays considerable elegance and polish, showing progress in the mastery of poetic technique but a relatively low level of compliance with the strict rules of tonal prosody expected in regulated verse. For an introduction to the early-ninth century anthologies and Saga’s paramount role in the formation of poetic tastes, verse practices, and rhetoric, see Webb, “In Good Order,” ch. 4–5. See also Denecke, “Anthologization and Sino-Japanese Literature,” pp. 86–91, and Butterflies, pp. 49–52, 63–65, 79–80. A further rich source of information on the early anthologies is McCullough, Brocade, pp. 154–71. Title: This event, held on the Double Ninth, featured group composition of kanshi, but only Saga’s poem survives. Shinsen’en 神泉苑 was an imperial park just south of the Imperial Palace dating back to the original construction of the imperial palace and once occupying roughly thirty-three acres. Kanmu made twenty-eight visits to Shinsen’en, a favorite place for recreation, in the last five years of his reign alone, Saga forty-three (Heldt, p. 345). On these occasions, guests would partake of fine food and wine, write poems on command, and if fortunate, be awarded stipends. The gardens originally extended from Nijō to Sanjō streets, north and south, from Ōmiya to the east, and to Mibu Ōji to the west. Designed with cosmological principles in mind, the park had a lake with a man-made island, a fishing pavilion, and waterfalls. Most of the lake disappeared in the middle ages, and the site was reduced to a far smaller scale following the building of Nijō Castle in the late sixteenth century. For more on these events and further details concerning this site, see Heldt, pp. 43–44. Also of interest is Takemura Toshinori, Kyō no shiseki meguri (1987), pp. 84–85. The ninth day of the Ninth Month in the lunar calendar was a day of celebration. Men of culture would climb to a high spot in the countryside and enjoy a picnic, the - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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ascent symbolizing their desire to rise high in public life. They would view chrysanthemums (traditionally regarded as being at their best on this day), compose verse, and drink wine and tea in which the petals of this flower were floated. Chrysanthemums were believed to promote longevity if taken medicinally. Dogwood sprays (see line five) were also associated with the Double Ninth, carried around or worn on the head or arm to ward off disasters and evil spirits. Line seven: The commentary notes that the second graph 洞 means something like “[the forest] seen clear through,” because the trees are denuded of leaves. Line eight: The last two graphs 潦收 refer to a seasonal phenomenon occurring in autumn whereby muddy water from summer rain accumulating on the ground in the garden recedes and stops flowing into nearby ponds, leaving them clear. The line is based upon a passage in “Jiu bian” 九辯 (The Nine Arguments), a set of poems in Chu ci 楚辭 (Songs of Chu) traditionally attributed to Song Yu 宋玉 (third century bce?). See the Kojima commentary, p. 1400. Biography: Emperor Saga (Kamino 神野, 786–842; r. 809–23) was the fifty-second emperor of Japan. The second son of Emperor Kanmu, he succeeded his brother Heizei (r. 806–809) when the latter abdicated on account of illness. Political intrigue marked Saga’s first two years on the throne, but following the suppression of the aborted uprising known as the Kusuko Disturbance, in 810, his reign became peaceful. On this event, its ramifications, and the unease it provoked, as reflected in certain court exchanges, see Webb, “In Good Order,” pp. 178–79. Saga was both a powerful ruler and an ardent promoter of Sinitic institutions and literature. He was also a prolific versifier and organizer of poetic banquets, his own literary legacy consisting of nearly 100 poems, larger than that of anyone else in the royal family during the Heian age. The majority of these are octaves, in the “new style,” which Saga’s patronage helped establish. In his poetry Saga sometimes expresses a whimsical Daoist yearning for the tranquil, effortless lifestyle of the hermit or priest, placing himself into their habitat as a visitor or reaching out in friendship from a distance. Saga commissioned two kanshi collections, the first being the present one, the second, Bunka shūreishū (Anthology of Splendid Literary Flowerings, 818). He also has numerous kanshi in Keikokushū, which was completed in 827 after Saga’s retirement and very likely overseen by him. Beyond the world of poetry, Saga sponsored various other scholarly undertakings, including the genealogy Shinsen shōjiroku 新撰姓氏録 (A New Compilation of the Register of Families), Kōnin-kyaku 弘仁格 (The Legal Code of the Kōnin Era [810–24]), and Dairi shiki 内裏式 (Palace Regulations). Saga retired in 823 to Reizen’in, where he continued to wield both political and cultural influence. In 834 he moved to Sagain, a manor in the western hills, from which Saga, his posthumous name, was derived. There, until the end of his life, he continued to serve as the leading patron of the literary arts. In his last testament, Saga writes of the pleasures and freedom of life in retirement: “… I took the [sovereign’s] myriad tasks and entrusted them to the sagely and - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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enlightened. The forest breezes are what I have always loved. I long desired to be without position and title, visiting the mountains and rivers, roaming freely without duties, and living in a state of “non-action” (wuwei 無為), while enjoying my koto and books and leading a frugal and simple existence … ” (from Shoku Nihon kōki 續日本 後紀 12, for 842/7/15). Comments: Saga’s twelve-line poem is an irregular early example of the kudaishi mode of topic-line allusive verse. Only four characters from the borrowed line (derived from a Wang Wei poem about the Double Ninth) have been deployed, these in lines three and twelve rather than in the opening couplet. As this verse demonstrates, kudaishi were not restricted to the octave; examples in pentasyllabic lines, while uncommon, were also known. Two twelve-line kudaishi, by Sugawara no Fumitoki and Ōe no Koretoki (tenth century), are cited in Denecke, “Topic Poetry” pp. 43–45. Typically, formal kudaishi contained one or more historical or literary references, explicit or oblique, and employed figurative language in the middle couplets to echo or reconstitute the essential elements found in the kudai title. As discussed in the Introduction, the kudaishi style came to occupy the mainstream of palace poetry around the mid- to late-tenth century and remained popular throughout the Heian period and beyond.

Emperor Saga. Presenting a Hat and Sable Coat to Ono no Minemori, Junior Assistant Head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, After Learning that He Was Heading to the Frontier Year’s end, severe winter, the cold extremely harsh. Our loyal subject for the nation’s sake heads to the frontier. A sable coat, a warm hat—perfect for such travels. These I specially present to you for your journey of ten thousand li. 御製

吏部侍朗野美聞使邊城賜帽裘

歲晚嚴冬寒最切 忠臣爲國向邊城 貂裘暖帽宜羈旅 特贈卿之萬里行 Source: rus 21, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1475–77; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: Ono no Asomi Minemori (777–830) was not only Saga’s most trusted advisor but also the principal editor of Ryōunshū and a leading kanshi poet. The graph 美, in the poet’s name in the title, appears to be a substitution or error for 岑. He helped compile Nihon kōki 日本後記, completed in 840, and wrote the introduction to the legal

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collection Dairi shiki. Thirteen of Minemori’s kanshi appear in the present anthology, with eight more in the second and third imperial anthologies. Minemori received the post in the Ministry of Ceremonial (noted in the title) in 809, so this poem was evidently written sometime between then and 814, the year the anthology was completed. He was perhaps heading to the northern frontier to assist his father Nagami 永見, who was serving as lieutenant-general in the campaigns to subjugate the Emishi. Minemori also held numerous appointments in the central and provincial governments, including several governorships. Late in his career, he became senior assistant head of the Ministry of Popular Affairs (820), and the following year master of the Consort’s Quarters. In 822 he received the post of consultant, serving also as senior assistant governor-general of the Government Headquarters in Kyushu. While in Kyushu, Minemori sent a memorial to the throne requesting that public fields be set aside to provide relief grain in times of famine. Other posts he held include head of the Ministry of Justice and chief release commissioner. Biography: See the notes to rus 6.

Emperor Saga. A Farewell Banquet for the Lesser Captain of the Imperial Bodyguards, Asa[no] no Yoshimichi After He Received an Appointment to Pacify the East [I drew “imperial subject” as my rhyme word.] A faraway mission to the frontier regions to pacify lingering foes. Within the palace a banquet is held to farewell a noble subject. In the courtyard where we part, the landscape of early summer; But where you are headed the scenery has not yet changed from spring. Your thoughts of home will stray afar—you’ll deeply yearn to return; Your journey will be long and distant—you’ll rarely meet old friends. After you leave you will surely perform your duties diligently. Don’t be upset if over the miles you encounter many hardships. 御製

餞右親衛少將軍朝嘉通奉使慰撫關東 探得臣

遠使邊城撫殘虜 禁中賜餞送良臣 離庭物候雖初夏 向處風烟未換春 鄉心杳杳切歸想 客路悠悠稀故人 別後卿能應努力 莫愁千里多苦辛

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Source: rus 22, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1477–82; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: Asano no Yoshimichi has not been clearly identified, nor has his destination. Kojima suggests it may have been the Mutsu (Michinoku) region, a cluster of five provinces in the far North (p. 1478). Saga’s note in the title about “drawing” (in the sense of drawing lots) the word chen (imperial subject) as his rhyme word refers to a practice known as tan’in 探韻, which was commonly employed at social versification events. Each poet drew a rhyme word to determine the rhyme category to be followed in his poem, and the received word itself was generally placed at the end of line two, as is the case here. For details concerning tan’in and a related practice known as tandai 探題, the drawing of poem topics, see the Introduction. Line one: Yoshimichi was probably being sent to clear out remaining pockets of resistance. The campaigns to subjugate non-assimilated peoples were largely concluded during the eighth century but continued into the ninth, with the final phases of the Thirty-Eight Years’ War, which ended in 811. By this time, many Emishi groups south of the Kitakami River in the Tōhoku region had surrendered, although minor skirmishes still occurred. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: The charm of this verse lies in Saga’s solicitude toward Yoshimichi and his grasp of the challenges the latter will face. Despite the poem’s encouraging tone, its subtext is clear: regardless of whatever hardships lie ahead, Yoshimichi must do his duty.

Crown Prince Ōtomo. A Poem Written by Imperial Command to Match One Titled “A Hunting Expedition on a Spring Day; When the Sun Went Down We Stayed at a Lodge by the River” Second Month, and in the paddies the spring plants still small. A thousand chariots sally forth before dawn, taking leave of the city. Quails startled—from far away they looked like falling stars; Rabbits fleeing—we thought perhaps the moon itself was empty. All night long only the torches of river boats could be seen; Throughout the night no way to detect the pink hues by the bay. This morning, what was it that His Majesty hoped to obtain? Exactly what the Zhou king sought in his hunt by the River Wei!

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大伴皇太子

奉和春日遊獵日暮宿江頭亭子

應製

二月平皐春草淺 千乘犯曉出城中 鶉驚遙似星光落 兔盡還疑月影空 合暗征船唯見火 連霄浦樹豈分紅 今朝聖想期何得 不異周王獵渭風 Source: rus 27, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1502–1507; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The poem mentioned here is rus 13, by Emperor Saga. This is about a hunting trip to Katano 交野, perhaps one held in the Second Month of 814 near the Yamazaki Imperial Villa, by the Yodogawa River. See Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), p. 1433. Line four: This appears to be a reference to the jade rabbit that in Chinese mythology lived on the moon. The poet is fancifully implying that even the jade rabbit, like all the real rabbits, fled during the hunt. His remark paves the way for the next couplet, where it is revealed that the moon was absent this night; the jade rabbit’s supposed flight from the hunters is being used as a poetic “explanation” for the absence of moonlight. Line six: The graph 霄 is a variant for 宵, “night.” Pink hues is probably a reference to cherry blossoms. Line eight: The poet is alluding to a famous hunting expedition once undertaken by the future King Wen (ca. eleventh century bce) of the Zhou dynasty, who discovered a wise old man fishing on the banks of the Wei river. The man, named Lü Shang, was brought back to render service to the court. See kfs 91 for a fuller account. Biography: Crown Prince Ōtomo (786–840) came to the throne as Emperor Junna (r. 823–33), succeeding his brother Emperor Saga. Before his accession Ōtomo was in charge of the ministries of War, Civil Affairs, and Central Affairs. He reformed the system of release commissioners and established the Imperial Police and the shinnō ninkoku 親王任国 (prince-of-the-blood provincial governance) system for several eastern provinces. Keikokushū, the last of the three early ninth-century anthologies, Shinsen kyakushiki 新鮮格式 (830), a collection of supplemental laws, and Ryō no gige 令義解 (An Explication of the Civil Codes, 833) were all completed under his sponsorship. An important patron of Sinitic literature and a practicing poet in his own right, Ōtomo has 8 kanshi in bksrs, 5 in rus, and 3 in kks.

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Comments: The scale and intensity of the hunt in this poem, with birds and animals fleeing for their lives, is reminiscent of the hunt section in Sima Xiangru’s 司馬相如 (179–119 bce) prose-poem (fu) “Rhapsody on Shanglin Park.” Hunting animals—and killing sentient beings in general—was a violation of the basic precepts of Buddhism, but as with falconry and cock-fighting the nobility practiced it nonetheless. Praise for the emperor was de rigueur in palace poetry, often by means of historical allusion. Here, by implicitly drawing a parallel between the present excursion and King Wen’s hunting expedition, the Crown Prince is paying tribute to Emperor Saga, implying that he is as wise as the iconic King Wen and equally capable of recognizing superior talent. References to the discovery of Lü Shang are also seen in a subgenre of verse (by both Japanese and Chinese poets) on reclusive old fishermen living in the wilderness who might be hidden gems like Lü Shang.

Prince Nakao. Setting Off by Boat Early in the Morning Early morning, in a little boat we departed. Faintly hazy, the sky above the sea yet to clear. Beside the bay a solitary tree in the distance; On the horizon a sailboat makes its way. The fishermen’s fading torches are extinguished; The boatmen’s tunes reach us from afar. Surrounded now, amidst boundless cloudy seas. My homesick feelings soon give way to sorrow. 仲雄王

早舟發

早旦偏舟發 微茫海未晴 浦邊孤樹遠 天際片帆征 釣火收殘焰 榜歌送迥聲 悠悠雲水裏 鄉思轉傷情

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Source: rus 34, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1533–37; octave (pentasyllabic). Biography: Prince Nakao (Nakao-ō, fl. ca. 825) is of uncertain lineage, despite his prominence as a kanshi poet and scholar of the Chinese classics. He never rose higher in rank than senior fifth, lower (823), serving only in rather unimportant court posts. Nevertheless, he was part of a broad and lofty social circle that included many leading literati. His personal relationships with priests Kūkai 釋空海 and Saichō 最澄 doubtless played a role in his efforts to establish “Buddhist Scriptures” 梵文 as one of several new subject categories in Bunka shūreishū. Thirteen of his kanshi are preserved in the latter work, for which he also wrote the preface and likely served as one of its compilers. Two more of Nakao’s poems are found in rus and two in kks, including one on the unusual topic of roast pork (see Butterflies, pp. 96–97). When Bunka shūreishū was compiled Nakao was serving as governor of Shinano, also directing the Bureau of Imperial Attendants. Around 814 he held a post in the Office of the Palace Table (Daizenshiki 内膳職). For further details concerning his life, see the comments under bksrs 121. Comments: The phrase youyou 悠悠 (boundless) in line seven also means “to think anxiously,” seemingly prefiguring the sentiments in line eight. Nakao’s admission of homesickness is hardly remarkable, but the reference to feelings of sorrow suggests a man heading into exile or to an undesirable posting. Although information about Nakao’s life and career is fragmentary, several of his Bunka shūreishū poems indicate that at some stage of his life—possibly more than once—he fell from favor. In bksrs 30 he writes about being “banished from the council chamber,” facing some kind of accusations “from high heaven,” forcing him to leave “the company of the virtuous” (quoted from Burton Watson, trans., in Keene, Seeds in the Heart, pp. 193–94). It is unclear when this incident occurred. Although in line fifteen Nakao writes that he might “never again enter the gate of [his] lord” (ibid.), in bksrs 31 he mentions returning to the capital after ten years at the frontier (hardly the “light penalty” alluded to in bksrs 30). Nakao was unable to gain admission to the court, however, and sat around idly at home listening to the warblers. See also the notes to bksrs 121 on these matters. The present poem may have been written on the way to the frontier. Two further poems (bksrs 120–21, translated below), the first by Saga and addressed to Nakao, the second being Nakao’s response, suggest that when these were exchanged Nakao was facing political trouble. In any event, by 818, the year Bunka shūreishū was compiled, Nakao had evidently returned to favor, acting as co-compiler of this anthology and author of the preface; as noted earlier, this work also has thirteen of his poems, making him the third best-represented among the twenty-eight literati with verse in this collection.

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Kaya no Asomi Toyotoshi. A Poem to Match One by Genchū: Written During an Early Spring Banquet at Ki no Chiyo’s Pondside Pavilion By nature I may be boorish and rough, But I’m glad to have met you in this quiet study. Faithful—I pledge to yield like water meeting stone; Trustworthy—I promise to be like the winter pines. Wine flows freely: we grow more cheerful and relaxed; Qin music subtle: our enjoyment naturally follows. A pity it’s been so long since last we met. I’ll mend my ways, make myself gentle and mild! 賀陽朝臣豐年

同元忠初春宴紀千世池亭之作

以我麁疏性 閑齋喜遇逢 貞交符水石 深寄契寒松 酒湛情彌暢 琴幽賞自從 還慙久會日 修己令邕容 Source: rus 42, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1574–78; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: Genchū has not been positively identified, and his poem referenced here does not survive. Kojima suggests that he may have been one Kudara no Konikishi (Kokishi) Genchū 百済王元忠 (d. 773), a descendant of Parhae nobility (see the commentary, p. 1574). Ki no Chiyo 紀千世 (whose given name is misprinted in the Kojima text as 千 牛) flourished in the 780s, serving as senior assistant head of the ministries of War and Popular Affairs before becoming governor of Bungo in 785. Lines three and four: Toyotoshi is pledging that he will display the same yielding quality as water in his relationships. Since pines retain their verdure even in winter, they symbolize friendship that is steadfast in adversity. Biography: Kaya no Toyotoshi (751–815) was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his day. In 797, with his graduate education behind him, he was appointed tutor to the crown prince, the future Emperor Heizei. Toyotoshi also served as professor of letters at the rank of junior fifth, lower (in the ge-i outer rank scheme). In 806 he became director of the Bureau of Divination and in 808 took a post as senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, receiving also the governorship of Shimotsuke. In 810, he was made governor of Harima, with the rank of junior fourth, lower.

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Toyotoshi held the rather rare shūsai credential, awarded after he completed the monjō tokugōshō 文章得業生 (“distinguished scholar of letters”) degree. The shūsai was conferred either by recommendation or through the hōryaku exam (also called taisaku). Either way, with the decline of the Academy the examination system became increasingly less relevant to the official recruitment process and as a factor in progress up the bureaucratic ladder. Relatively few reached shūsai status: between 704 and 937 it was awarded to a mere sixty-five scholars (George Sansom, A History of Japan Until 1334 [1958], p. 475). This qualification eventually became conflated with the monjō tokugōshō degree, which may explain why the former title is seldom seen. Guest notes that these candidates were permitted to take up certain posts in the provinces and sit the hōryaku graduate exam (Guest, p. 31). At the time of the Kusuko Disturbance—see the notes to rus 6—Toyotoshi briefly left official service, refraining from active involvement in ex-Emperor Heizei’s bid to set up a rival court in Nara. Toyotoshi’s career resumed later in 810, despite his ties to the previous emperor. After his service in Harima he took up residence in Uji, on account of ill health. Following his death in 815, Toyotoshi was posthumously promoted to the senior fourth rank, lower. Tributes indicate that his peers believed his talents surpassed even those of the popular Kaifūsō poet Priest Dōyū (an immigrant scholar from China, fl. ca. 730s) and the famed literatus Ōmi no Mifune 淡海三船 (722–85). Indeed, Ono no Minemori, the chief compiler of Ryōunshū, identifies Toyotoshi as one of the great literary geniuses of his age in his preface to that work; Toyotoshi evidently served as a consultant during the compilation process. Minemori notes that editorial questions were referred to Toyotoshi until his illness became too serious, at which point Emperor Saga assumed these duties. After Saga, Toyotoshi and Ono no Minemori have the most poems in rus: thirteen of Toyotoshi’s works are preserved therein, with six more in kks, including one prose-poem. There are no poems by Toyotoshi at all in the next imperial anthology, Bunka shūreishū, which appeared three years after his death. This was perhaps because there were no further verses by him of sufficient quality to include. Kinpara Tadashi raises, yet later rejects, the possibility that Toyotoshi’s connection to the “old” courts of Kammu and Heizei, as well as his penchant for older style pentasyllabic meter and occasional use of “oblique” rhyme schemes, could have been contributing factors; see Kinpara, Heianchō kanshibun no kenkyū (1981), pp. 69–72. Kinpara’s first reason seems unlikely to have played a role, since Toyotoshi had been honored in various ways in the years since the Disturbance and a sizable number of his poems had been included in Ryōunshū. As to his use of pentasyllabic meter, roughly a third of the poems in Bunka shūreishū are themselves in pentasyllabic lines, indicating that this form had not yet fallen out of fashion. But whatever the reason, the mere fact that Toyotoshi was no longer alive may have made it easier for the compilers to bypass him in favor

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of living poets. Perhaps his “boorish and rough” ways, to use his own words from the poem above, played a role in his verse being passed over. An obituary for Toyotoshi in Nihon kōki 24 (815/6/27) suggests that he had a rather difficult personality, observing that he was a righteous man of high principles who did not bow down to others and only enjoyed the company of his closest intimates. Once when visiting Ono no Nagami (fl. ca. 800, Minemori’s father), Toyotoshi was asked to write a poem with kō 公 (lord) as the rhyme word. His poem contained the blunt and supercilious lines, “I show the whites of my eyes [a sign of contempt] to the Three Great Lords. The noble and powerful—I hate them” 白眼對三公、貴勝惡之. See Kinpara, pp. 71–72.

Kaya no Asomi Toyotoshi. Song of a Lofty Man How could sweeping one room alone be enough? How could walking the “Nine Divisions” be sufficient? A message for all you little swallows and sparrows: What would you know of the journeys wild swans make? 賀陽朝臣豐年

高士吟

一室何堪掃 九州豈足步 寄言燕雀徒 寧知鴻鵠路 Source: rus 47, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1597–1600; quatrain (pentasyllabic). Line one: In other words, having limited goals would never satisfy someone with the poet’s high ambitions, a sentiment echoed in the next line as well. This line seems inspired by a statement attributed to the Later Han general and statesman Chen Fan 陳蕃 (d. 168). When Chen was fifteen he was asked by a visitor why he had not swept the courtyard, knowing that a visitor was coming. He answered, “In handling affairs a great man should sweep the empire; why should he just sweep one room?” 大丈夫處 事、當掃除天下、安事一室乎. This story occurs at the beginning of Chen’s biography in Hou Han shu 後漢書 60. Line two: “Nine Divisions” refers to the nine ancient regions of China during the semi-mythical Emperor Yu’s reign. Here, it simply designates Japan. Lines three and four: “Swallows and sparrows” is a stock term for insignificant people. These two lines hark back to the “Xiaoyao you” 逍遙遊 (Free and Easy

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Wandering) chapter of Zhuangzi, where small birds that never fly far mock the great mythical peng 鵬 bird, which makes long journeys above the universe. Zhuangzi wanted to draw a distinction between noble and petty types and satirize the complacency of people who deride what they cannot comprehend. These lines also recall a famous episode in Sima Qian’s biography of Chen She 陳涉 (d. 208 bce), in Shi ji. Chen, a peasant who led the first in a series of insurrections against the Qin dynasty, derides his fellow-laborers for scoffing at his lofty aspirations, asking them “What do swallows and sparrows know about the ambitions of wild swans?” Biography: See the notes to the previous poem. Comments: It is unclear what circumstances inspired this poem. Its haughty tone more or less tallies with the Toyotoshi seen in the Nihon kōki obituary (see the notes to the previous poem). The “Lofty Man” is undoubtedly Toyotoshi himself: a “wild swan” with big ambitions.

Ōmi no Mahito Fukuramaro. Taking Leave of Governor “Fuji-” of Bungo Province After I Was Censured My old hometown—where might it be found? Off on the horizon where white clouds drift along. Returning geese, vanishing in the distance; Floating driftwood always on the move. Frontier music on all four sides begins; Bitter tears in several streams roll down. Today we part for the last time in our lives. Will I ever converse with that grey-haired one again? 淡海眞人福長滿

被譴別豐後藤太守

故鄉何處在 天際白雲浮 歸鴈遙將沒　 漂查去不留　 邊聲四面起 悲淚數行流 今日生死別 何年問白頭 Source: rus 77, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1753–57; octave (pentasyllabic).

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Title: It is unclear how Fukuramaro came into contact with his colleague in Bungo, however it is known that he served in the adjacent province of Hyūga as provisional (supernumerary) governor sometime between 797 and 806, evidently having been censured and sent there as a demotion. It is possible that Fukuramaro visited the governor of Bungo while en route to Hyūga. The Bungo governor may have been Fujiwara no Mafumi 藤原真書, who served in that capacity between 804–808. See the Kojima commentary, p. 1753. Lines five and six: The images in this couplet are reminiscent of a subgenre of poetry about the imperial concubine Wang Zhaojun 王昭君 (first century bce), whose tragic story inspired many literary works. Emperor Yuan Di of the Han dynasty presented her as a gift to the Xiongnu chieftain Huhanye in 33 bce, and she was sent away from China never to return. The emperor had only ever seen her in a painting, which depicted her as plain-looking because she had refused to bribe the court artist. When Zhaojun was leaving, Yuan Di finally saw her for himself. Entranced by her beauty, he regretted parting with her, but it was too late. When the chieftain died, Zhaojun committed suicide rather than follow Xiongnu custom and marry his son. Poems about Wang Zhaojun focus on the tribulations she experienced during her journey into the Xiongnu realm. Biography: Little is known about Ōmi no Fukuramaro (fl. ca. 800), but he was likely a descendant of Prince Ōtomo 大友皇子, who was a son of Emperor Tenji. In his poetry Fukuramaro sometimes expresses dissatisfaction with the slow progress of his official career. In 806 he was awarded the rank of junior fifth, upper, his first promotion since receiving the lower grade in 797. In the title to rus 75, Fukuramaro is identified as the provisional governor of Hyūga. His rank is given as junior fifth, lower. In 806 Fukuramaro received a post in the Yamatsukuri-dokoro (Mausolea Office)— see Kojima, p. 1840—after holding positions as junior assistant head in the ministries of Popular Affairs and Central Affairs (ibid., p. 1751). For translations of two further poems by Fukuramaro, rus 75–76, see Butterflies, pp. 57–58. Another two appear in Keikokushū, poems 134 and 177. Comments: Exile from the court entailed not only public disgrace but separation from family and friends and a lonely existence in an unfamiliar place. The wild geese serve as a melancholy reminder that while the birds can fly homeward the poet is stranded.

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Nakashina no Sukune Yoshio. Lying Sick Abed on an Autumn Night Since taking to my bed the years have come and gone. Time marches on and I face another autumn. The moon shines; the third watch and all is quiet. No one here; within these four walls I’m hidden. At caring for my health I am poor; At knowing Heaven’s will I am not adept. Just the trees, blowing in the wind, Tossing, shedding their leaves, and making me grieve. 仲科宿禰善雄

秋夜臥病

臥來頻改歲 年去復逢秋 照月三更靜 無人四壁幽 養形方已劣 知命道非優 唯有風前樹 搖落使人愁 Source: rus 78, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1757–61; octave (pentasyllabic). Line three: The third watch was the two-hour period from 11 pm to 1 am. Line six: “Knowing Heaven’s will” (Ch. zhi ming 知命) is an ancient concept with Confucian and Daoist origins; ming may instead be rendered as “fate” or “destiny.” According to this principle, everything that happens is beyond our control; thus, the proper response is to accept with equanimity whatever comes our way. Yoshio is implicitly placing some of the blame for his misery on himself, in effect saying that if he were wiser he could accept his situation without self-pity. An underlying resentment toward Heaven on his part may also be inferred: it has not cured his illness and has sent him both the moon (a painful reminder, perhaps, of happier times in a youth long gone) and dreary weather, heightening his sense of desolation. Biography: Nakashina no Yoshio (fl. ca. 800, original surname and kabane: Tsu no Muraji 津連) is a little-known poet whose only other extant works are Bunka shūreishū 48 and a prose-poem in Keikokushū. He was out of office when this poem was written, probably on account of his illness. Likely a descendant of immigrants from Paekche, a kingdom in the southwestern part of ancient Korea, Yoshio was appointed junior secretary in the Council of State in 788. He was promoted to senior secretary five years

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later, remaining in this post for at least six years. In 797, he was awarded the junior fifth rank, lower, for helping compile Shoku Nihongi. In 798, Nakashina changed his given name to Yoshio from Kotsuo 巨都雄. Two years later he became vice-governor of Iyo, gaining an appointment as tutor to the crown prince in 814. A note in the Keikokushū table of contents indicates that Yoshio had served as vice-governor of Settsu at the rank of junior fifth, upper. This rank reflects a small promotion that Yoshio evidently received in 817 after a wait of some twenty years. For other details, see the Kojima commentary, p. 1846, and nkbt 69, p. 516. Comments: Among the private compositions that are already present in the early kanshi anthologies we find several about being ill and awaiting death. The nature of the malady is seldom indicated. Themes in such verse include the lonely and solitary existence of the invalid, old age, and penury. Yoshio’s misery is compounded by the fact that it is late autumn, and nature seems indifferent to his plight. Despite the lugubriousness of the present poem, autumn was a favorite time of the year, celebrated by Japanese and Chinese poets alike. But the latter part of the season was viewed with apprehension and provides the backdrop for countless mournful verses. In Chinese poetics, the withering of the scenery as winter approached was viewed as a memento mori as far back as the “Jiu bian” in Chu ci. In its tone, imagery, and diction, the poem above owes a clear debt to this text. Significantly, David Hawkes has observed, “In Jiu bian we encounter, perhaps for the first time, a fully developed sense of what the Japanese call mono no aware, the pathos of natural objects, which was to be the theme of so much Chinese poetry throughout the ages.” See David Hawkes, Ch’u Tz’u: The Songs of the South, An Ancient Chinese Anthology (1985), p. 208.

Kuwahara no Kimi Miyasaku. Lament Composed While Lying on My Pillow 1



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Exhausted, lying on my pillow. Lying on my pillow, unable to bear my thoughts. Sunk in illness, I pass the years; Strength gone, soul in peril. The hair on my temples, faded like cicada wings, ah! Approaching white. The clothes I wear, drooping like a quail’s tail, ah! Turning black. Miserable, moved by what I see: These things will endure, but not I. I finger my lonely pillow in agitation. I climb the bare hills and the wooded hills, gazing longingly. I lament for the clouds of blossoms that rapidly fall to the ground; I sigh for the wind-blown trees that soon decline. The pond and the pavilion are gradually falling into disrepair. The boy servants have already gone away. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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Guests have stopped coming to the willow gate, a flock of sparrows chatter. My books are lit up in this mugwort hut: nighttime fireflies glow. The moon shines on my curtains, ah! A chilly light. The wind shakes my windows, ah! A dolorous sound. I hear the departing wild geese, muffled cries at dawn; Gaze at the disappearing crane in its solitary flight. My heart upside down and broken, ah! I lament this day. My tears flow in torrents, ah! I think of the past. To flourish then decline, such is the way of life; Fortune and tragedy, each indeed has its time. I rely upon the blessings of His Majesty: To pray for a miracle cure—what would be the point?

桑原公宮作

伏枕吟

勞伏枕 伏枕不勝思 沉痾送歲 力盡魂危 鬢謝蟬兮垂白 衣懸鶉兮化緇 悽然感物 物是人非 撫孤枕以耿耿 陟屺岵而依依 悵雲花於遽落 嗟風樹於俄衰 池臺漸毀 僮僕先離 客斷柳門群雀噪 書晶蓬室晚螢輝 月鑑帷兮影冷 風拂牖兮聲悲 聽離鴻之曉咽 覩別鶴之孤飛 心倒絕兮悽今日 淚潺湲兮想昔時 榮枯但理矣 倚伏固須期 恃皇天之祐善 祈靈藥以何爲 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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Source: rus 88, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 2 (chū), pp. 1806–19; zatsugon (a gin 吟 lament), twenty-six lines (mixed meter). Lines five and six: “Approaching white” 垂白 in line five occurs in various Chinese sources, including a well-known later poem by Su Shi (1037–1101) titled “Huan xi sha” 浣 溪沙 (Sand of Silk-washing Stream). Kojima interprets the phrase as meaning “hanging down [and] white” (see p. 1818), but this would make for less effective parallelism with 化緇 (“turning black”) in line six. Here and elsewhere in the poem we encounter the exclamatory word xi 兮 (rendered here as “ah”), which in ancient poetry also marked a caesura. Its use imparts a distinctly archaic flavor, harking back to the Chu ci and Shijing. Additional features that invite comparisons with the Chu ci include the tone of intense melancholy, the use of mixed meter, and the conspicuous presence of autumnal imagery. Like Nakashina Yoshio’s poem immediately above, this too is reminiscent of Song Yu’s “Jiu bian” and Pan Yue’s 潘岳 (247–300) prose-poem “Qiu xing fu” 秋興賦” (Rhapsody on Autumn Inspirations). Line ten: Miyasaku’s remark about climbing hills should not be read literally; in reality it is a nostalgic allusion to his parents. His words are based upon the opening lines of the first two stanzas of Ode 167, “Zhi hu” 陟岵 (Climbing the Wooded Hill) in Shijing, which read: “I climb that bare hill—ah, and look longingly for my mother—ah … I climb that wooded hill—ah, and look longingly for my father—ah” 陟彼屺兮、瞻望母 兮… 陟彼岵兮、 瞻望父兮. This ode is in the voice of a man away on military service, imagining his parents missing him and hoping for his safe return. Line fifteen: Sparrows are often associated with forsaken and impoverished homes. Biography: Kuwahara no Miyasaku (or Miyatsukuri, dates unknown, fl. ca. 815) is an obscure figure with no other surviving literary works. A single annotation in Ryōunshū indicates that he once served as junior clerk in Mutsu, with the rank of junior eighth, lower. This rank and the accompanying post were very close to the bottom of their respective institutional hierarchies. For details, see the Kojima commentary, pp. 1806, 1841. Comments: This poem is a gin 吟 (Ch. yin) or “lament,” one variety of zatsugon 雜言. Zatsugon, also called zattai 雜體 or zatsuei 雜詠, denotes “miscellaneous” or “unclassified” verse; this type was typically composed in an unregulated form with mixed meter. Zatsugon is a subgenre of “old-style poetry” (Ch. gushi 古詩), a rubric employed after the advent of the “modern” regulated verse forms (Ch. jinti shi 近體詩). The use of irregular meter and short lines, perhaps intended to mimic the feverish ramblings of an invalid, enhances the tone of pathos in this poem. Judging from the penultimate line, Miyasaku imagined that his verse would reach the emperor, who, he evidently hoped, would provide him with alms to relieve his penury. History does not record whether charity was forthcoming. The verse of personal lament and petitioning for succor becomes more conspicuous from the tenth century.

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Bunka shūreishū 文華秀麗集 (Anthology of Splendid Literary Flowerings, 818), Compiled by Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu and Others Kose no Shikihito. Bidding Farewell to My Friend One Autumn Day Leaves in the forest fluttering, fluttering; autumn sun has set. The traveler on his own heads off toward clouds over bordering hills. On the horizon, suspended in the sky, just the solitary moon. For ten thousand miles its drifting light will accompany you afar. 巨勢識人

秋日別友人

林葉翩翩秋日曛 行人獨向邊山雲 唯餘天際孤懸月 萬里流光遠送君 Source: Bunka shūreishū (bksrs) 26, in Kojima Noriyuki, annot., Kaifūsō, Bunka shūreishū, Honchō monzui [nkbt 69], p. 218; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Anthology: Bunka shūreishū was compiled in 818 by Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu 藤原 冬嗣 (775–826), with the assistance of the following five literati: Prince Nakao (who wrote the preface and, according to some, should be credited as the main compiler), Sugawara no Kiyokimi, Isayama no Fumitsugu 勇山文繼, Shigeno no Sadanushi, and Kuwahara no Haraaka 桑原腹赤, under the direction of Emperor Saga. The second of the three court-sponsored anthologies compiled during the early ninth century, it preserves 143 poems by twenty-eight authors; these were written between 782–818 but mostly date from the four years since the previous anthology. As with Ryōunshū, more than half the verses are heptasyllabic, but there is a four-fold increase in the proportion of zekku. Bunka shūreishū is characterized by the prominence of social poetry in the “harmonizing” mode, these accounting for half of the collection. Of these, roughly a third are regulated (or near-regulated) verses. Just under half of the poems are octaves, the rest being quatrains and extended poems, the longest of which is in fortyfour lines. As with Ryōunshū, Saga is the best-represented poet, with thirty-four verses, followed by the author of the present poem, Shikihito, who has twenty. The poetry is divided into three maki, the first two of which comprise verse in ten subject categories: excursions, banquets, partings, exchanges, history, expressions of

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feelings, boudoir sentiments (enjō 艶情), yuefu, Buddhism, and laments. The third maki contains miscellaneous verse: forty-eight zatsuei, sometimes in mixed meter, many of them eibutsu. Biography: Kose no Shikihito (ca. 795–?) was a principal figure in the literary coterie centered around Emperor Saga. He may have been the grandson of one Kose no Notari (Nutari) 巨勢野足, a descendant of Kose no Sukune Okara 巨勢雄柄, who was an ancestor of the Soga clan. Little is known about Shikihito’s career, but Saga often sought the company of literati from humbler backgrounds and lower status, like Shikihito, bringing them into his poetic circle without prejudice. Many of them gained appointments to responsible positions through Saga’s patronage. Shikihito was particularly well regarded as a poet by Saga (and often present at “harmonizing” events), as is evident from the large number of his verses in this collection. The table of contents in Ryōunshū (which has just one of his poems) identifies Shikihito as “rankless” at the time of its compilation in 814. It appears that soon thereafter he entered the bureaucracy with the junior sixth rank, lower, then was later rewarded with a promotion to the junior fifth rank, upper, in 823, after accompanying Emperor Saga to the retreat of Princess Uchiko. Shikihito was evidently still at the same rank some four years later, when Keikokushū, which has four more of his kanshi, was compiled. Although many of Shikihito’s poems deserve comment, his most memorable poem may be an octave composed during a joint-composition event with Emperor Saga and other prominent literati, which is remarkable for the discordant tone it strikes. Shikihito offers a piece of cynical and unsympathetic advice to the illustrious Priest Saichō, who is suffering on his sickbed, stating: “You are well aware that everything is an illusion; / Look at yourself and you’ll find the cure at hand” (bksrs 78, trans. from Butterflies, p. 70). Shikihito also expresses the opinion at the end of line two that the priest’s illness is feigned. Considering how far it diverges in spirit from the sympathetic poem on Saichō by the sovereign, whom he is supposed to be “matching,” it seems curious that such a poem actually found its way into the anthology. Comments: In China and Japan it was customary to exchange poems when a friend or family member was about to leave on a journey. These were generally composed at farewell parties, or at the place of final separation after the traveler had been escorted a certain distance as a courtesy. During periods when nocturnal travel within Japan was permitted, journeys would sometimes commence in the evening, as is the case here. In the present poem, the moon is envisioned as a companion and guardian figure, protecting the traveler by lighting his way.

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Kuwahara no Haraaka. Moonlit Night, Talking About Separation Such is the world that even though two people may live apart, In the firmament the moon sends down the same light upon them both. My affection for you is exactly like the beams that shine through the clouds: Night after night accompanying you, all the way to that distant place. 桑原腹赤

月夜言離

地勢風牛雖異域 天文月兎尚同光 思君一似雲間影 夜夜相隨到遠鄉 Source: bksrs 27, in nkbt 69, pp. 218–19; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: For “two people,” the line reads “cows in heat” 風牛, a usage derived from Zuo zhuan 左傳 (The Zuo Commentary, second century bce), in a passage which reads: “Our mares and cows when in heat will not be able to meet [with our stallions and bulls]” 風馬牛不相及也, because their owners live far apart. The poet was not paying attention to the literal meaning of this allusion, focusing instead on the sense of separation it conveys. In line two, “moon” is literally “moon rabbit” 月兎, a reference to the legendary jade rabbit that lived on the moon. These lines provide an early example of a “flowing-water” parallel couplet (ryūsuitsui 流水對, Ch. liushui dui). This technique came to be widely used in kanshi from the latter half of the ninth century onward, being less commonly seen before then. Although this term is not found among the twenty-nine types of parallelism listed in the early-Heian manual Bunkyō hifuron, it has been suggested that the twenty-fifth variety, “katai” 假對 (“pseudo-” or “borrowed [sound]” parallelism, a tentative translation), may have been essentially the same phenomenon. See Gu, “Heian zenki ni okeru Nihon kanshi,” pp. 19–20. In this type of parallel couplet, there is a pair of lines which show lexical and grammatical parallelism in their corresponding parts but discursively develop a single idea over two lines in continuous fashion. The two lines thus form an inseparable simple-sentence unit, demonstrating enjambment. Such couplets tend to be narrative, advancing the story, so to speak, rather than descriptive of a static scene or state of affairs. The use of this technique likely arose from a desire for naturalness of expression and relief from the monotony of end-stopped lines, while still maintaining the sense of balance characteristic of parallel phrases. Often the first line is subordinate to the second, as in the famous Wang Zhihuan 王之渙 (688–742) flowingwater couplet in “Climbing the Stork Tower” 登鸛雀樓, which reads: “If you want to

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see ahead for a thousand miles, then climb up to the next level of the tower” 欲窮千里 目、更上一層樓. Biography: Kuwahara no Haraaka (789–825) was the son of Kuwahara no Akinari 桑原秋成. From 822 he was known officially as Miyako no Haraaka 都腹赤. During Emperor Saga’s reign Haraaka enjoyed the sovereign’s favor and gained status as a poet, often composing verse at palace events. When a delegation from Parhae came to Japan in 814, he was asked to exchange poems with the vice-envoy; for details see the notes to bksrs 39, below. Haraaka helped compile Bunka shūreishū, serving at the time as junior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs and as junior clerk of Harima. In 821 Haraaka assisted with drawing up the legal code Dairi shiki, by which time he had become professor of Chinese history and literature and senior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs, at the rank of junior fifth, lower. He was promoted to the senior fifth, lower, two years before his death. Ten of Haraaka’s kanshi appear in Bunka shūreishū, two in Ryōunshū, and one in Keikokushū. Comments: On moonlit nights it was not unusual for poets to feel a special closeness to faraway friends and kin, since they too might be gazing at the moon and experiencing the same sense of longing. Such evenings could also evoke nostalgic memories of nights in the past that persons now separated had enjoyed together.

Emperor Junna. Poem for the Scholar Kamitsukeno [no Ehito], Written in Bed This year has an extra month, but still the spring feels cold. I was unaware that the spring rays had reached the plums by the steps. A breezy night, and I suddenly catch a scent from beyond the window: Here in bed I can tell that the branches now are in full bloom. 令製

臥中簡毛學士

今年有閏春猶冷 不解韶光着砌梅 風夜忽聞窗外馥 臥中想得滿枝開 Source: bksrs 29, in nkbt 69, p. 220; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: The recipient of this poem, Kamitsukeno no Ehito 上毛野穎人 (766–821), was the son of Ōkawa 大川. Early in his career, Ehito served as secretary to an envoy dispatched to the Tang court. In 817, after holding various mid-level positions, he became tutor to the crown prince (thus the title’s reference to him as 學士 “Scholar”), and later, senior assistant head of the Ministry of Popular Affairs. Ehito helped compile the

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genealogy Shinsen shōjiroku while senior secretary in the Council of State and vicegovernor of Inaba. He reached the rank of junior fourth, lower. One kanshi by him appears in Ryōunshū, poem 55, a miserable lament (trans. in Butterflies, p. 55); another is preserved in Bunka shūreishū and two more in Keikokushū. Line one: In the lunar calendar, an intercalary month (using the same “month number” as the previous one) was added roughly once every thirty months to compensate for the slight lack of synchronicity between the lunar month (29–30 days) and the solar chūsetsu, a division consisting of 30.44 days. Junna seems to be imagining that even though an intercalary month had been added to the calendar (and it is actually a month later than it would appear from its number), the weather has not grown much warmer. Biography: Emperor Junna was previously known as Crown Prince Ōtomo. See the notes to rus 27. Comments: This vignette is a reminder of how attuned court poets were to the most minute seasonal shifts and their penchant for turning these observations into verse. The second couplet employs the evidence trope, a conventional device often used in verse describing seasonal change; its presence is typically signaled by expressions such as “I can tell that …” or “from afar I can imagine that … ” Junna is making a tentative deduction based on limited evidence: he cannot see the new blossoms, but his olfactory senses provide him with a moment of epiphany.

Prince Nakao. Lying Sick Abed, I Thank My Old Friend for Visiting Me Since taking to my bed ten days have passed. But a visitor has come to see me at last! Thinking of you, I put my slippers on back to front. Yet this withered face just could not take the wind. 仲雄王

臥病謝故人相問

臥來旬向歷 門客問初通 爲君思倒屣 衰貌不勝風 Source: bksrs 32, in nkbt 69, pp. 222–23; quatrain (pentasyllabic). Title: Instead of thanking his friend, Nakao might be apologizing (謝) for being unable to go outside to greet him.

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Line three: This variety of slipper or sandal was open at both ends. The poet is harking back to an occasion when the great scholar and statesman Cai Yong 蔡邕 (133–92) was told that the poet Wang Can 王粲 (177–217) had come to pay a visit. Cai raced outside to greet him, putting his sandals on back to front in his excitement. The expression dao xi ying bin 倒屣迎賓 (“with shoes on backwards greeting a guest”) is still used in China to refer to a host’s enthusiasm for a welcome guest. Biography: See the notes to rus 34.

Wang Hyoryǒm. At this frontier guesthouse I received the topic “mountain blossoms.” I have presented this verse in jest to the two officials in charge of foreign visitors and to Shigeno [no Sadanushi], the third son [of Ieosa]. Fragrant trees, spring hues—hues so very bright. Newly in bloom, they seem to laugh but do not make a sound. Our hosts each day keep on plucking every single flower. When will any that remain be given to the guests to calm their feelings? 王孝廉

在邊亭賦得山花、戲寄兩箇領客使并滋三。

芳樹春色色甚明 初開似笑聽無聲 主人每日專攀盡 殘片何時贈客情 Source: bksrs 39, in nkbt 69, pp. 227–28; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: The two officials alluded to here are thought to have been Sakanoue no Imao 坂 上今雄 and Sakanoue no Imatsugu 坂上今繼, the authors of bksrs 35 and 36, respectively (nkbt 69, p. 227). There is some uncertainty as to whether Imao and Imatsugu were in fact two different people; see ibid, p. 514. Shigeno no Sadanushi was a scholarofficial and noted kanshi poet who served as one of the compilers of Bunka shūreishū and Keikokushū; see also bksrs 133, below. Line two: The graph for “laugh” also means “to bloom.” The flowers “laugh,” yet are silent, a seeming paradox. Lines three and four: Wang had been escorted to Tsuruga province (part of modern Fukui prefecture), where he and his entourage were at a guesthouse waiting to set sail for Parhae. Their departure had been delayed because of inclement weather. The exact sense of this couplet is not completely clear, especially the logical connection between the two lines. Wang seems to be anxious about how long the delegation might be delayed. When, he asks, will they receive these flowers as farewell gifts and

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will there even be any left by the time they leave? The “flowers” may instead be an allusion to singing girls, the ambassador humorously hinting that his hosts had been “monopolizing the ladies’ services” and should share some of the “bounty.” See Morley, “Poetry and Diplomacy in Early Heian Japan,” p. 363. Biography: Wang Hyoryŏm (Hyoryeom) headed a mission from Parhae, a vassal state of China between 698–926 inhabited by the Tungusic-speaking peoples of northern Manchuria and Korea. Its elite was drawn from among former aristocrats of Koguryŏ, a state which had absorbed much of northern Korea and Manchuria prior to its conquest by the state of Silla (in existence 57 bcE–935 ad), in 668. Wang had arrived in Japan on 814/9/30; on 815/1/7 he was awarded the junior third rank. A banquet in his honor took place on 1/20. Two days later, he and his party began their journey homeward, evidently via Tsuruga, bearing a personal letter from the emperor to their ruler. The winds were unfavorable and their boat was damaged; they ended up back in Japan on 5/18 and soon received a new vessel, in Echizen, but Wang died before the party re-embarked. He was posthumously raised to the senior third rank. In time, the viceenvoy Ko Kyŏngsu 高景秀 arrived back in Parhae, bearing the imperial letter received months earlier. For additional details, see nkbt 69, p. 512. Diplomatic relations between Japan and Parhae existed between 727 and 926, with Japan sending thirteen missions and Parhae around thirty-four. Morley observes that these diplomatic missions, which included poetry exchanges, were “important vectors of high culture” and had the effect of “… contribut[ing] to the development and dissemination of the East Asian macroculture, membership in which was defined by a shared familiarity with the Chinese literary and intellectual tradition” (Morley, p. 343). Five of Wang Hyoryǒm’s poems are preserved in bksrs: nos. 16, 18, 39–41, with one further verse, bksrs 17, by a compatriot Monk Injǒng 釋仁貞. Two other poems written in 758 by a visiting Parhae vice-embassador also survive in the next anthology: kks 153 and 182.

Yoshimine no Yasuyo. A Poem on the Assigned Topic “Ji Zha” He who is known as Ji Zha of Wu Has a lofty reputation unmatched to this very day. Befriending a sage, intimate like old acquaintances; Yielding the throne, showing nobleness of surpassing depth. Master Yan in the end gave back the households; Sun Wen never listened to qin music again. Ji Zha also took his precious sword And presented it to Lord Xu, albeit in vain.

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賦得季札

所謂吳季札 芳名冠古今 交賢情若舊 當讓義逾深 宴子終納邑 孫文不聽琴 還將一寶劒 空報徐君心 Source: bksrs 43, in nkbt 69, p. 231; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: Ji Zha was a sixth century bce prince of the state of Wu, remembered for his righteousness in refusing to follow his father’s wishes and take the throne ahead of his older brothers, as alluded to in line four. He was also revered for his sagacity and political acumen. In 544 Ji Zha went on a diplomatic mission to various states, meeting with political figures and offering wise advice, the subject of three allusions in this poem. His story is related in the chapter for the twenty-ninth year of the reign of Duke Xiang of Lu (Lu Xiang Gong 魯襄公) in Zuo zhuan. Ji Zha is often known as Yanling Ji Zi (延陵季子, Lord Ji of Yanling), after the place where he was enfiefed. For an English language account of Jizha’s mission, see ch. 29, “Prince Chi-cha of Wu,” in The Tso Chuan: Selections from China’s Oldest Narrative History (1989), trans. by Burton Watson, pp. 149–53. Line three: The “sage” referred to here was Gongsun Qiao 公孫僑 (d. 522 bce), known to history as Zichan 子產. He served as prime minister of Zheng 鄭 from 544 until his death and was revered for his sterling character, enlightened outlook, and devoted service to his state. Zuo zhuan records that Ji Zha paid Zichan a visit during his 544 diplomatic mission, specifically noting that the two men had a great rapport from the moment they met. Ji Zha anticipated Zichan’s imminent rise to the state’s highest office and gave him wise advice on governance. Line five: Master Yan was Yan Ying 宴嬰 (Yan Zi 宴子 or Yan Pingzhong 宴平仲, ca. 578–500 bce). A high minister in the state of Qi 齊, he received a visit from Ji Zha during the mission referred to in the previous note. Sensing that Yan was in great danger owing to recent political turmoil in Qi, Ji urged him to return the cities with which he had been enfiefed and relinquish his political offices, advice that was duly followed. Line six: Sun Wen, also known as Sun Linfu 孫林父, is yet another sixth-century bce political figure, from the state of Jin. During his 544 tour Ji Zha also visited the state of Wei, where Sun Linfu was living in exile. Ji Zha noted that Sun was spending too much time listening to music and spoke critically of it. When word got back to Sun, he was so chastened that he never listened to music again.

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Lines seven and eight: This sword was coveted by the ruler of Xu 徐, where Ji Zha once served. This ruler, who had never expressed his fondness for it, died while Ji was away on a diplomatic mission. When Ji returned to Xu he hung the weapon on a tree sheltering the lord’s grave, as a mark of respect. Apparently he had known that the ruler longed for the sword and was now presenting it posthumously (thus “in vain,” being too late to give it in person). Biography: Yoshimine no Yasuyo (785–830) was the son of Emperor Kanmu by a lesser concubine. Yasuyo was the elder half-brother of Emperors Saga and Junna; all three men had different mothers. He also was the father of the renowned waka poet Priest Henjō (Munesada 宗貞). Yasuyo received the commoner surname Yoshimine in 802. In 807 and 808, he was appointed to positions in the Gate Guards and was awarded the junior fifth rank, lower, in 808. Although mainly remembered as a scholar-poet, Yasuyo held a succession of bureaucratic posts, including director of the Bureau of Music, head of the Chamberlains’ Office (811), master of the Crown Prince’s Quarters, consultant (816, at the junior fourth rank, lower), middle counselor (chūnagon) in 821, and major captain in the Right Imperial Bodyguards at the senior third rank, in 823. He also served as superintendent in the Imperial Police (Kebiishi) and held several governorships. Between 821 and 825, Yasuyo acted intermittently as imperial censor for Mutsu and Dewa provinces. In 828 he was appointed major counselor, still at the senior third rank, but since his health was failing he lived in semi-retirement until his death two years later. For a fuller account of his official career, see Kojima, pp. 1848–49. In 819 Yasuyo was commissioned to compile the third national history Nihon kōki, working with Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu and Fujiwara no Otsugu 藤原緒嗣 (773–843). He also helped assemble Dairi shiki, at the behest of Emperor Saga. Upon Yasuyo’s death, Retired Emperor Saga composed two kanshi elegies in his memory and posthumously promoted him to the junior second rank. Yasuyo is best remembered for his contributions to the compilation of Keikokushū and for his kanshi: two appear in Ryōunshū, four in Bunka shūreishū, and seven in Keikokushū. Comments: The fact that Yasuyo was given the task of writing a poem on Ji Zha, of all historical figures, just a few years after the Kusuko Disturbance, which had placed Saga’s rule in jeopardy, may have been no coincidence. The intention was perhaps to remind Yasuyo of the need to demonstrate the same righteous loyalty as had Ji Zha or to subtly enjoin him and colleague-officials to redouble their efforts to help maintain the security of the realm. Also still fresh on everyone’s mind was the Prince Iyo Disturbance (Prince Iyo was Emperor Heizei’s younger half-brother), which led to Iyo’s forced suicide in 807, following accusations, probably unfounded, that he had been involved in a conspiracy against the state. The main interest of this poem is political and historical, rather than literary, in nature. It is also a good example of the subgenre of courtly banquet poems on Chinese historical themes, of which fewer than thirty survive, including notable pieces

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by Michizane and Tadaomi. For a list see Gu, “Heian zenki ni okeru Nihon kanshi,” pp. 142–44. Courtly historical poems were mainly composed at imperial banquets following lectures on China’s Three Histories (Shi ji, Han shu, and Hou Han shu). For more on the phenomenon of Chinese history lecture-banquets and the poetry associated with these events, see the Introduction.

Emperor Saga. Plum Blossoms Falling Warblers sing, the plum tree courtyard warm. Blossoms fall and dance in the springtime breezes. Wildly fluttering, covering the ground; Drifting about, then rising to fill the sky. Their pungent fragrance scents the pillows and mats, Scattered shadows passing the latticed windows. If you wish to experience the pain of separation Then listen to the sound of the flutes played by the Qiang. 御製

梅花落

鶊鳴梅院暖 花落舞春風 歷亂飄鋪地 徘徊颺滿空 狂香燻枕席 散影度房櫳 欲驗傷離苦 應聞羌笛中 Source: bksrs 67, in nkbt 69, pp. 254–55; octave (pentasyllabic). Line eight: The Qiang were a nomadic people who in ancient times lived in the border regions of northwest China. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: The reference in the last couplet to Qiang flutes and the pain of separation recalls the tragic tale of Wang Zhaojun: for an outline of her story and its associated lore see the notes to rus 77, above. See also Eugene Eoyang, “The Wang Chao-chün Legend: Configurations of the Classic,” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews 4.1 (Jan. 1982), pp. 3–22. In the last couplet Saga is addressing the petals, calling to mind Kokinshū poems that lament the falling of the cherry blossoms, utilizing

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apostrophe. His message is that their sorrow in being parted from one another is nothing compared to what Wang Zhaojun experienced as she heard the Qiang flutes of the “barbarian” realm and realized she would never return home. This poem has the same title as a flute melody said to evoke the sorrow of separation; Saga likely chose it because of this association. See nkbt 69, p. 255.

Emperor Saga. A Poem Written to Match Priest Kōjō’s “Wandering in the Eastern Hills” You dwell in seclusion away in the eastern hills, Sit and meditate facing the forests and mountains. At the temple you have long transmitted the sutras, But deep in the mountains begging for food must be hard. In the stream, next to monkeys, rinsing your mouth; Supping upon wild fare together with the spirits. Striking your stone chimes high among cloudy peaks; Late spring, but the cold has yet to retreat. 御製

和光法師遊東山之作

幽栖東岳上 禪坐對林巒 法宇傳經久 深山乞食難 溪流猿共漱 野飯鬼相飡 擊磬雲峯裡 暮春不退寒 Source: bksrs 72, in nkbt 69, pp. 258–59; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: Born in Iyo province and orphaned at an early age, Priest Kōjō 光定法師 (779– 858) was a leading disciple of Priest Saichō (767–822), founder of the Tendai sect at Enryakuji. Kōjō first entered Enryakuji in 808, residing in Shikan’in 止觀院, one of the nine temples in the complex. He went on to study at Tōdaiji in 812 with Priest Kūkai, founder of the Shingon sect. Kōjō eventually became the chief priest of Enryakuji in 854. Prior to Priest Saichō’s passing, Kōjō had been attempting to establish a Mahāyāna ordination center on Mount Hiei in order to fulfill one of his teacher’s wishes; permission to proceed was granted a week after Saichō’s death.

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Saga gave Kōjō emergency material aid (described as a “beggar’s bag”) in 822, after learning that he had become destitute following Saichō’s death (nkbt 69, p. 481). It seems likely that the present poem was written to accompany an earlier gift to alleviate his poverty. Line one: Eastern hills alludes to Mount Hiei, northeast of Kyoto. Biography: See the notes to rus 6.

Emperor Saga. Stopping at Bonshakuji Temple By the temple door, on the cloudy peak, all footprints have disappeared. Like long ago, today once more this mountain I have climbed. Down a wondrous secluded rocky face a waterfall gushes forth; From ancient and vast cypresses and pines aged vines hang down. This temple never tainted by the dust of the mundane world; Here upon the dharma mats just priests in simple robes. At once my vexing thoughts recede, the summer still is cool. I prepare to depart but linger on, for a while unable to leave. 御製

過梵釋寺

雲嶺禪扃人蹤絕 昔將今日再攀登 幽奇巖嶂吐泉水 老大杉松離舊藤 梵宇本無塵滓事 法筵唯有薜蘿僧 忽鎖煩想夏還冷 欲去淹留暫不能 Source: bksrs 73, in nkbt 69, p. 259; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: Established in 786, this temple belonged to the Hossō 法相 sect. It was located east of Heian in the Shiga district of Ōmi province. Nihon kōki indicates that Saga wrote this poem on 815/4/21 after stopping to pray at the temple, accompanied by his brother, the future Emperor Junna, and several courtiers. The party was offered tea prepared by one of the high priests. The following day, they boated on Lake Biwa (for a poem about this, see bksrs 8, in Butterflies, p. 65). bksrs 74–75, written on the same occasion, are also translated in ibid., pp. 68–69. Biography: See the notes to rus 6.

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Comments: Poems describing excursions to temples form an important kanshi subgenre, one with its own set of conventions. Typically octaves, this verse tends to focus on the beauty and tranquility of the surroundings rather than on the priests and their religious activities. The final couplet may express the poet’s sense of rejuvenation and spiritual freedom or else his renewed awareness of life’s ephemerality. Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩 includes some 260 temple-visiting poems, the largest cache of Heian kanshi in any topical category.

Tajihi no Kiyosada. Visiting Hokuzanji Temple A temple standing high atop green cliffs: We clamber up, then point to sites below. Lofty eaves rise above the pines; A perilous path leads through the bamboo. I never tire of hearing Sanskrit recited; No surprise that all worldly thoughts recede. Here at this lonely place among misty trees, My mind is calmed by the sounds I hear tonight. 多治比清貞

遊北山寺

香剎青喦頂 登攀指世情 高簷松上出 危路竹間行 梵語聞無厭 塵心伏不驚 寥寥雲樹裡 定水晚來聲 Source: bksrs 79, in nkbt 69, pp. 263–64; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: This temple was probably near Kitano Shrine, in the vicinity of Senbon Kita Ōji and Nishi Ōji streets in northwest Kyoto (nkbt 69, pp. 481–82). Biography: Believed to have been a descendant of Emperor Senka (467–539), Tajihi no Kiyosada (d. 839) was the grandson of Tajihi no Hironari 多治比廣成 (d. 739), who led the ninth mission to China in 733, and perhaps the son of Tajihi no Ietsugu 多治比 家繼. After leaving the Academy, apparently without completing his studies or being examined, Kiyosada served from 814 as provisional junior secretary of Harima, at the

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junior eighth rank, upper. By 833 he had risen to the junior fifth rank, upper, his first promotion in thirteen years. That same year, he was appointed a minor controller, then became governor of Ise in 834. Before taking up the Ise post he was called to the palace to receive the gift of a robe. Kiyosada was still in Ise when he died, holding the junior fourth rank, lower, to which he had been promoted the year before. Although the present poem is his only one in bksrs, Kiyosada is also credited with writing rus 86 and 87. The former is a response poem to one by Emperor Saga; evidently Kiyosada was at least well connected in poetic circles, despite his lackluster career posts. rus 87 is a reply to a verse by Sugawara no Kiyokimi, Michizane’s grandfather, who at the time (812) had just assumed the headship of the Academy.

Nishikoribe no Hikogimi. A Poetic Inscription Written About Priest Kōjō’s Mountain Temple In a monastery deep among the peaks There lives a noble priest who will not return. Pacing back and forth, he waves a golden staff; Sits quietly meditating in his simple robes. On cold bamboo there remains some fallen snow; Springtime greens he gathers in ancient hills. Together we chat, pouring cups of emerald tea. Smoke drifts and mingles with the evening clouds. 錦部彥公

題光上人山院

梵宇深峯裡 高僧住不還 經行金策振 安坐草衣閑 寒竹留殘雪 春蔬採舊山 相談酌緑茗 煙火暮雲間 Source: bksrs 80, in nkbt 69, p. 264; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: On Priest Kōjō, see bksrs 72, above. Line three: This pacing was likely a form of walking meditation. Biography: Nishikoribe no Hikogimi (also known as Nishigori no Hikokimi), dates unknown, was the fifth son of Bizō 美造 and the father of koto master Takahashi (Nishikoribe) Fun’yamaro 文屋麻呂 (816–64), who was in service to Saga from age - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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nine. Hikogimi’s grandfather had apparently changed his name from Kashiwade 膳臣 to Nishikoribe, his grandmother’s name (Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku ronkō, p. 320). In 828 Hikogimi took the surname Takahashi and moved to Heian from Shinano province. See Kojima Noriyuki, ed., Ōchō kanshisen (1987), appendix of poets, p. 4. Hikogimi later served as secretary of Bizen, at the rank of senior sixth, upper. He was evidently highly regarded for his familiarity with the Five Classics and was later employed as a steward by Retired Emperor Saga at Sagain, which was often thronged with poets, musicians, and scholars like Hikogimi. He is also the author of kks 201.

Emperor Saga. A Song Lamenting Physical Decline; Written for an Old Pine Tree in Shinsen’en Long ago, from among common trees, transplanted to Shanglin Park: Living through the wind and frost—so many years have passed! The emperor, loving its rectitude, favored it with kind concern, A pavilion by the pond he promptly built, where he often kept it company. Once its foliage was thick; now it looks haggard and glum. Long branches shrunken and broken, sparse its greenery. It’s not the case that the tree shuns glory, preferring peace and quiet; What worries me is that its inborn nature is to harbor secret desires. 御製

代神泉古松傷衰歌

昔從凡木殖上林 過却風霜年幾深 帝者愛貞賜恩顧 水亭忽構頻近臨 本森沉、今顦顇 長條縮折乏蒼翠 不是辭榮好寂寞 還愁稟質抱幽志 Source: bksrs 120, in nkbt 69, pp. 291–92; song (uta), in eight lines; heptasyllabic except for line five, which is hexasyllabic, comprising two three-character hemistiches. Title: On Shinsen’en, a favorite imperial retreat and the site of poetry events and other recreational pursuits, see rus 6, above. Line one: Shanglin Park was the private park and hunting grounds of the Chinese emperors during the Han dynasty. It is mainly remembered as the subject of a famous prose-poem by Sima Xiangru, which describes the park in dazzlingly lavish detail. Here its mention is merely a rarified way of alluding to Shinsen’en, part of a continuous - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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effort to magnify the prestige of the Heian court by linking it to one of China’s most illustrious ancient dynasties. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: When read in conjunction with the next poem, Saga’s composition appears allegorical, with the pine tree a symbol for Prince Nakao, whose faithfulness won him Saga’s affection. In his reply poem, below, Nakao appears to realize that the final line in Saga’s poem hints at possible disloyalty and mounts a defense: he refutes the idea that the tree’s decline (and by extension his own) is due to harboring unfulfilled ambitions. For a more detailed discussion of Saga’s poem and Nakao’s response, see Webb, “In Good Order,” pp. 168–75.

Prince Nakao. A Poem to Match “A Song Lamenting Physical Decline; Written for an Old Pine Tree in Shinsen’en” [by Emperor Saga] Solitary pine, gnarled and bent, branches draped with vines: Its integrity known when it faces the frost and snow in bitter winter. His Majesty visits the zither pavilion, casts His sagely gaze about; The wind blows through, soughing and rustling, creating a pure melody. That bushy green is such a sight in the shadows by the eaves. Ashamed to be but worthless timber in His Majesty’s presence! The pine tree’s beauty has declined naturally—there is no other reason. It would never dare harbor secret desires or betray His kind concern. 仲雄王

奉和代神泉古松傷衰歌

孤松盤屈薛蘿枝 貞節苦寒霜雪知 御琴臺、廻仙矚 風入颼飀添清曲 森翠宜看軒月陰 還羞不材近天臨 自然色衰無他故 不敢幽懷負恩顧 Source: bksrs 121, in nkbt 69, pp. 292–93; song (uta), in eight lines; heptasyllabic except for line three, which has six words in two three-character hemistiches. Line two: This is a reference to the “Zi Han” 子罕 chapter of Lun yu 論語 (The Analects of Confucius), where Confucius observes, “When the year turns cold, we discover that pines and cypresses are the last to lose their leaves” 歲寒、然後知松柏之後 彫也. In other words, in times of adversity the true colors of the man of integrity (for - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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whom the pine tree is a symbol) are revealed. Nakao, on the defensive, has continued the allegory created in the previous poem, adopting the persona of the tree. Line six: The prince has created a pun here, involving the two characters cai 材 (timber) and cai 才 (talent), which are cognates. Nakao is modestly likening himself to the tree—both are “worthless timber”—to gain credit with Saga. Lines seven and eight: On Nakao’s intended message, see the comments on Saga’s poem, immediately above. Biography: See the notes to rus 34. Comments: In bksrs 30, a poem addressed to Yoshimine no Yasuyo, Prince Nakao writes of having been banished from the “council chamber” after accusations were made by “high heaven,” i.e., the emperor. Nakao writes in the final lines: “For mercy and light penalty I am forever grateful. / Though I may never again enter the gate of my lord, I shall speak from this far land and Heaven may hear me.” Trans. by Burton Watson, quoted in Keene, Seeds in the Heart, pp. 193–94. The exact nature of the case against Nakao is not known; it is also unclear whether the suspicions seemingly raised in the previous poem, bksrs 120, had any bearing upon this dismissal.

Kuwahara no Hirota. At Reizen’in each of us wrote on a topic: I was assigned “reflections in the water” and composed this verse by imperial command. The myriad phenomena have no need of an artist Who is able to depict how they look in the emerald water. You see flowers and expect them to have a scent; Put an ear to the leaves, yet hear no sound of wind. A single bird, and then a second is added; A solitary shrub, and then we see another. That celestial bodies from afar send down their light Must be because the heart of the pool is empty. 桑原廣田

冷然院各賦一物、得水中影。 應製

萬象無須匠 能圖綠水中 看花疑有馥 聽葉不鳴風 一鳥還添鳥 孤叢更向叢 天文遙降耀 應爲潭心空

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Source: bksrs 125, in nkbt 69, p. 296; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: Reizen’in was one of Emperor Saga’s residences in the Heian capital, renamed Reizeiin in 954. Lines one and two: Hirota is observing that the reflection of the scenery in the mirror-like water creates a perfect reproduction that far surpasses anything a painter could depict. Lines three and four: The notion that the reflection of blossoms in water could have a fragrance and the “paradox” of reflected leaves not making a rustling sound are among the more fanciful poetic conceits seen in Heian kanshi. A line in a poem by Emperor Saga (kks 205, translated below) describing a landscape painting in the Seiryōden similarly highlights the lifelike appearance of the scene, with Saga contriving to be surprised that the waterfall in the picture makes no sound. Lines five and six: The image of a single object is multiplied in the rippled reflections on the water. Lines seven and eight: The intent of these lines may be to suggest that Buddhist enlightenment is achievable by those who have first emptied their minds. Biography: Kuwahara no Hirota, also known as Hirotamaro 廣田麻呂, flourished in the 820s as a poet and court official. He received the kabane title of sukune in 822, when he adopted the surname Miyako. Hirota served as junior secretary in the Council of State, from the early 820s to at least 829. He does not appear to have advanced beyond this level in his career. The present poem is his only extant composition. Comments: Writing poems on assigned topics (daiei 題詠) was a common social activity during the Heian period, at both formal events and private gatherings. The topic was often a feature of the immediate natural surroundings, or perhaps an observation about the weather or the season. In the Heian anthologies usually only two or three poems from any group composition series have been preserved. One exception is the Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū collection (see below), which includes many large verse sets, all on the same assigned topic and written on the same occasion.

Crown Prince Ōtomo. A Verse Composed One Summer Day on Plums in the Rain Garden plum trees, summer is here, the fruit now turning dark. Sometimes soaked by evening rain, causing the leaves to droop. It matters not that the fruit’s so heavy the branches threaten to break; What worries me is that no one will seek the seven left on the tree!

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令製

夏日賦雨裡梅

庭梅入夏惟初暗 夕雨時霑葉復低 不辭實重枝將折 預恨無人迨七兮 Source: bksrs 132, in nkbt 69, pp. 303–304; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line one: The main text has 晴 (brighten, clear up) for the last graph, but following two other editions cross-referenced in nkbt 69, pp. 48 and 303, we have emended this to 暗, meaning “dark” or “to darken.” Line four: “Seven left on the tree” harks back to Ode 20 in Shijing, “Piao you mei” 摽 有梅 (The Plums Are Dropping). This is written in the voice of a young woman watching her friends marry, one after another, and feeling anxious about being left unwed. The first stanza reads, “The plums are dropping, / Seven are left. / To the men who seek me, / This is the opportune time.” Ōtomo’s line may or may not have had allegorical significance. Biography: The prince later came to the throne as Emperor Junna. See the notes to rus 27. Comments: Conditioned to observe nature closely, Heian courtiers turned out numberless kanshi and waka describing natural scenery and phenomena. The general lack of profundity in these poems is often more than compensated for by their tonal elegance and aesthetic refinement, and occasionally by the unusual choice of topic, as is the case here: kanshi about fruit were uncommon. The rain in this poem is perhaps the torrential “plum rains” 梅雨, the monsoon of early—to mid-summer; by referencing the ripening plums the poet may have been providing his own playful explanation as to why the plum rains were so named.

Shigeno no Sadanushi. A Verse Written to Match the Poem “Watching the Leaves Fall” The chilly sound of falling leaves: rain beyond the blinds. They land and dot my quiet mat but never wet my robes. I’ve heard that though it is now late autumn, the Big Dipper overhead, In His Majesty’s palace the leaves on the trees have yet to turn yellow and scatter.

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178 滋野貞主

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奉和觀落葉

寒聲落葉簾前雨 點着閑筵不濕衣 聞道琁璣秋月暮 聖年宮樹待黄飛 Source: bksrs 133, in nkbt 69, p. 304; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: This poem was written in response to one by Emperor Saga. Line one: Drawing attention to the aural similarity between rain and falling leaves is a common convention in kanshi, as is the synesthetic use of the word “chilly” (Ch. han 寒) to describe the sound. Line two: Taking the likeness observed in line one a step further, the poet contrives to find it paradoxical that the falling leaves, while sounding like rain, do not actually wet his clothes. Line four: Sadanushi is perhaps hinting that Heaven has bestowed special favor upon the emperor by delaying the progress of autumn in the palace gardens. Biography: Shigeno no Sadanushi (785–852) was the third son of Ieosa 家譯, sometime governor of Owari. In 807 he completed his studies in Chinese history and literature. After a series of secretarial positions in the Ministry of Central Affairs, Sadanushi went on to serve in various responsible posts: head of the Bureau of Books and Drawings (822), tutor to the crown prince (823), senior assistant head of the Ministry of War (835), head of the Treasury (840), consultant and senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial (both in 842), and head of the Ministry of the Imperial Household (849). Sadanushi also occupied (or at least derived income from) numerous governorships, many while holding other higher posts; he reached the rank of senior fourth, lower, granted in 850. In a memorial submitted to Emperor Montoku in 849, Sadanushi documented certain abuses of office occurring in Dazaifu and recommended reforms, but his appeal apparently had little effect. Shoku Nihon kōki records that in 844/4 Sadanushi sought permission from the throne to give up his residence and establish a new temple modeled on one in China, which he named Jion’in 慈恩院. A leading literary figure in his day, Sadanushi served as one of the compilers of Keikokushū and wrote its preface; this anthology contains twenty-five of his kanshi, the next to largest sample by a single author. He also participated in the compilation of Bunka shūreishū and was the chief editor of the 1000-maki classified dictionary Hifuryaku 秘府略 (A Condensed Secret Treasury, 831; only two maki survive), commissioned during Junna’s reign. Besides his verse in Keikokushū, two more of Sadanushi’s poems are found in Ryōunshū, six in Bunka shūreishū. For further details about his well-documented career, see Kojima, pp. 1842–43.

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Emperor Saga. A Poem Composed on the Line “The Autumn Moon Bright above the River Long” At the fortress by the pass the autumn night is clear. The solitary moon over the river Long is round. The muffled sound of the water breaks my heart; Flying mugwort, the desert frontier cold. A distant flute surprises me, up in the hills; Geese in flight I hear away in the clouds. On frontier duty, thoughts of home are acute. Hearing the apes, my sorrow never subsides. 御製

賦得隴頭秋月明

關城秋夜淨 孤月隴頭團 水咽人腸絕 蓬飛砂塞寒 離笳驚山上 旅雁聽雲端 征戎鄉思切 聞猿愁不寬 Source: bksrs 134, in nkbt 69, pp. 304–305; octave (pentasyllabic). Line one: The pass was on Mount Long in Shaanxi province, near the border with Gansu in the northwest part of what is today Longtou county. The Long river, a tributary of the Wei, flows down from the mountain. The Long area figures prominently in late Six Dynasties-Tang frontier poetry, a notable example being “Longtou Yin” 隴頭吟 (Longtou Lament) by Wang Wei. Line three: Serving at the border, the narrator is homesick, a universal trope in frontier verse. The word “muffled” (yan 咽) suggests sobbing; thus, the sound of the river reflects the poet’s own suffering. Line four: Mugwort flying about is a figure for the poet, who feels as if he has been cast adrift on China’s frontier. Lines seven and eight: Travel to remote, unfamiliar regions was commonly presented in Sinitic verse as a cause for sorrow, something not undertaken for pleasure. By convention, hearing apes or wild geese in the distance deepened the poet’s melancholy. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: This is one of the earliest extant kudaishi. The five-word kudai reproduces the first line of a poem by Yang Shidao 陽師道 (Duke Yi of Ande, ?–647) titled

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“The Longtou River” (Longtou shui 隴頭水). Saga reproduces four of the five kudai graphs in the first couplet, together with two associated graphs as possible substitutions, 團 (round) and 淨 (clear), both in apparent allusion to the full moon’s brightness (明). In the second and third couplets Saga expatiates upon the content of the kudai, alluding repeatedly to the lonely Long river region using stock visual and auditory emblems of autumn (mugwort and geese, for example). Saga’s poem lacks an overt honmon historical reference in the third couplet and instead extends the expansive description of the second couplet. The final couplet provides a jukkai lament.

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Keikokushū 經國集 (A Collection of Works for Bringing Order to the Realm, 827), Compiled by Yoshimine no Yasuyo and Others Yoshimine no Yasuyo. A Heptasyllabic Poem Presented to Match One by His Majesty Written When He Heard that Sadatada, Regimental Commander of the Right, Had Entered the Priesthood 1



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Warriors are not the only ones who offer loyal service; Among our nation’s earnest defenders we include the Buddhist clergy. In the Vermilion Palace you presented documents but now have left your  post; Before the Black Altar you received the tonsure, forsaking the dusty world. Toward the Palace of Nine Walls you turned around and gazed; But to the faith and its single path you have wholly committed yourself. The color of your robes has changed to show you’re on the road to the  truth. But the marks from your cap have not yet faded, your forehead still has a  line. Autumn mists, evening hymns; you look out at the yellow leaves. Dawn moon, the distant bells; white clouds all around. Although you earnestly follow The Way, deep among the vines, Your heart as ever remains devoted to our sagely Lord.

良岑安世

七言 奉和聖製聞右軍曹貞忠入道見賜



效忠非獨兵欄士 護國之誠法門人 丹闕上書已罷職 緇壇落髮不關塵 九重城裡回頭望 一乘車前專意臻 服色就真道體改 冠痕未滅半額分 秋嵐晚偈對黃葉 曉月疏鐘在白雲 行道偏雖深蘿處 懸心猶是爲明君

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_006

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Source: Keikokushū (kks) 44, in Kojima Noriyuki, annot., Kokufū ankoku jidai no bungaku, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 3 (ge), pt. ii, pp. 2651–59; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). Anthology: Keikokushū, the last of the three imperially-sponsored Sinitic anthologies, was completed in 827. Its chief compilers were Shigeno no Sadanushi (d. 852), Yoshimine no Yasuyo 良岑安世 (d. 830), Minabuchi no Hirosada 南淵弘貞 (d. 833), Yasuno no Fumitsugu 安野文繼 (d. 828), and Sugawara no Kiyokimi (d. 842). The title “A Collection of Works for Bringing Order to the Realm” is based upon the line “Literary works are the supreme achievement in the business of [administering] the state [keikoku],” found in Lunwen, a treatise by the Chinese literatus Cao Pi (187–226; see the Introduction), which was taken to mean that literature had the ability to promote disciplined and orderly governance. The anthology was sponsored by Emperor Junna (r. 823–33), Saga’s brother; three of Junna’s poems are among the surviving verses. Once again, Saga has the largest number of poems, with twenty-six, followed by Shigeno no Sadanushi, who has twenty-five. The works in this collection, the earliest of which dates from 707, were composed over a far longer time span than those in the first two Saga anthologies. A sizable proportion of the verse emanates from the emperor’s coterie, much of it composed on public occasions. Of the original 20 maki only 6 survive; four contain 228 kanshi by 96 poets. Organized by genre, these works are as follows: 17 fu (prosepoems); 11 yuefu 樂府 (“Music Bureau” poems, quasi-folk ballads mostly on archaic themes); 49 poems relating to Buddhism, and 151 zatsuei, many of them eibutsu on diverse topics. The inclusion of prose (such as poetry prefaces and exam essays) is an innovation, the earlier anthologies consisting solely of verse. Further features include the continued use of assigned rhyme words and the prominence given to “harmonizing” verses, together with pieces written on imperial command; all such practices remained commonplace in kanshi social versification. Two recent essays by Gotō Akio and Takigawa Kōji on the compilation of Keikokushū and its predecessors, the reception of Chinese critical treatises, and the perceived function of letters in the Saga/Junna courts, can be found in Denecke and Kōno, Nihon “bun”gakushi [A New History of Japanese “Letterature”], vol. 1, pp. 302–77. Title: Sadatada’s surname is unknown. The poem was written in 826. The post of regimental commander of the right was within the Chinjufu 鎮守府 (Ezo Pacifying Headquarters), located in northeastern Japan at Taga-jō 多賀城 and responsible for keeping Mutsu and Dewa under control. Although Sadatada is not listed among Yasuyo’s eight male progeny, it seems highly likely that he was a close relation, perhaps a foster son or son-in-law. This is suggested by the fact that Emperors Saga and Junna each sent Yasuyo a congratulatory poem (kks 42 and 43, not translated) about Sadatada dated the same year as the present poem.

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183

Another poem by Yasuyo (kks 56, translated below) deals with the entry into the priesthood of someone who, though not named, is identified as one of his sons. Yet another son, Munesada 宗貞 (816–90), the future Priest Henjō 遍照 and one of the Rokkasen poet-sages, took his vows in the Tendai sect, well after Yasuyo’s death. Lines one and two: It was generally recognized that after a person had left the lay world he still could play an important role in enhancing the prosperity and security of the realm through prayer and devotional observances. This notion is reiterated indirectly in the last line as well. Line five: Chinese and Japanese palaces were conventionally described as having nine (concentric) walls. The reference to looking back at the palace, presumably as he leaves the city to enter the priesthood, is an affirmation of Sadatada’s continuing devotion to the imperial court, a subtle political touch. Line eight: This is Sadatada’s official cap. Yasuyo seems to be offering a laudatory comment about Sadatada’s many years of official service. The mark on his forehead symbolizes lingering attachments to the lay world, which even the most devout likely found hard to shed. Biography: See the notes to bksrs 43. Comments: Keikokushū has many kanshi relating to Buddhist life, some about the departure of a loved one who is leaving (or has left) the lay world to join a monastery. Poems addressed to these persons, while typically approbatory, sometimes include a reminder about the austere life of anonymity that lies ahead and the attachment they will continue to feel for the secular world.

Koreyoshi no Harumichi. A Heptasyllabic Poem Presented to Tomo, Holder of the Flourishing Talent Degree, Who Is Entering the Priesthood You are tired of seeing the hierarchies that prevail in the land of dust; About to head off and live in the clouds and learn to achieve Nirvana. Your wife and children you’ve left behind to grow old in the human world; With your begging bowl you will journey afar, seeking the transcendent realm. To rinse your hands and mouth you’ll seek the valley streams at dusk; To observe yourself and do quiet sitting go indoors at the sound of the bell. Who knows if after you have left your friends will remember you still? And where, off in the misty clouds, will anyone ask your name?

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184 惟良春道

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七言 送伴秀才入道

厭見風塵上下情 欲雲栖去學無生 妻孥棄在人間老 錫鉢遙尋象外行 盥漱應隨溪水暮 觀身靜坐進鐘聲 不知別後相思伴 何處烟霞訪姓名 Source: kks 45, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 3 (ge), pt. ii, pp. 2659–63; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: “Tomo” by itself may be a full surname, possibly designating Tomo no Katsuo 伴勝雄 (776–831) or another member of that family. Alternatively, this could be an abridgement of the surname Ōtomo and perhaps a reference to Ōtomo no Narimasu 大伴成益 (789–852), son of Uji 宇治 and the author of kks 188 (Kojima, p. 2659). A mid-level courtier, Narimasu held posts in the Left Office of the Capital, the Ministry of Finance, and the Right Controllers’ Office. Another possible identification is the courtier-poet Ōtomo no Ujikami 大伴氏上 (fl. ca. 830, author of rus 83), a contemporary of Harumichi who once served in the Ministry of Central Affairs and as right middle controller, holding the former post when kks was compiled. It is not known whether Tomo no Katsuo or the two Ōtomo men ever received the “Flourishing Talent” (shūsai) credential. See the notes to rus 42. Line five: Rinsing one’s hands and mouth was a form of self-purification. Line seven: “You” is actually 伴; this appears to be a reference to the man “Tomo” (伴) to whom this poem is addressed. See the title note. Another possibility is that “tomo” here means friends or companions, in which case the line would read, “Who knows if after you have left you will remember your friends?” Biography: Koreyoshi (Korenaga) no Harumichi (fl. ca. 830) was a kanshi poet and low-level official. His forebears were apparently from Kudara, but little else is known about his family. The table of contents in Keikokushū lists Harumichi’s rank and office as “junior eighth, upper; junior secretary of Ōmi province.” Nihon kōki records that in 832/3 he received an unusual double promotion from junior seventh rank, lower, to junior fifth, lower, even though he was not in a post at the time. In 837 he became vicegovernor of Ise, followed by another promotion around 844. Harumichi is identified in the titles of certain Saga verses, but not in those by other courtiers, by the sobriquet “recluse” (逸人) or “mountain man” (山人), however there is no evidence that he actually lived as a recluse. As Gotō Akio speculates, what he and Saga had in common was an affinity for the mountains and an idealized view of life in rustic reclusion, as well as a close bond of friendship (Gotō, Heianchō kanbungaku - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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shi ronkō, pp. 146–47). Well-connected in noble circles despite an unremarkable official career, Harumichi was highly regarded as a poet in Saga’s coterie, gaining fame for his exchanges with poet-colleagues, most notably Ono no Takamura—see fss 30 and 59, below—and with diplomats from Parhae, in 842. Saga himself addressed various poems to Harumichi, including kks 35, which was written in response to a verse about an illness Harumichi had experienced while staying at Kegonji 華嚴寺. On the relationship between Saga and Harumichi, see Gotō Akio, “Saga Tennō to Koreyoshi no Harumichi” in Kokugo to kokubungaku 84.9 (2007), pp. 14–25. Eight of Harumichi’s kanshi are preserved in Keikokushū. Court scholar and imperial tutor Ōe no Koretoki 大江 維時 (888–963) later named him as one of the ten best Sinitic poets in his preface to the non-extant collection Nikkanshū 日觀集, compiled by order of Emperor Murakami (926–67). Further works by Harumichi can be found in Fusōshū (ca. 995–98), Wakan rōeishū, and Shinsen rōeishū 新撰朗詠集 (A New Collection of Japanese and Chinese Poetic Recitations, comp. Fujiwara no Mototoshi, ca. 1119).

Yoshimine no Yasuyo. A Farewell Poem to My Son, Who Has Left Home and Gone into the Mountains: Written in Pentasyllabic Lines 1



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I have one particular son, Untouched by the dust and troubles of the world. Heaven has freed him to become a vessel of The Way; When young, he stood out already for his Zen mind. Recently he took on studying the Heart Sutra, And now has started learning the Sanskrit sounds. In the wilderness, stitching a green kuzu robe; [In the hills, sewing?] an emerald heira garment. Leans on his staff among the mossy rocks; Lifts his flask by the banks of the valley stream. Whereabouts is he leading this ascetic life? On snowy peaks among the white clouds deep.

良岑安世

五言 別男子出家入山

我有一兒子 塵煩不可侵 天縱成道器 童齒拔禪心 新負心經帙 初諳梵字音 野縫青葛衲 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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□□綠蘿襟 杖錫岩苔上 提瓶澗水潯 苦行何處所 雪嶺白雲深 Source: kks 56, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 3 (ge), pt. ii, pp. 2705–11; pailü (twelve lines, pentasyllabic). Title: Yasuyo had eight sons; it is unclear which one he is referring to here. We may rule out the youngest, Munesada, who did not take vows until twenty years after his father’s death. Line seven: Kuzu (kudzu) is a fast-growing vine native to southern China and Japan. Line eight: There is a two-character lacuna here, a portion likely parallel with the first two words in line seven: “wilderness” and “stitch[ing]” 野縫. Kojima suggests “hills” and “sew” 山綴 as the missing words, which we have adopted provisionally. In Nara and Heian kanshi, references to ra 蘿 and heira 薜蘿 denoted (1) wild forest vines in general and (2) the thin, coarse fabric spun from the fiber of these vines, which included such as plants as nishikigi (spindle), fuji (wisteria), and tsutakazura (dodder). This material was used to make robes worn by monks and hermits. In China, the term biluo 薜蘿 (J. heira) traditionally refers to ficus pumila (climbing fig, the bi in biluo) and cuscata chinensis, a kind of dodder also called rabbit floss (luo, the modern term being 女蘿 nüluo). In China biluo was similarly associated with the garments of recluses. Biography: See bksrs 43.

Priest Kūkai. A Heptasyllabic Poem About Being Visited in the Southern Mountains by a Buddhist Monk from Silla I’ve been living here in these mountains for who knows how many springs. Empty, I gaze at the clouds and sun, never seeing a soul. A monk from Silla came to this place, wishing to find seclusion: Staff in hand he flew up here, exactly like some god! 釋空海

七言 南山中新羅道者見過

吾住此山不記春 空觀雲日不見人 新羅道者幽尋意 持錫飛來恰如神

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Source: kks 59, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 3 (ge), pt. ii, pp. 2744–47; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: Southern Mountains: the site of Priest Kūkai’s monastery, Kongōbuji 金剛峯寺 (est. 816). This was the center of the Shingon 真言 sect, located on Mount Kōya 高野山 in Wakayama prefecture. Silla was one of the ancient Three Kingdoms of Korea, alongside Paekche and Koguryŏ; in existence from 57 bce to 935, it was one of East Asia’s longest-lasting dynasties and an important trading and diplomatic partner of Japan from the late seventh century. Japan sent some thirty-three embassies to Silla between 668–882; the last of forty-eight incoming embassies from Silla arrived in 779 (Fuqua, pp. 147, 162). Silla was taken over by Goryeo (Koryŏ 고려 or 高麗; 918–1392), a state established by King Taejo in 918. Biography: Priest Kūkai (774–835) was a leading figure in the intellectual and religious history of Japan. Ordained at age twenty-two, he traveled in 804 to Chang’an, where he studied at the Qinglong temple, learning Sanskrit and the ways of Tantric Buddhism. After returning to Japan in 806, Kūkai produced many important religious writings and became a leading poet and literary scholar. His kanshi appear in Keikokushū and in his own anthology, Henjō hokki shōryōshū 遍照發揮性靈集 (also known as Henjō hakki seireishū), comp. 827–35. Around 819 Kūkai completed Bunkyō hifuron, a work on Sinitic composition and prosody drawing upon Six Dynasties and Tang texts, many of which are no longer extant. Kūkai was also a distinguished calligrapher and sculptor, renowned as well for his social work, establishing schools for the common people and creating irrigation systems. In 921 he was posthumously named Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師 (The Great Teacher and Promulgator of the Buddhist Law). For authoritative studies in English on Kūkai’s life, his literary works, and place in Heian cultural history, see William J. Matsuda, “The Founder Reinterpreted: Kūkai and Vraisemblant Narrative,” M.A. thesis (2003) and Matsuda, “Beyond Religious: Kūkai the Literary Sage,” Ph.D. diss. (2014). Another important contribution is Paul Rouzer, “Early Buddhist Kanshi: Court, Country, and Kūkai,” Monumenta Nipponica 59.4 (Winter 2004): 431–61.

Priest Kūkai. A Heptasyllabic Poem About a Visit to Jinxinsi Temple The entire hall has an ancient appearance, dusty brown its color. New blossoms lie fallen on the ground, the mingled sounds of birds. Seeing them walking between devotions, I find myself deeply moved: The several priests who are present do not ask me who I am.

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188 釋空海

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七言 過金心寺

古貌滿堂塵暗色 新華落地鳥繁聲 經行觀禮自心感 一兩僧人不審名 Source: kks 60, in Kojima, vol. 2 (chū), bk. 3 (ge), pt. ii, pp. 2747–50; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: The location of this temple is uncertain, but it may have been in Runzhou 潤州, modern Jiangsu province, where there was one with this name (Kojima, pp. 2747–48). There is also a temple with the same name (J. Konshinji) in Sanda, southeast Hyōgo prefecture, established in the latter half of the seventh century. Line three: The priests are conducting kinhin (kyōgyō) 經行 (Skt. caṅkamati), taking walking intermissions during meditation or prayer. Biography: See the notes to the previous poem. Comments: The priests do not ask his name because they are focused on their religious activities and oblivious to everything else, including perhaps the natural beauty mentioned in line two. Far from feeling offended, Kūkai doubtless admired their singlemindedness.

Retired Emperor Saga. Song About an Old Man: In Heptasyllabic Lines An unfettered elderly gentleman is living in our midst. Throughout his life he has never felt any envy toward the noble. Living in the world of men, caring not that he’s lowly and poor; Lying drunk in the fragrant grove, wind in the flowers and willows. 太上天皇

七言 老翁吟

世有不羈一老翁 生來無意羨王公 人閒忘却貧與賤 醉臥芳林花柳風 Source: kks 104, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. i, pp. 3112–16; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line three: Kojima treats 閒 as a variant for 間, resulting in the phrase 人間, “in the world of men.” It is also conceivable that 閒 (as a variant for 閑) means “idle and at peace,” in which case the line could be rendered: “Idle and calm, caring not that

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he’s lowly and poor.” This interpretation calls to mind the Wang Wei couplet “Mind at peace, cassia flowers fall, / Night still, spring mountain empty” 人閑桂花落、夜靜春 山空, which opens the quatrain “Niaoming jian” 鳥鳴澗 (Birdsong Brook); translation by Irving Yucheng Lo. See Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo, eds., Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (1975), p. 96. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: Emperor Saga nursed a whimsical fondness for the quasi-Daoist eremitic lifestyle and Buddhist detachment from the world. This is illustrated by the number of poems he wrote that are addressed to (or are about) persons living in rustic isolation.

Ishikawa no Hironushi. A Pentasyllabic Poem to Match Shunta’s “Poem on Ghosts” Ghosts and spirits cannot be understood: From the realm of darkness, soundless and intangible. It’s said they have form and yet are never seen; Lacking morality, strange in how they behave. Qi Xiang could not escape their revenge; For Jin Jing, misfortune likewise followed. Though it’s hard to tell if they’ll be visible or hidden, The disasters and mischief they cause will soon be known. 石川廣主

五言 同春太詠鬼之什

鬼神惟不測 冥運入希微 論有形無見 言無道有奇 齊襄未免譴 晉景亦殃隨 隱顯雖難定 禍淫在可知 Source: kks 125, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. i, pp. 3203–3207; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: “Shunta” has not been identified; this may be a Sinified nickname for Harumichi 春道. See kks 45, above, and Kojima, p. 3203. Line five: Qi Xiang was Duke Xiang of Qi 齊襄公. Traditional accounts relate that in 686 bce the duke was out hunting one day when he shot at a pig, which stood on its hind legs and shrieked, causing the duke to fall out of his chariot in shock. Instead of

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seeing a pig, his retainers saw one of the duke’s cousins, Peng Sheng 彭生, whose death had been ordered by the duke some eight years earlier. The duke was killed by rebels shortly thereafter. Hironushi is implying that the ghost of Peng Sheng, seeking revenge, was behind the duke’s death. The story is recorded in Zuo zhuan, in the entry for the eighth year of Duke Zhuang. See Watson, trans., The Tso Chuan, pp. 17–20. The story also appears in the biography of Duke Xiang in Shi ji 32. Line six: Jin Jing was Duke Jing of Jin 晉景公 (r. 599–581 bce). According to a story in Zuo zhuan (within the entry for the tenth year of Duke Cheng), Duke Jing dreamed he saw a ghost who accused him of killing his (the ghost’s) grandsons and threatened to seek justice from the Lord on High. The duke fell ill and was told by a shaman that he would not live “to eat the new [season’s] grain.” He then had a dream about two young boys, who were interpreted as being the embodiment of his illness and as having taken up residence in his body. Some time later, the duke died when he fell into his privy after eating the new grain of the season, which had caused his stomach to swell. The ghost and the two boys were said to have belonged to a family unjustly put to death by the duke two years earlier. See Watson, ibid., pp. 120–21. Lines seven and eight: The enjambment seen here, with approximate parallelism, is an early use of the “flowing-water” technique. See the notes to bksrs 27. Biography: Ishikawa no Hironushi (dates unknown, fl. ca. 824–34) was serving as junior assistant head of the Ministry of Justice when this poem was written. The text indicates that he held the junior fifth rank, upper, awarded in 825/1. See the Kojima commentary, p. 3204, which cites the index to maki 11 of Keikokushū. Comments: In Japan, ghosts and spirits were considered omnipresent, inspiring awe and fear. In the Shinto religion it was believed that upon death humans were transfigured into spirits and sometimes deities. Buddhism built upon these indigenous beliefs, holding that persons who died violent or unnatural deaths, or who upon dying harbored feelings of having been wronged, would become vengeful spirits. These were said to be capable of haunting the living and doing harm, unless placated and released from their suffering through prayers and rituals. During the Heian age such ghosts were often linked in the popular imagination to outbreaks of disease and calamities. Although belief in ghosts was deeply rooted among the common people in China, scholars were often more skeptical. Confucius himself declined to be drawn into discussions about the supernatural world. In their popular literature, the Chinese took the appearance of ghosts as a sign that someone had returned to earth to seek justice after having been wronged (or not provided for properly) during their lifetime. Ghosts sometimes made mischief for no apparent reason; as Patricia Buckley Ebrey comments in the chapter “Tales of Ghosts and Demons” in Ebrey, ed., Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (1993), “Demons might enjoy annoying people who had done nothing to provoke them,” behaving in an inexplicable fashion, as seen in the third story she

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includes, excerpted from Soushen ji 捜神記 (In Search of the Supernatural, fourth century, by Gan Bao 干寶). See Ebrey, pp. 105, 108.

Retired Emperor Saga. A Heptasyllabic Poem About Listening to the Early Bush Warblers: For Showing to the Mountain Hermit Koreyoshi no Harumichi The colors of spring are here again, the first warblers fly. Their dawn song has just returned, but you do not return. Lonely in your empty room, no one to hear them with you. In the spring cold, you must be unhappy with only heira curtains. 太上天皇

七言 聽早鶯示惟山人春道

春歸物色早鶯飛 曉哢初歸人不歸 寂寂空房無與聽 春寒獨恨薜蘿帷 Source: kks 128, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. i, pp. 3222–25; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: Koreyoshi no Harumichi: see kks 45, above. Lines three and four: Heira: thin, coarse fabric traditionally worn by hermits and monks and used to make curtains. See kks 56 for details. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to rus 6.

Retired Emperor Saga. A Heptasyllabic Poem on a Night in the Mountains Shifting lodgings, last night I slept among heira vines. While I dreamed, the mountain roosters heralded the dawn. Without my noticing, clouds arrived—somehow my robes got damp. Then I learned that the house was standing beside a deep ravine! 太上天皇

七言 山夜

移居今夜薜蘿眠 夢裡山雞報曉天 不覺雲來衣暗濕 即知家近深溪邊

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Source: kks 141, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. ii, pp. 3378–82; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line one: Saga’s reference to sleeping among heira vines creates a romantic link to the eremitic tradition. Saga fancies himself as following in the footsteps of celebrated hermits stretching back into deep antiquity in China. As related in the Introduction, Heian courtiers were drawn to the idea of hermitage, enchanted by the freedom it seemed to offer and by the historic association of eremitism with high moral principles. Accordingly, kanshi about bucolic sojourns and daylong excursions into the countryside are often replete with code words and allusions that resonate with the theme of reclusion and eremitism. Lines three and four: It was popularly believed that clouds, bringing dampness, emanated from deep ravines. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: This quatrain is a typical vignette, in which the poet relates a minor yet noteworthy incident from daily life. The evidence trope, seen earlier in bksrs 29, reappears in the present poem: Saga is confronted with a small mystery (in this case, the dampness of his clothes), which is soon resolved. In the greater scheme of things the topic may be ordinary, yet the whimsy of this poem manages to charm. Courtiers not normally privy to details about their sovereign’s personal life would likely have found this morsel intriguing.

Ki no Toratsugu. A Pentasyllabic Poem Written for the Examinations; I Was Assigned the Phrase “Polishing the Gem from Jing” as My Topic [With “heaven” as the rhyme word and limited to sixty characters] 1



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The mountains of Jing can be called a treasure house: The classics and histories do not mention them for naught. A jade disc was found there, worth a string of cities; And yet the world knew nothing of its beauty. Hidden brilliance deep within a valley; Sheathed brightness beside a sheer cliff. Its value approaching a thousand pieces of gold; Shape as round as the moon when it is full. Ice and frost could never match its purity. Metal and stone—how could they be as strong? Had it not been presented by Bian He, It could never have been offered to the August One.

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紀虎繼

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五言 奉試得治荊璞 以天爲韻限六十字

荊山稱奧府 經史不空傳 中有連城璧 世無覺彼妍 潛光深谷內 韜彩峻巖邊 價逐千金重 形將滿月圓 冰霜還謝潔 金石豈齊堅 未遇卞和獻 無由奉皇天 Source: kks 187, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. iii, pp. 3796–3803; pailü (twelve lines, pentasyllabic). Title: “The Gem from Jing” 荊璞 is an allusion to a famous jade rock discovered in the mountains of Chu 楚 by one Bian He 卞和 during the eighth century bce (Jing was an alternate name for Chu). Bian presented the rock to the king of Zhao 趙, whose jadesmiths declared it to be worthless. Bian’s foot was cut off as punishment for supposedly trying to deceive the king. Later he presented the jade to the king’s successor, who similarly rejected it and ordered Bian’s other foot cut off. Bian offered this jade to a third Zhao ruler, who finally recognized its true value and had his artisans fashion it into a disk known as a bi 璧. Bian was rehabilitated and was offered a marquisate, which he declined. Line three: In the third century bce, King Zhao of Qin 秦昭王 coveted the disk and offered fifteen cities in exchange for it. For further details, see Shi ji 81 (Biographies of Lian Po 廉頗 and Lin Xiangru 藺相如). Strictly speaking, it was not the disk that was found in the mountains but the original rock from which it was later carved. Line six: The phrase tao cai 韜彩, rendered here as “sheathed brightness,” refers to the coat or crust of stone that encased the jade rock, causing the jadesmiths to believe it was worthless. It may also be an oblique reference to the unrecognized brilliance that the poet hopes his examiner will see in him. Line twelve: August One: the emperor. This line contains the designated rhyme word. Biography: Details concerning the life and career of Ki no Toratsugu (dates unknown) are lacking.

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Comments: In the closing couplet, Toratsugu seems to be hinting that if the examiner were to recognize his brilliance and draw it to the court’s attention then he (the examiner) would be following in the footsteps of Bian He: presenting the emperor with a priceless gift. This poem belongs to a subgenre of kanshi written on assigned topics for the Academy examinations. Thousands of examination poems were likely written during the Heian period, yet only a limited number survive, many of them appearing to be drafts. The best known source is Keikokushū, with sixteen examples, five of them on the topic of dust; several taisaku examination question and answer samples and a number of exam evalutions appear in the Miyako no Yoshika 都良香 (834–79) collection Toshi bunshū 都氏文集 (ca. 879), a partially extant anthology whose poetry portions have regrettably been lost apart from a small number of prose-poems. The examination poems that have been preserved stand as a tribute to the craft of its more skilled practitioners. In general, these poems are of limited literary interest, but in terms of pure technique they can be remarkable tours de force. Sometimes the assigned topics were historical Chinese personages, such as Wang Zhaojun, a perennial favorite; alternatively, a candidate would receive a word or phrase to employ as the topos of his poem. The poetic diction needed to be erudite yet graceful, using high-register vocabulary and avoiding colloquialisms. Personal sentiments were largely off-limits as well. The writer’s task was to display to the examiner not only brilliant craftsmanship but also a thorough knowledge of the historical or literary context of the topic phrase. To this end, he would stuff his poem with as many pertinent allusions as he could muster. Nathan Vedal observes regarding examination poetry during the Tang: “What seems to have been valued was not originality, but rather the ability to produce the correct set of standard associations for a given theme,” a remark which surely holds true for the Japanese court as well. Students avoided using arcane allusions that were “potentially ambiguous” or unfamiliar to the examiner. Vedal also notes that during the Tang there was little compliance in exam poems (and in Tang poetry more generally) with many of the strict rules of Chinese prosody. See Vedal, pp. 40, 45, 59 and also the Introduction, note 30.

Ono no Suetsugu. A Heptasyllabic Poem Written for the Examinations: I Received the Topic “Wang Zhaojun” [Limited to six rhyme words] 1



Suddenly parted from His affection, she left Chang’an behind. Ten thousand miles—sad to hear that the journey would be hard. The lands of Han stretching on and on; to their very limits she traveled. The mountains of Yan soaring high; still not through them yet.

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Black dragonfly wings, the hair on her temples, windblown in disarray; Yellow as the moon, the powder on her face, like flecks of lingering snow. As she crossed the frontier the music of pipes caused her heart to silently  break. On her pale crimson gauze sleeves the teardrops never dried. From towering cliffs apes howled, in the dense fog lamenting; Over distant peaks wild geese flew, the river Long so cold. She knew that her waist was thinner now than how it used to be. So why did she bother constantly looking at her image in the mirror?

小野末嗣

七言 奉試賦得王昭君 六韻爲限

一朝辭寵長安陌 萬里愁聞行路難 漢地悠悠隨去盡 燕山迢遰猶未殫 青蟲鬢影風吹破 黃月顏粧雪點殘 出塞笛聲腸闇絕 銷紅羅袖淚無乾 高巖猿叫重烟苦 遙嶺鴻飛隴水寒 料識腰圍損昔日 何勞每向鏡中看 Source: kks 191, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. iii, pp. 3821–33; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). Title: Wang Zhaojun: see rus 77. Line three: Lands of Han: China. Line four: Yan was a state in northeastern China in ancient times. Line seven: The pipes are a reference to the music of the Xiongnu, to whose realm she was headed. Line ten: The Long flows down from Mount Long in Shaanxi, in a mountainous region adjacent to the Gobi desert. Biography: Little is known about Ono no Suetsugu (fl. ca. 840). One record indicates that he held the junior fifth rank, lower, while acting as provisional governor of Chikuzen in 837. Various modern sources note that he also served as the regular governor there. Kokushi bunin 國司補任, which records the appointments of governors, states that in 837 Suetsugu was made assistant officer for ship repair. Two years later

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he became provisional governor of Aki, according to Shoku Nihon kōki. Suetsugu was connected with both Priest Ennin and a Silla maritime commander named Jang Bogo 張保皐 (Gungbok, 787–846), who effectively controlled Yellow Sea commerce and navigation. Suetsugu wrote a letter of introduction to Jang on Ennin’s behalf while in Chikuzen. While Ennin was crossing by ship to China, the document was lost. Comments: Wang Zhaojun held a special fascination for Chinese and Japanese poets alike, and her tragic tale was a common topos: five of the nine poems in the yuefu section of bksrs are about her. So well known was the story that even a passing reference to barbarian flute music being heard at the Chinese frontier (see line seven) was usually enough to evoke thoughts of Zhaojun in the minds of readers.

Retired Emperor Saga. A Song in Irregular Meter About a Landscape Painting Done on a Wall in the Seiryōden [Limited to six rhyme words] 1



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Such an accomplished artist! So adept at depicting the subtle marvels of the landscape. Before our eyes an ocean rises, spreading ten thousand miles; Beneath his brush mountains appear, seven thousand feet of peril. Dark clouds, murky and lowering, and yet it never rains; A light mist veils the scene, never to disperse. Gaze toward Penglai and Fangzhang—so far away in the distance! And the Five Lakes, with the Three Rivers, on their winding, twisting course. Vast and spreading billows, as if whipped up by the wind. Boats traveling, wherefore are they plying back and forth? Like towering walls the sheer mountains, with hanging heira vines; Layered gorges, curving and crouching, clad in garb of moss. Upon the peaks, a flowing spring: one listens but hears no sound. Tumbling water strikes the stones, falling from valleys and crevices. An empty building, quiet and solitary, voices rarely heard; A mixture of trees all indistinct, dark from dawn to dusk. Beneath the pines, a gathering of immortals; No conversation, yet still their thoughts abstruse. For ages, a koto has lain there, but by whom has it ever been played? For years, a line has dangled there, never catching fish. If you fix your gaze upon the scene, you’ll marvel at the reds and greens; As we face the picture, our feelings are abundantly aroused. The blossoms surpass real ones, for they bloom both winter and spring, Throughout the seasons long delighting the people of this world.

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太上天皇

197

雜言 清涼殿畫壁山水歌 六韻爲限

良畫師 能圖山水之幽奇 目前海起萬里闊 筆下山生千仞危 陰雲朦朦長不雨 輕煙羃羃無散時 蓬萊方丈望悠哉 五湖三江情沿洄 淼漫濤如隨風忽 行船何事往復來 飛壁㟞巘垂羅薜 會巖盤屈衣苔莓 嶺上流泉聽無響 潺湲觸石落溪隈 空堂寂寞人言少 雜樹朦朧暗昏曉 松下群居都仙 與不語意猶眇 度歲橫琴誰奏曲 經年垂釣未得魚 駐眼看知丹青妙 對此人情興有餘 畫勝真花笑冬春 四時長悅世閒人 Source: kks 205, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. iii, pp. 3933–51; song (uta) in twenty-four lines (heptasyllabic except for lines 1, in three characters, and lines 17–18, each with six). Title: Seiryōden (The Hall of Cool and Refreshing Breezes) was the emperor’s private residence in the palace. Heian sovereigns after about 960 resided here for the most part. For more on this building and earlier imperial private quarters, see William H. McCullough and Helen Craig McCullough, trans. and annot., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period (1980), vol. 2, p. 841. Line seven: Penglai and Fangzhang were mythical islands, traditionally said to be located in the Eastern Sea and inhabited by Daoist immortals.

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Line eight: One source lists the Five Lakes as Boyang, Qingcao, Danyang, Dongting, and Tai, situated in Jiangxi, Hunan, and Jiangsu provinces. For the Three Rivers various groupings exist, one being the Zhejiang, Wusong, and Puyangjiang. Line eighteen: Here, the emperor appears to be imputing the silence of the gathered immortals to a transcendent wisdom on their part, one where conversation has ceased to be necessary. Line twenty-four: The graph 閒 appears to be a variant for 間. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: After marveling at the majestic landscape from a distance, Saga seems to step into the painting, commenting on each detail; the scene is so lifelike, the artistry so impeccable that he “forgets” he is looking at a painting. Time stands still, the landscape possessing a permanence and immutability that inspire awe and a yearning for the transcendental. Poems describing paintings form a topical subgenre, albeit a small one. The largest number of such poems is found in Honchō mudaishi; some are in a category labeled zatsubutsu 雜物 (miscellaneous objects), while others are preserved in the byōbu (painted screens) section, for a total of around twenty-five poems.

Koreyoshi no Harumichi. Written in Irregular Meter, to Match Retired Emperor Saga’s Song of the Blue Mountains 1



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Blue mountains: quiet and still. Hanging cliffs: sheer precipices. Looking down from the heights, unfathomably lofty and towering; Thrusting upwards into limitlessly vast cerulean skies. Clouds and thunder: roaring and wrathful. The sun, then the moon: daytime and night. The distant heavens: cliffs, with outcroppings and hollows. Birds in the sky: human traces scarce. Here I have come, hair loose: autumn and then spring. Woods and gullies, bushy and overgrown: here by myself. Mornings steaming millet—evenings boiling a chicken. White clouds all around, I lie near a blue stream. The stream flows: vast and wide. Fragrant plants: verdant and lush. Here in the mountains: no duties to perform. Reading the Odes and the Documents: what a bookworm! In the mouths of the caves, in recesses in the cliffs,

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Sometimes I sit alone, singing in the blue mountains. Singing as I sit, singing as I walk. Blue mountains, utter silence; what greater joy than this?

惟良春道

雜言 奉和太上天皇青山歌

青山兮閴寂 懸岸兮絕壁 下臨不測之崢嶸 上插窮高之空碧 雲雷兮吼怒 日月兮朝夕 敻寰宇兮地隈隩 空鳥兮稀人跡 我來散髮兮秋復春 林壑森森惟一身 朝炊黍、暮烹鷄 白雲爲主臥青溪 溪流兮浩浩 芳草兮萋萋 在山中兮物無役 讀詩書兮身多癖 洞之口、巖之阿 有時獨坐青山歌 坐且歌、行且歌 青山寂寂奈樂何 Source: kks 212, Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. iii, pp. 4054–68; uta (song) in twenty lines (mixed meter). Title: Retired Emperor Saga’s poem is kks 209; the next four poems in kks are on the same topic and were likely composed on the same occasion. For information about Koreyoshi no Harumichi, see kks 45, above and Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. 3, pp. 4007–4008. Line one: This is the first of eleven lines containing the exclamatory particle xi 兮, which is roughly equivalent to “ah” or “oh” and creates a caesura. Its presence imparts an archaic flavor immediately reminiscent of the Chu ci, where this word is frequently seen. We have reflected these words by using a colon at the caesura. Line nine: “Hair loose” is meant to remind us that the poet has retired and no longer has his hair tied up under an official’s cap.

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Line twelve: White clouds all around: literally, “with white clouds as the master.” Biography: See the notes to kks 45. Comments: The first eight or so lines owe a debt to a tradition of verse on journeys through the high and rugged mountains of China, Li Bai’s epic “Shu dao nan” 蜀道難 (The Road to Shu is Hard) being a prime example.

Retired Emperor Saga. Song of the Fisherman: Five Unclassified Poems [Each uses the graph dai 帶]

(#4) Beside the stream he dangles his line—how great must be his joy! Nowhere in the world does he have a home, mostly he sleeps on his boat. Peacefully drinking, then drunk; alone singing fishermen’s songs. On the vast waters, buffeted about, his body splashed by the waves. 太上天皇

雜言 漁歌五首 每歌用帶字

溪邊垂釣奈樂何 世上無家水宿多 閑酌醉、獨棹歌 浩蕩飄颻帶滄波 Source: kks 219, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. iii, pp. 4100–4102; song (uta); zatsugon quatrain, etchō 越調 mode. Line four: The fifth character in the fourth line throughout this series is invariably dai 帶. Similar notations occurs with the two response poems by Princess Uchiko that immediately follow (her repeated character is song 送) and the five by Shigeno no Sadanushi, which use ru 入. Eleven etchō verses preserved in Honchō monzui do not observe this practice, although Zhang Zhihe’s 張志和 (730–82) series of fisherman poems uses the same device, the fifth character in the fourth line being identical in each poem. Biography: See the notes to rus 6. Comments: This poem and the next are part of a group of twelve composed on the same occasion by Saga, Princess Uchiko, and Sadanushi. Although these were not technically ci (lyrics), they were inspired by the aforementioned Zhang Zhihe series, considered the earliest examples of ci in the Chinese tradition. Zhang’s poems and the

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present set follow the same mixed-meter pattern, using seven character lines except for the third line, which contains two hemistiches of three characters each (sometimes interpreted as a pair of three-character lines). This feature is the hallmark of the etchō (Yue tune) mode, which was probably introduced into the Japanese court in the early ninth century. Steininger notes that this subgenre was originally associated with the Yue 越 region of China and seen as “‘crossing [越]’ the boundaries of standard prosody by having an irregular number of syllables” (Steininger, “Poetic Ministers,” p. 228). In the Heian treatise Sakumon daitai we find a prosodic fault called the etchō-byō 越調病 (Yue tune malady), in which a line has either a word too few or too many. In addition to the eleven etchō poems in Honchō monzui, three more appear in Honchō zoku monzui, attesting to the continued popularity of this variety of verse well beyond the midHeian age. Matsuura Tomohisa notes that, unlike the earlier Keikokushū specimens, which do not follow all the regulated verse rules, these mid- to late-Heian examples largely comply with the rules of tonal prosody, notwithstanding the irregular lineation in line three. See Matsuura, “Etchō shi ni kansuru ni, san no mondai: tōdai shinsei no nokoshita mono” in Kokubungaku kenkyū 32 (Oct. 1965), pp. 102–103.

(#5) Chilly river, spring morning; wisps of clouds but clear. On both banks petals flying, night giving way to dawn. Sliced river-perch; watershield soup. After eating, he tipsily sings as in the moonlight he strolls. 寒江春曉片雲晴 兩岸花飛夜更明 鱸魚膾、蓴菜羹 飡罷酣歌帶月行 Source: kks 220, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. iii, pp. 4100–4102; song (uta); zatsugon quatrain (etchō mode). Line three: In China, the phrase chun geng lu kuai 蓴羹鱸膾 “watershield soup and sliced perch” refers to the cuisine of one’s hometown and by extension the nostalgia it evokes. This harks back to a story in Jin shu 晉書 92 about one Zhang Han 張翰 (late third-early fourth century) who, while serving in Luoyang far away from his home district, felt nostalgia one autumn day for the cuisine of his youth and abandoned his post to return south. One of Zhang Zhihe’s fisherman poems (see the notes to the previous

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poem) mentions three foods that Zhang Han longed to eat, these including the two mentioned in Saga’s poem, together with wild rice. Biography: See the notes to rus 6.

[Lady] Koreuji. A Poem Written in Irregular Meter to Match “Song of Tea” by Kose, Governor of Izumo 1



5



10



15

惟氏

Tea bushes in the hills, early spring branches: The shoots are plucked and gathered; time to make the tea. By the hills an old man, who loves to make this treasure. Alone beside his metal brazier he roasts and dries his tea. Below the empty forest, by clear flowing water, Gauze cloth, repeatedly straining the leaves: little silvery spears. Pieces of charcoal, and very soon the heat briskly rises; The cauldron bubbles and boils, then ripples begin to form. A Gong county earthen pot, a bowl from a house in Min. Salt from Wu enhances the flavor, the flavor finer still! Tea by nature has always been something ethereal and pure: The stalactite waters found in grottos surely are no match. The tea now steeped, a lingering fragrance spreads and fills the air. He drinks it, then does nothing else but lie among the clouds, Surely aware his immortal vigor will grow with every day. 雜言 和出雲巨太守茶歌 山中茗、早春枝 萌芽採擷爲茶時 山傍老、愛爲寶 獨對金鑪炙令燥 空林下、清流水 紗巾漉仍銀鎗子 獸炭須臾炎氣盛 盆浮沸、浪花起 鞏縣垸、閩家盤 吳鹽和味味更美 物性由來是幽潔 深巖石髓不勝此 煎罷餘香處處薰 飲之無事臥白雲 應知仙氣日氛氲 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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Source: kks 229, in Kojima, vol. 3 (ge), pt. iii, pp. 4131–42; song (uta); fifteen lines (hexasyllabic and heptasyllabic). Title: Kose: probably Kose no Shikihito—see bksrs 26. The poem referred to here is likely non-extant. Line three: The phrase 愛爲寶 could instead mean “loves this as a treasure.” Line seven: Charcoal: literally “animal charcoal,” perhaps animal-shaped briquets made of reconstituted material (Kojima, p. 4136). Instead, the phrase may mean charcoal from animal bones. Line nine: Gong 鞏 county was in China’s Henan province; Min 閩 is an ancient name for Fujian province. Both were famous for pottery used in tea culture. Line ten: Wu traditionally refers to the central southern coastal area of China, an area associated with the production of salt, said to improve the flavor of tea. Line twelve: As Kojima notes, water flowing through stalactites supposedly had lifeextending properties and was highly prized (pp. 4138–39). Biography: Koreuji has not been clearly identified. She is believed to have served Retired Emperor Saga as a lady-in-waiting. For her other poems, see kks 152 and 171. Comments: The connection made in the final couplet between the old man’s longevity and his tea-drinking is a reminder that in antiquity tea was consumed originally for its medicinal properties. Buddhist monks, for example, drank it to help them focus on their meditation. Drinking tea for pleasure began in the early Tang. In the Heian court it was considered a rare and treasured beverage.

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Denshi kashū 田氏家集 (The Shimada Poetry Collection, ca. 892), Verse by Shimada no Tadaomi A Poem Presented to “Funa-,” Holder of the Flourishing Talent (Shūsai) Degree, Written on a Visit to Master Shimada’s Homestead A scenic spot, a home of renown, beside a little hill. Splendid company, fine conversation, intimate and deep. Spreading mountains a painted screen, right before the window; Tumbling waters woven gauze, winding past our seats. Bamboo leaves tattered, admitting the moonlight; sand like drifts of snow. Pine trees sough as they sweep the dawn sky; so startling—autumn rain? Throughout the night we drained the wine jar, over and over again. But we didn’t get drunk, so I ought to stay at this house again tonight! 島田忠臣

過田大夫莊呈船秀才

勝地名家寄一丘 良人美話是綢繆 山開畫障當窗立 水亂羅文繞座流 竹碎透明沙聚雪 松喧拂曙雨驚秋 昨來經宿瓶頻罄 未醉猶應此夜留 Source: Denshi kashū (dsks) 2, in Kojima Noriyuki and others, annot., Denshi kashū chū [Kenkyū sōsho 98], vol. 1 of 3 vols. (1991), pp. 8–13; octave (heptasyllabic). Anthology: Denshi kashū is an important private collection of verse by Shimada no Tadaomi; see below for biographical notes. Compiled around 892, it has 214 poems, arranged in roughly chronological order and mainly heptasyllabic regulated octaves. The compilation is notable for its large gaps in the poem chronology, with some fifteen years missing between volumes 1 and 2 and another five or six between the second and the third volumes. Several massive verse sequences Tadaomi is known to have composed on commission or for special events are missing altogether (see below). The poetry in vol. 1 spans the period from 843 to 866; vol. 2, from 881 to 883; and vol. 3 from 889 to 892; see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 1, pp. 185–86. Kawaguchi’s chronology of the contents differs somewhat from that found in Nihon koten bungaku daijiten,

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p. 864. Because of these irregularities, it has been speculated that the three volumes as they have come down to us were works discovered and patched together by a later compiler, perhaps in Kamakura times, representing not the whole of his corpus but only certain portions. It is likely that the extant edition preserves parts of Tadaomi’s now-lost manuscript in ten maki titled Den Tatsuon shū 田達音集 (Tatsuon was Tadaomi’s style name). This earlier work may have contained as many as 700 or more poems and perhaps prose pieces as well; see Kawaguchi, ibid., p. 185. Many of Tadaomi’s extant poems are vignettes from daily life, notable for their sincerity, humor, and spontaneity. His character and mind stand out in high relief, allowing us glimpses of Tadaomi’s reactions to events of his time (such as the drinking prohibitions of 866) and insights into what he calls “the ups and downs of official life [that] cause many to stumble and fall” (dsks 44, in Butterflies, pp. 113). He also writes of “longing to shed the delusory thoughts that bind [him] to the world,” while trying to keep his heart “at ease … hum[ming] with the wind in the bamboo” (ibid., dsks 45 and 73, pp. 114, 117). Tadaomi speaks of living peacefully in a simple cottage in the outskirts, lamenting that few guests visit him, because, as he puts it, “my wine cask’s always empty” (dsks 79, ibid., p. 118). To have retired while still in good health was to Tadaomi “true retirement” (dsks 86, ibid., p. 120). Title: “Master Shimada” (Den Taifu 田大夫) has not been identified. This is possibly a reference to Shimada no Kiyota 清田 (779–855), speculated to have been Tadaomi’s grandfather (Denshi kashū chū, pp. 9, 309). The identity of “Funa-” (or Fune) is also unknown. One strong contender is Tadaomi’s Council of State superior, a senior secretary (daigeki) named Ōfuna no Sukemichi 大船助道 (born ca. 809), who by some accounts passed the shūsai qualifying exam around age forty, in 849 (Kojima, pp. 326– 27). Another possibility is Funa (Fune) no Muraji Maro 船連麻呂 (fl. 859–77), who completed his bunsho tokugyōshō studies around 844 (Kojima, pp. 9, 311–12, 326). Biography: Shimada no Tadaomi (828–92?) studied history and literature at the Academy, becoming a monjōshō graduate around 854 and entering court service when he was about twenty-seven, having spent more than a decade on his studies (following Kinpara’s chronology in Heianchō kanshibun no kenkyū, pp. 227–28). He was a student of Sugawara no Koreyoshi (812–80), a shūsai and the father of the renowned poet and statesman Sugawara no Michizane, who in turn studied under Tadaomi, his first teacher. Michizane married Tadaomi’s daughter Nobukiko 宣來子 and the two men enjoyed a close relationship; see Michizane’s biography in the notes to kkbs 39, below. Tadaomi also was on close terms with Fujiwara no Mototsune (d. 891), regent to four emperors, and with scholar-poet Ki no Haseo. Despite his high status in academic circles, Tadaomi held rather ordinary posts. These included junior secretary of Echizen (his earliest known position, ca. 859), acting secretary of Kaga (859), governor of Higo (865), junior secretary in the Council of State (866), and acting vice-governor of Inaba (869), by which time he had been

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promoted to junior fifth, lower. He went on to become junior assistant governor-general of Dazaifu (873) and junior assistant head of the Ministry of War (881), also serving as vice-governor of Mino (883) and Ise (891). During his tenure in Mino, Tadaomi was temporarily appointed director of the Bureau of Buddhism and Aliens, assisting with guests from Parhae alongside Michizane. Around 889 he became director of the Bureau of Medicine, his highest appointment. His final rank was junior fifth, upper. For further details, see Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, pp. 91–93. Tadaomi’s Sinitic verse is prized for its thematic freshness and free-flowing lyricism, expressed in language forthright and often richly metaphorical. As mentioned above, Tadaomi’s original oeuvre included the aforementioned Den Tatsuon shū 田達音集, as well as more than 500 poems for ten byōbu screens, composed at the behest of regent Fujiwara no Mototsune in 881. He also wrote 146 historical poems in 846, all believed to have been heptasyllabic quatrains (Heianchō Nihon, vol. 1, pp. 184, 189). There were still other large bodies of his verse that have been lost. Tadaomi writes in line three of Denshi kanshū 78, that “to commemorate the new reign period, I have written 300 poems,” providing an interlinear note stating that in 859 he had presented 360 poems, apparently to fulfill his tax responsibilities. In the next line he states that three years earlier he had composed “half a thousand” historical poems in praise of great officials, adding in a note that the exact number was 416; see Butterflies, p. 118. Extracts of Tadaomi’s poems appear in Wakan rōeishū, with several verses in Zatsugon hōwa and a poetry preface in Honchō monzui. Overall, his literary output likely exceeded even that of Michizane.

Looking at the Snow in the Palace We always find that the snow is on time, never arriving late. Auspicious snowfalls presage good harvests; such a delight to see. Dark the night, yet I seem to be walking on moonlight-covered ground; Here on this earth, yet treading upon the white clouds in the skies. The imperial palace in no time at all stands out like a silver tower; His Majesty’s flowers in just an instant are trailing fluffy catkins. So amazing—our Sage Lord’s powers of transformation […]; I know already that the cold will force us to wear our padded garments.

[At this time, there was snow that made it necessary to start wearing padded clothing.]

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觀禁中雪 常看順令未曾愆 瑞雪呈豐又可憐 暗夜猶行明月地 人間却踏白雲天 仙宮不日銀臺立 御花非時絮柳牽 多怪聖君神化□ 先知寒篤促須綿 于時有初須綿袋之衣雪也

Source: dsks 38, in Kojima, comp. Denshi kashū chū, vol. 1, pp. 157–62; octave (heptasyllabic). Line two: As defined by peasant folk wisdom, an “auspicious” snowfall was timely and sufficient, yet not so severe as to damage houses. Lines three and four: Tadaomi is pretending to mistake the snow for moonlight and wondering how this could be possible when there is no moon. He also affects puzzlement over how he can be walking among the clouds and yet be on the earth at the same time. Imagined paradoxes in nature and feigned confusion about natural processes that stretched logic sometimes to the point of absurdity were, as we have seen, common conceits in court poetry and considered a mark of literary sophistication. For more on this rhetorical technique, which Konishi Jin’ichi calls “fabricated logic,” see Konishi, The History of Japanese Literature, vol. 2, pp. 18–21. Line seven: The last character has been lost. Kojima believes the missing word to be kiwamu 窮, “to exhaust, to understand fully.” Some texts preserve the top part of this character; see Denshi kashū chū, p. 160. In another convention of court poetry, Tadaomi is implying that the credit for this snowfall redounds as much to the powers of the emperor as to Nature itself. Poet’s note to line eight: Among the poems translated in the present volume, this is the first that has an interlinear note inserted by the poet.

In Attendance at a Palace Banquet Held in Early Spring, We Composed Poems on the Topic “All Things Are Encountering Spring,” by Imperial Command All things naturally arise from the furnaces of Heaven and Earth. Encountering spring they blend together, becoming a single realm. Beneath the ice, deep in the water, tiny fish come alive; In the sun’s warmth within the forest little birds are revived.

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All this is due not only to willful changes wrought by the divine, But also to the Sacred and Virtuous One acting in concert with Heaven! We minor subjects, apart or together, are just the same as straw dogs; How are the blessings that we enjoy any different from those of others? 早春侍內宴同賦無物不逢春

應製

萬類無心天地鑪 逢春混是一寰區 穿冰水底魚兒活 煦暖林中鳥子蘇 非啻神功任意化 又緩聖德契天俱 小臣分合同芻狗 何戴恩光與物殊 Source: dsks 41, in Kojima, Denshi kashū chū, vol. 1, pp. 170–74; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: The figure of Heaven and Earth as the furnaces of metalsmiths spontaneously creating all things is originally seen in Zhuangzi. The language of the second line is indebted to Laozi. Lines five and six: As in dsks 38, Tadaomi is implying that the wondrous creations and transformations produced by the universe are due not only to Heaven’s powers, but to the emperor’s virtue as well. Lines seven and eight: The straw dogs reference derives from a passage in Laozi, which states that Heaven and Earth are “not benevolent” and view all things as “straw dogs.” In antiquity straw dogs were used in sacrifices, but they were not honored or retained after the sacrificial ceremony was over. Laozi’s point is that just as these objects were shown no special favor, Heaven and Earth (and by extension, the sovereign) view and treat all phenomena without preference. Tadaomi is saying that since courtiers, like all the emperor’s subjects, are mere “straw dogs,” they should not expect special treatment, because his favor extends impartially to everyone. Closing a poem with a gesture of self-abasement coupled with flattery is typical in kanshi composed in the presence of the sovereign. Although we have followed Kojima’s commentary in translating line eight, another interpretation seems possible. If the graph he 何 (“how?”) were read as a variant for he 荷, “to bear on one’s back,” and linked with the verb 戴 immediately following, the sense of [荷]戴恩光 would become “the benevolent sunlight that we bear on our backs,” i.e., “the blessings we receive.” The line would then be rendered quite differently: “[Yet] the blessings we receive are different from what all others receive.” In other

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words, unlike Heaven and Earth the sovereign does show a special partiality toward his courtiers, even though they are just “straw dogs.” Comments: This poem is a kudaishi; all but one of the kudai words are reproduced in the poem, in lines 1, 2, and 8. The character 非 in line 5 should be seen as an acceptable substitute for 不, the fifth kudai graph. The kudai source is unknown; the line is probably an on-the-spot creation. Explicit anecdotal references occur in the first and final couplets—not their usual position. The last couplet is panegyric, reflecting the imagined sentiments of the group.

A Late Spring Gathering of Fellow Students, Held to Enjoy the Last of the Flowers in the Garden We’ve known each other since childhood—so much time has passed. Why this spring have we been so slow to hold an impromptu party? Once we are old we’ll regret we spent so few days drinking together; Now that the flowers have faded I’m sad that we didn’t view them more often. As now we meet, our faces still retain their pinkish hue; But once it’s gone, this vigorous glow a team of horses could not retrieve. I’m ashamed this gathering of fine friends has been so lacking in spirit; The last of the flowers coax us to tipsiness—we really ought not refuse! 晚春同門會飲翫庭上殘花 結交童丱遂長期 即事春遊何太遲 年老恨稀同飲日 花衰苦少共看時 相逢顏色紅猶在 一去榮光駟不追 閑散只慙良友會 殘花勸醉未須辭 Source: dsks 46, in Kojima, Denshi kashū chū, vol. 1, pp. 192–96; octave (heptasyllabic). Line three: An alternative reading: “Once we are old we’ll regret there are few days left for drinking together.” Comments: The jocular, reproachful tone sustained throughout this poem is noteworthy. Carpe diem was a popular theme in occasional verse written at informal gatherings among friends.

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Enlightened Thoughts on a Spring Day at a Country Temple No need to yearn for life’s green spring once it has gone away. Nor should we lament in sorrow when the white sun starts to sink. Worldly gain has never been the plan within my heart; Empty fame is exactly like the flowers before our eyes. The priests are my like-minded friends—many weary of secular life. The temple is their regular abode—they seldom live at home. Unencumbered by personal affairs of the world beyond this place; No longer [thinking of ?] the plums and willows, minds on the lotus alone. 春日野寺道心 未須戀著青春去 不復憂差白日斜 世利元非心裏水 浮名盡是眼前花 僧爲執友多厭俗 寺作常居少住家 此外更無身上事 罷□梅柳念蓮華 Source: dsks 52, in Kojima, Denshi kashū chū, vol. 1, pp. 221–25; octave (heptasyllabic). Line two: The graph 差 appears to be a variant for 嗟 “to lament.” Line eight: We concur with Kojima in surmising that the missing word is probably omou 思 “to think,” or something similar; see p. 224 in the commentary. The plums and willows represent natural beauty and worldly pleasures, while the lotus stands for Buddhist doctrines and practices. Comments: This poem reads like a prelude to a declaration of intent to follow the monks’ example and receive the tonsure, but Tadaomi never took this step. During his final years he accepted an appointment as director of the Bureau of Medicine, apparently remaining in the lay world right up until the end.

Keeping Company with the Bamboo In this tranquil spot I quietly sit, keeping company with the bamboo grove. Outside events and human affairs do not intrude on my life. Stems hollow, and yet they are fine for filling out the scenery; Exterior dense, so in time the grove will lend more shade to the steps.

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When there is wind the bamboo resounds, as if it knows how to whistle; In the frost it does not change its joints—a nature just like mine! In the world of human relationships my true friends are few. To this lush greenness I offer my pledge of friendship everlasting. 對竹自伴 靜地閑居伴竹林 自餘人事不相侵 中虛猶合[爲]庭實 外密終期起砌陰 風有作聲如會嘯 霜無變節是同心 世間交結真朋少 唯對青蔥契斷金 Source: dsks 77, in Kojima, Denshi kashū chū, vol. 2, pp. 21–26; octave (heptasyllabic). Line three: The fifth character is missing. Kojima has supplied a tentative graph, derived from the phrase “fill out the garden scenery” 爲庭實, which occurs in Bai Juyi’s essay “On Growing Bamboo” 養竹記. Tadaomi creates a forced paradox here: the bamboo is hollow, yet it can “fill” the garden space. Line six: The ability of bamboo to withstand the ravages of winter was traditionally viewed as mirroring the truly noble man’s capacity to maintain his integrity in adverse times. The phrase bian jie 變節, literally “to change or alter one’s joints,” denotes betrayal of one’s principles. Comments: The earliest example of a verse where the poet proclaims a friendship with a tree or plant is likely Qu Yuan’s 屈原 (340?–278? bce) “Hymn to the Orange.” Qu eulogizes an orange tree, ascribing to it a host of virtues that he wishes to emulate, as well as some he believes he already possesses.

[Untitled] The fish longs for the great oceans, the bird tires of its cage. Every day, three times, I reflect upon myself. The deceased Regent, my bosom friend—I long for his virtue in vain; The sagely ruler has viewed me with favor, and yet I’m without success. Dependent on the new, longing for the old, and aging all the while; Pondering how things begin and end, I’m out of clever schemes.

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Leaves fall and go back to their roots; spring waters return to their source. How in the world did I end up like the fleabane plant in autumn? 無題 魚思大海鳥厭籠 一日三廻省我躬 亡相知音空戀德 明王賜眄未成功 賴新慕舊中間老 尋始要終上計窮 木落歸根泉反㵎 那教身得似秋蓬 Source: dsks 213, in Kojima, Denshi kashū chū, vol. 3 (Osaka: Izumi Shoin, 1994) pp. 417–22; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: The bird and fish references call to mind a couplet in the first of five poems titled “Returning to My Garden and Fields to Live” 歸田園居 by Tao Yuanming (Tao Qian 陶潛, 365–427), which reads: “The caged bird longs for its old forest, the fish in the pond remembers its former mountain pool” 羈鳥戀舊林、池魚思故淵. (Because of the similarity between the graphs for horse and bird, some versions of this poem have “horse” instead of “bird.”) Despite the resonance with the Tao couplet, Tadaomi is expressing a different sentiment: rather than desiring to return to his old pool, the fish longs to swim in “great oceans,” here a metaphor for career aspirations. Line two: Self-reflection in order to rectify one’s errors harks back to a comment made by Confucius’ disciple Zengzi in Lun yu 1.4. This reads: “Every day I reflect upon myself three times, [asking]: Have I been loyal in my dealings with people? Have I been faithful to my friends? Have I put into practice that which I have been taught?” 吾日 三省吾身: 爲人謀而不忠乎? 與朋友交而不信乎? 傳不習乎? Tadaomi cannot fathom why, despite paying careful attention to his own moral cultivation, he has been so ill-favored. Line three: The deceased regent was Fujiwara no Mototsune. Tadaomi served under him and they enjoyed a close friendship. The “virtue” (i.e., power and favor) for which Tadaomi longs is likely that of Mototsune. If this identification is correct, this poem would have been one of his last compositions, since Mototsune died in 891/1 and Tadaomi himself not long thereafter. “Bosom friend” is literally “one who understands the music” (zhiyin 知音, J. chiin), an oft-used phrase derived from a famous tale about two friends named Bo Ya 伯牙 and Zhong Ziqi 鍾子期, who lived during the Spring and Autumn period (722–486 bce). Bo Ya was a skilled qin player and Zhong loved his music. After Zhong died, Bo

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Ya destroyed his instrument and never played again, believing that no one else could appreciate his music the way Zhong did. Numerous sources relate their story: the earliest account that includes Bo Ya’s destruction of his instrument is found in the “Benwei” 本味 section of Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (The Chronicles of Master Lü, sponsored by Lü Buwei 呂不韋, d. 235 bce). Line four: Emperor Uda (r. 887–97) was favorably disposed toward Tadaomi but evidently of little help. Line six: Tadaomi is reflecting on his inability to improve his fortunes, aware that he is near the end of his life. Line eight: Looking back, Tadaomi is no doubt disappointed over having led a life of seemingly endless lowly posts, many of them in the provinces. “Fleabane” is murasaki mukashi yomogi 紫昔蓬, also known as ash fleabane and little ironweed. This plant is an annual forb with a purple flower and belongs to the aster family. Fleabane dries up in the autumn and breaks loose, tumbling about; thus it was used in kanshi as a symbol of rootlessness and instability.

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Kanke bunsō 菅家文藻 (The Sugawara Literary Works, 900) and Kanke kōshū 菅家後集 (The Second Sugawara Collection, 903), Verse by Sugawara no Michizane Five Poems: On the evening of the Fifteenth of the Eighth Month we waited for the moon to appear. Everyone at the party was assigned a rhyme word. [Mine was “utoshi”]

(#1) First watch, awaiting the moon: how do things look right now? Its progress through distant autumn skies seems to be rather slow. Facing east I announce this fact, over and over again. The white clouds may be dense, but all my thoughts are scattered. 菅原道真

八月十五夕、待月。席上各分一字。 得疏

一更待月事何如 疑是遙旻月步徐 爲向東頭千萬報 白雲雖密意猶疏 Source: Kanke bunsō (kkbs) 39, in Kawaguchi Hisao, annot., Kanke bunsō, Kanke kōshū [nkbt 72] (1966), p. 134; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Anthology: Kanke bunsō (12 maki) is the private collection of the statesman and literatus Sugawara no Michizane, one of the most celebrated poets in Japanese history. This work was originally part of a 28 maki anthology of Chinese prose and poetry titled Kanke sandaishū 菅家三代集 (The Collected Works of Three Generations of the Sugawara Family), whose contributions by Michizane’s father and grandfather have presumably been lost. One of the largest extant literary collections of the Heian age, Kanke bunsō in its extant form comprises some 159 prose pieces and 468 poems in literary Sinitic, 22 of which, all banquet poems, feature prefaces. The original work was presented by Michizane to Emperor Daigo in 900. A second body of verse in one maki, now called Kanke kōshū (The Later Sugawara Collection), was entrusted to his friend and fellow-scholar Ki no Haseo in 903, the year of his death. This work, also known as Saifu shinshi 西府新詩 (New Poems from the Western Headquarters [Dazaifu])

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_008

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consists of just forty-six poems, all written after Michizane was banished to Dazaifu, near Fukuoka in northern Kyushu. On the textual history of Michizane’s collections, see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 1, pp. 194–201. Michizane’s most prolific period was his term as governor of Sanuki, the years 886– 90. Close to a third of the kkbs poems were composed during this largely unhappy interlude and, together with the poems written during his even more painful years in Dazaifu (see below), constitute the most compelling verse in his corpus. The 890s saw Michizane back in the capital, enjoying a flourishing political career. Another third of the poems in the collection date from this post-Sanuki period and are characteristically formal, more rhetorically ornate, and often impersonal in tone, many having been composed at court events and by imperial command. Michizane’s extant corpus consists of 519 poems, with 280 regulated octaves, 187 quatrains, and 35 pailü, as well as 16 gushi and 1 zatsugon; there are no prose poems. Overall, heptasyllabic regulated octaves are the best represented subgenre, making up roughly 40%. This is proportionally twice the volume of seven-word octaves found among Bai Juyi’s collected verse, where this form ranks only third after pentasyllabic gushi and heptasyllabic quatrains. For these and other details concerning poetic forms and comparisons with Bai, see Taniguchi Kōsuke, “Kanke bunsō no shitai to kyakuin,” in Dōshisha kokubungaku 33 (Mar. 1990), pp. 41–45. Title: These verses were composed in the autumn of 870, on 8/15; Michizane was twenty-six at the time (nkbt 72, p. 134). Apparently nothing written on this occasion by any of the other participants has survived. At social verse events poets were often assigned a topic or a rhyme word (or words) for use in their compositions. In the present series, having received the word utoshi (疏 Ch. shu), Michizane is required to use it as the rhyme word in each of his poems; but perhaps as an added virtuoso flourish he has succeeded in using it in a different sense in each poem as the night progresses. This rhyme word appears at the end of either line two or four in the original poems; we have italicized the corresponding word or phrase in our translations. Line one: Night was split into five two-hour “watches” (kō 更), the first starting at 7 pm, the last ending at 5 am. Biography: Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) began his classical education at the age of four and soon stood out as a highly promising scholar, entering the Academy at eighteen. His father Koreyoshi and grandfather Kiyokimi had both been professors. In 867, Michizane became a monjō tokugōshō student. Thereafter he received an absentee position as ex-officio junior secretary of Shimotsuke and before long was awarded the senior sixth rank, lower. In 870/3 Michizane passed the hōryaku examination, receiving the shūsai credential and a small promotion in rank. During the next ten years he served in a series of appointments, the first two being assistant director of the Bureau of Buddhism and Aliens and junior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs.

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Further offices included junior assistant head of the ministries of War and Popular Affairs (both in 874), and the same position in the Ministry of Ceremonial (877), a post which Michizane retained until 886. In 877 he became professor of Chinese history and literature and director of the Academy, where he would remain for some nine years. Although Michizane had begun his career as a clerk drafting documents, he soon acquired a high reputation for his peerless literary prowess and was often asked to versify on state occasions. During Michizane’s tenure in the Ministry of Ceremonial and at the Academy he suffered various setbacks, starting in 880, when he was accused of unfair grading practices. In another scandal two years later, he was suspected of composing an anonymous poem slandering Major Counselor Fujiwara no Fuyuo 藤原冬緒 (808–87). While these charges were never substantiated, the insinuations of wrongdoing left Michizane embittered. But more misfortune lay ahead. In 886, Regent Mototsune reshuffled a number of court posts to create vacancies for his own family and followers and to consolidate the Fujiwara presence at court. Many courtiers lost their positions and were shifted to lesser ones, including Michizane, who was appointed governor of Sanuki in Shikoku in the First Month of 886. Michizane had never anticipated such a turn of events, and his homesickness and misery are well documented in some 150 poems he composed during his four years in Sanuki. When he returned to the capital in 890, Emperor Uda had taken the throne. Uda became his patron and close confidant and Michizane prospered; he held an array of positions, including head of the Chamberlains’ Office, consultant, middle counselor, and head of the Ministry of Popular Affairs (896), by which time he had risen to the rank of junior third. He had also been made ambassador to China in 894, but the mission never set sail. When Uda’s son, later enthroned as Daigo, succeeded his father in 897 a quasi-regency was established; Michizane served as minister of the right from 899, with Fujiwara no Tokihira as minister of the left, the higher of the two positions. Michizane’s relatively humble background led certain jealous courtiers to believe that he had risen above his station, and he had attempted to decline this office, fearful of engendering even greater jealousy and suspicion at court. In 900 a colleague suggested that Michizane retire and take Buddhist vows at a temple, as a preemptive measure to avoid possible political retaliation, but he resolved to remain in his post. The following year, immediately after being promoted to the junior second rank, Michizane was abruptly deprived of his office and titles and sent away from the capital, accused of manipulating the emperor and attempting to bring to the throne his own son-in-law, Prince Tokiyo 齊世親王 (886–927), who was married to Michizane’s daughter Enshi 衍子. Michizane was exiled to a hardship post as ex-officio governorgeneral of Dazaifu, where he spent the next three years under house arrest, enduring loneliness and privation. Four of his sons were also removed from office and banished

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to distant parts. Some fifty kanshi have survived from these final years, his despairing lamentations reaching new depths of sorrow and lyrical intensity. His spirit broken, Michizane died in Dazaifu in 903. Two decades after his death he was posthumously rehabilitated, restored to his post as minister of the right and promoted to the senior second rank, the court thus acknowledging that he had been the victim of a severe miscarriage of justice. Shrines to pacify Michizane’s spirit were established during subsequent centuries, and he was raised to almost mythical status as the patron saint of learning. Countless anecdotes about Michizane have come down to us, and more than a millennium later he is still revered in Japan, worshipped as Tenjin-sama 天神様. Michizane’s remarkable and substantial poetic legacy offers endless insights into his character, career, and contemporary society. For an authoritative and detailed biography of Michizane see Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane. Ivan Morris’ The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan (1975), pp. 41–66, also provides a fascinating and colorful look into Michizane’s life and the legends that came to surround him. Morris’ account of the coup against Michizane is particularly vivid and includes the latter’s cri de coeur upon learning of the accusations against him: “Now that I have become / Mere scum that floats upon the water’s face, / May you, my lord, become a weir / And stop me in my downward flow!” Sadly, the young emperor Daigo, Uda’s son and only seventeen years old, was of no help. Uda’s own direct intervention also failed, and even Michizane himself apparently considered it futile to utilize his considerable rhetorical skills to petition the court in self-defense, especially after being excluded from a general amnesty in an edict that disparaged him in highly unflattering terms. On this point, see Denecke, Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons, p. 226. Chapter 6 in this book is devoted to Michizane’s poetry in exile. Comments: In this first poem, Michizane is expressing concern that the clouds might never disperse to reveal the moon. Throughout the series he is seen checking on the status of the moon at regular intervals, to determine whether or not it has appeared. Although the news is always disappointing, any regret he feels never seems to intensify; the moon’s failure to appear is treated as little more than a minor nuisance. The casual tone of these poems is in keeping with the fact that he was attending an informal gathering.

(#2) Second watch, awaiting the moon, how do things look right now? I cannot see the golden orb transversing the deep blue void. Rain patters urgently, clouds in mounting piles. The autumn wind is treating us in a perverse, ill-mannered way!

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二更待月事何如 不見金輪度碧虛 雨脚忩忩雲蔟蔟 秋風爲我可乖疏 Source: kkbs 39, in nkbt 72, p. 134; quatrain (heptasyllabic).

(#3) Third watch, awaiting the moon: how do things look right now? Eyes tired, mind fatigued; from our field of view it is far. The wine’s been passed around ten times, a hundred poems recited. Strange for it not to be shining down, here where we quietly sit. 三更待月事何如 目倦心疲望裏疏 酒是十巡詩百詠 怪來不照我閑居 Source: kkbs 39, in nkbt 72, pp. 134–35, quatrain (heptasyllabic).

(#4) Fourth watch, awaiting the moon: how do things look right now? A bell tolls and time marches on; so much remains unsaid. Even if just one ray of pure light found its way through the clouds, It’d surely beat sitting here all night long by these blinds so dark and gappy! 四更待月事何如 鐘漏頻移意有餘 縱使清光纔透出 當勝徹夜甚簾疏 Source: kkbs 39, in nkbt 72, p. 135; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line four: The graph 甚 appears to be an error or variant for 黮 “dark, pitch black.” See nkbt 72, p. 646. The nkbt edition departs from the 1656 teihon here, following instead the Sakamoto text in providing the word 簷, “eaves” (rather than 簾 blinds) for the penultimate character in this line: see pp. 135, 646.

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(#5) Fifth watch, awaiting the moon: how do things look right now? The elements and human desire fail to coincide. I feel no regret that up in the clouds dawn has come at last. I realize that the rainy periods will provide me time for study. 五更待月事何如 物色人情計會疏 不恨雲中天已曉 應知陰雨我三餘 Source: kkbs 39, in nkbt 72, p. 135; quatrain (heptasyllabic). line four: The phrase san yu 三餘, “three periods of free time,” refers to times when scholars could devote themselves to study because other activities were not possible: winter, evening, and during rain.

Sitting Together and Speaking Our Minds The years have somehow slipped away with nothing much achieved. But supposing we never gathered together, what would life be like? Wine is our “forgetter-of-cares”—many cups we’ve drunk; Through verse we reveal what’s on our minds—plenty of paper we’ve used. I’m ashamed of how I squandered my time, back in my younger days. I especially regret that when sunset came I did not use my spear. My thoughts and your feelings: we’re done with them all tonight. Dawn is here and home we go; let’s not waste another moment! 團坐言懷 暗將年事幾蹉跎 若不團居欲奈何 酒爲忘憂盃有數 詩緣敍志帋猶多 自慙少日徒廻轂 偏恨夕陽不用戈 我意君情今夜盡 曉天歸處莫空過

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Source: kkbs 42, in nkbt 72, p. 137; octave (heptasyllabic). Line three: “Forgetter-of-cares” recalls the famous phrase wang you wu 忘憂物, literally “the thing that makes us forget our cares,” a kenning for wine. The source is Tao Yuanming’s “Drinking Wine: Poem Seven in a Series” 飲酒詩之七. Describing how he floats chrysanthemum petals in his wine as he drinks, Tao writes, “I float them in this forgetter-of-cares, banishing afar all worldly affairs” 汎此忘憂物、遠我遺世情. Line four: “Through verse we reveal what’s on our minds” is a restatement of an iconic dictum associated primarily with the Great Preface to the Shijing but seen also in paragraph 16 of the “Shundian” 舜典 (Canons of Shun) chapter of Shujing 書經 (The Book of Documents): “Poetry is how we give voice to our feelings” 詩言志. Line six: The notion of not using one’s spear at sunset can be traced back to a legendary anecdote in Huainan zi 淮南子 about Lu Yang Gong 魯陽公, Duke Yang of Lu. During a battle with the forces of another state the duke brandished his spear at the sun when it began to set, intimidating it into reappearing so that the fighting could continue. See Charles Le Blanc, Huai-nan Tzu: Philosophical Synthesis in Early Han Thought (1985), pp. 105–106, including footnotes 18–20. Michizane wishes he had shown the same determination and initiative as this warrior. Comments: This poem was written in 869, when Michizane was a monjō tokugōshō student of twenty-five, preparing for the advanced examination. Throughout his youth Michizane was under great pressure to study hard and bring glory to his family. His ambivalence about spending time socializing comes through clearly in this poem. For a detailed account of Michizane’s days as a student see Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, pp. 88–112.

Enjoying the Autumn Flowers [Composed While in Attendance at a Small Banquet Held in the Quarters of the Crown Prince’s Chamberlains] Autumn flowers blooming in all their glory, here at Springtime Palace. His Majesty will behold them growing, massed in bushy profusion. The pure petals are ashamed they’re no match for the pure-minded men; The red blossoms radiate warmth as they look at our drunken red faces. I fear their scent will diminish in the dreary, chilly rain; I hate to think of their beauty being harmed by the evening winds. All these splendid flowers I long to offer to the throne. Where might I find the path that would lead me to His Majesty’s presence?

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翫秋花 東宮侍中局小宴之作 秋花得地在春宮 萬歲將看一箇叢 素片還慙芳意素 紅房溫對醉顏紅 馨香畏減悽涼雨 氣色嫌傷晚暮風 欲惣繁華供殿下 不知何處路相通 Source: kkbs 54, in nkbt 72, p. 146; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: Because it is autumn the flowers are almost certainly chrysanthemums, an emblem of the imperial family; the white ones in particular stood for purity and nobility. A rising star already renowned for his superior poetic skills, Michizane had been invited to this banquet so that he could compose a poem to commemorate the occasion. Crown Prince Sadaakira (868–949) was about two years old at the time, later ascending the throne as Emperor Yōzei (r. 876–84). He turned out to be a murderous sociopath and was eventually deposed by Regent Mototsune, his maternal uncle. Line one: “Springtime Palace” (Haru no miya) was the residence of the crown prince, located at the eastern side of the palace compound. The phrase 得地 (literally, “firmly grounded”) also occurs in Du Fu’s “Gu bo xing” 古柏行 (Ballad of an Old Cypress), in a couplet that reads 落落盤踞雖得地、冥冥孤高多烈風, translated by Stephen Owen as: “Spreading wide, roots coiled and clasped—but though it found firm place, / high and alone in the black of sky there are many violent storms” (emphasis added). For the full poem see Owen, trans. and ed., An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (1996), pp. 432–33. In Michizane’s poem it appears that 得地 has been used somewhat idiosyncratically, meaning more than just grounded but also triumphantly displaying itself: we have followed the nkbt commentary, which provides the gloss tokoro egao ni ところ得顔に (in all their glory; looking triumphant). Line three: In a calculated piece of flattery, Michizane declares that the purity of the courtiers’ noble intentions toward the young crown prince surpasses the purity of the white blossoms. Lines seven and eight: Since influential courtiers would have been present, Michizane’s expression of longing for access to the prince is likely intended for their ears, perhaps part of a strategy to advance his political fortunes.

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At the Mid-Spring Classical Seminar for Confucius, Listening to a Lecture on Xiaojing (The Classic of Filial Piety) A classic establishing Heaven’s Way—such is the Xiaojing. The sagely path has been granted us; the words fill the emperor’s palace. All are discussing filial piety, sons and courtiers alike. How could this only be happening when the winds of mid-spring blow? 仲春釋奠聽講孝經 此是天經卽孝經 分來聖道滿皇庭 爲臣爲子皆言孝 何啻春風仲月下 Source: kkbs 81, in nkbt 72, p. 171; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: This poem was probably written in 887/2. At this event, the biannual sekiten (shakuten, Ch. shidian) ritual occasion to honor Confucius held across East Asia, individual Confucian classics were read and discussed by scholars at the Academy and verse was composed using topic-lines from the text under study. The spring event occurred on the eighth day of the Second Month, mid-spring; an observance was also held in mid-autumn. Denecke and Nguyen note that the sekiten “connected the academies and Confucius temples to the court and its political ideology” (Denecke and Nguyen, “Shared Literary Heritage,” p. 14). In China, the observances date back at least to the third century, being held in Japan for the first time in 701. Anne Commons writes that the event made a comeback in the Japanese court during the ninth century, having lapsed during the eighth, adding that it had become “a large-scale, formal, official event,” though it was later conducted on a smaller scale by individuals rather than by the court. See Commons, Hitomaro: Poet As God (2009), p. 99. See also nkbt 72, p. 655. Line four: Two interpretations of this line are possible: (1) This text needs to be studied all year round instead of just during these seminars; (2) People are in fact studying the text all year round, not just at this time: a thoroughly commendable state of affairs.

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On the Road: My Feelings upon Seeing the Former Residence of Consultant Minamoto no Tsutomu [The Consultant died at the end of summer last year, and several

months later his residence burned down.]

All of a sudden his former home was completely burned to the ground. Sadly I ask: where have they gone, those orphans he left behind? On the charred remains of the colored tiles grows ancient-looking moss; From the half-scorched pine trees the sounds of birds are heard. Everyone knows that from rotting grass fireflies soon appear; But I weep because from the burnt earth only rats emerge. Does anyone own the rocky cliffs from which the springs flow forth? Is the moth ever likely to lose its desire to fly around the lamp? 路次觀源相公舊宅有感 相公去年夏末薨逝。其後數月臺榭失火。 一朝燒滅舊經營 苦問遺孤何處行 殘燼華塼苔老色 半燋松樹鳥啼聲 應知腐草螢先化 且泣炎洲鼠獨生 泉眼石稜誰定主 飛蛾豈斷繞燈情 Source: kkbs 95, in nkbt 72, pp. 182–83; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The year was 882. At the time of his death Consultant Minamoto no Tsutomu 源勤 (824–81), one of Emperor Saga’s many sons, held the rank of junior third. During his career he also served as supernumerary governor of Harima and captain of the Right Gate Guards. Lines seven and eight: Michizane asks a pair of rhetorical questions to which the implicit answer is in the negative: it is no more possible to say who is the master of Nature than to explain why a moth circles a lamp, and by extension explain why, like a moth, Michizane is drawn to the charred remains of Minamoto no Tsutomu’s house.

On Choosing a Place to Live Longevity naturally exists in families rich in humility. Gappy windows, low eaves that slant toward the moon. Even though my property may be cheerless and modest, I do not mind, for when I’m old I’ll be rich in warblers and flowers. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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卜居 長生自在福謙家 疏牖低簷向月斜 縱使門庭皆冷儉 不辭到老富鶯花 Source: kkbs 176, in nkbt 72, p. 242; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line one: This observation is based upon the following passage in the “Qian” 謙 (Humility) section of Yijing: “The spirits harm those who have an overabundance of wealth and enrich those who are humble. It is the way of morality to hate overabundance and to love humility” 鬼神害盈而福謙、人道惡盈而好謙. Comments: This verse was written in 885, when Michizane was forty-one.

Four Summer Quatrains (#1) Suffering in the Heat We’re not yet out of the steamy heat; heaven and earth an oven. Traveling along the road of life is all the rougher now. My children do not permit me to leave for the woodlands and the hills. I suffer in the heat—a mediocrity, such a worthless scholar. 夏日四絶句

苦熱

未出炎蒸天地鑪 況行世路甚崎嶇 家兒不放山林去 苦熱庸材一腐儒 Source: kkbs 179, in nkbt 72, pp. 243–44; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: The verses in this series were written in 885. Line two: Michizane makes a similar observation about the road of life being difficult in kkbs 301, line 10. Line four: The phrase “such a worthless scholar” (yi furu 一腐儒, literally “such a rotten scholar”) is mostly associated with Du Fu’s poem “The Yangzi and Han Rivers” 江漢, where he passes this exact same judgment on himself: “By the Yangzi and Han Rivers the traveler longs for home / Between Heaven and Earth, such a worthless scholar” 江 漢思歸客、乾坤一腐儒. Considering that Du Fu seems to have been little studied in

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Heian Japan, Michizane likely derived this phrase from an earlier source: either Xunzi, in the “Fei xiang” chapter, or Han shu, in the biography of Ying Bu, both of which have the expression furu.

(#2) Hearing the Cicadas The cold cicadas are lucky they can avoid walking in the mud. Sheltering on precarious leaves, nurturing themselves on dew. It pains me that the bleak and chilly winds have not yet arrived, For all that chirping never ceases, even for a moment. 聞蟬 寒蟬幸得免泥行 危葉寄身露養生 猶恨凄凉風未到 不能一旦自無聲 Source: kkbs 180, in nkbt 72, p. 244; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: Describing cicadas as “cold” is a poetic commonplace, alluding to the cheerless sound of their chirping in late autumn. In this couplet Michizane appears to be using the cicadas allegorically, perhaps satirically congratulating certain courtiers on being able to insulate themselves from the “mud” of public life, and for their obliviousness to the insecurity of their lofty positions. Cicadas traditionally were said to subsist on dew, but since the words for dew (lu 露) and emoluments (lu 祿) are homophonous, dew may be intended as a euphemism for the salaries and perquisites that “nurture” officials. The notion of nurturing oneself, yang sheng 養生, with its noble-sounding Daoist overtones of spiritual cultivation and health regimens, sounds ironic here. Lines three and four: The loud and constant chirping has Michizane irritated and longing for winter, when the cicadas will all die off. At another level he may be alluding to the endless prating of his adversaries, hoping that the chilly winds of imperial disfavor will soon drive them from office.

(#3) Young Bamboo This bamboo grew from a cutting that I took from my former home. For the last couple of years it was always the smallest in the yard. This summer it started shooting up, growing straight and long. I’ll cut some stalks and take them to the old angler’s house.

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新竹 此君分種舊家根 一二年來最小園 今夏新生長又直 剪將欲入釣翁門 Source: kkbs 181, in nkbt 72, p. 244; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line one: This bamboo: literally, “this gentleman” (ci jun 此君), a common term for bamboo. See the notes to fss 52.

(#4) Sand Garden I divided up the property by making three slanting paths. Such a shame that when dawn arrives the paths are full of sand. I don’t need all the hubbub that comes with poetry and wine; I did this for the sake of growing my white chrysanthemums. 沙庭 分合家中三逕斜 自慙明後滿庭沙 不須詩酒來喧聒 爲是我開白菊華 Source: kkbs 182, in nkbt 72, p. 245; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line one: “Three slanting paths” is an allusion to the residence of Jiang Xu 蔣詡, a Han dynasty official. In protest against the usurpation of imperial power by Wang Mang 王莽 (r. 9–23), he resigned his post as governor and went into permanent seclusion, creating three paths to his cottage through the vegetation surrounding his home, for use by himself and two friends. Whether the paths were “slanting” (sloping uphill) or simply crossing the garden diagonally is uncertain, since xie 斜 encompasses both meanings. The phrase, closely associated with Tao Yuanming, is commonly used in descriptions of hermitages. Line two: Apparently the wind blew sand from the garden onto the paths. Comments: Michizane’s point in the second couplet is that he did not create the garden and the paths for the pleasure of guests, whose company holds little appeal for him, but simply for his own enjoyment.

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Recently a visitor from the capital came to this province. He recited a quatrain, a poem by Governor Kose of Echizen about how he had dreamed of me here in Sanuki one autumn night. I picked up my brush and wrote it down. After doing so, I felt the urge to try writing a poem myself, to assuage my feelings of sadness. In Hokuzan and Nankai—far away from the capital. The ocean covered in thick dark mist is how it was in the dream. It’s the time of year when I find myself in the mood for shedding tears; The very name of this province has a sound that breaks my heart. Don’t say that because we live far apart you are all alone; I’d hate for people to learn that we’ve been meeting each other at night. If we were to send our spirits forth to rendezvous face to face, They wouldn’t object to going out and braving the cold each evening. 近曾有自京城至州者。誦書一絶云、是越州巨刺史、秋夜夢菅讚州 之詞也。予握筆而寫。寫竟興作、聊製一篇、以慰悲感。 北山南海隔皇城 煙水蒙籠夢裏情 時節暗逢流涙氣 州名自有斷腸聲 莫因道遠稱孤立 嫌被人知會五更 若使神交同面拜 不辭夜夜冒寒行 Source: kkbs 198, in nkbt 72, pp. 258–59; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The visitor who arrived bearing a poem from Kose is unidentified. According to an anonymous annotator of a manuscript used to prepare the nkbt edition, the governor was Kose no Fumio 巨勢文雄 (824–92), formerly a professor who served also as director of the Academy and right middle controller. Kose had been sent away to a somewhat undesirable post in Echizen following the enthronement of Emperor Kōkō in 884; like Michizane, he was a victim of the reshuffling of personnel that took place at that time. See nkbt 72, pp. 682–83. For more on Kose no Fumio, see Takigawa Kōji, “Kose no Fumio kō” in Nara Daigaku kiyō 38 (Mar. 2010). Line one: Hokuzan (Northern Mountains) refers to the Hokurikudō 北陸道 circuit, one of seven such provincial groupings. It included the provinces of Wakasa, Echizen, Etchū, Echigo, Kaga, Noto, and Sado. Nankai (Western Seas) refers to the Nankaidō

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circuit, which comprised Kii, Awaji, Awa, Sanuki, Iyo, and Tosa. Michizane was serving as governor of Sanuki, where he remained between 886–90. Line four: Sanshū 讚州 (Sanuki province) was homophonous with sanshū 慘愁, “misery,” hence this remark. Line six: “Meeting at night” is more literally, “meeting during the fifth watch” (3–5 am), but as the commentator notes, “fifth watch” is often a general designation for the nighttime hours (nkbt 72, pp. 683). Michizane seems upset that a third party (i.e. the bearer of the poem) knows that he appeared in Kose’s dream, and he may be enjoining Kose to be more discreet about their relationship. Lines seven and eight: Michizane is musing over the possibility of meeting the governor in his dreams.

Rising at Dawn and Gazing at the Mountains Throughout the night I did not sleep, all the way till dawn. Lifting up the reed blinds, I look out at the mountains clear. Avoiding people: birds and monkeys among the vine-draped pines. Only the sound of water falling from the cataract after rain. 晨起望山 不寐通宵直到明 蘆簾手撥對山晴 避人猨鳥松蘿裏 唯有飛泉雨後聲 Source: kkbs 273, in nkbt 72, pp. 324–25; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Lines three and four: The now swollen cataract is drowning out the cries of the birds and monkeys. This poem was written in 888; Sanuki had been experiencing a severe drought, which had caused Michizane considerable distress. For more on this event, see the next poem.

Facing the Snow While Living Away from Home Cold enough to freeze warm liquids—something’s about to happen. Amazed, I watch as a silvery powder covers the roof of thatch. Standing there, outside in the courtyard, my head as white as a crane; Sitting beside the brazier so that my hands do not get chapped.

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The flakes of snow suddenly scatter when blown about by the wind; These jewels begin to melt away as soon as the sun appears. In the town throughout the night a foot of snow must have fallen. I rejoice that in the year ahead we’ll be spared both drought and hunger. [This year there was a drought, thus this remark.]

客居對雪 溫液寒凝暗有期 驚看銀粉滿茅茨 立於庭上頭爲鶴 居在爐邊手不龜 花散忽因風力處 玉銷初見日光時 城中一夜應盈尺 祝著明年免旱飢 今年有旱、故云。

Source: kkbs 276, in nkbt 72, pp. 326–27; octave (heptasyllabic). Line seven: A foot of snow was considered a harbinger of a good harvest. Michizane was probably in the vicinity of what is today Sakaide 坂出, once the provincial capital. Line eight: During 888 very little rain fell in Sanuki, especially from the Fourth Month on. Planting proved nearly impossible and food shortages resulted. Michizane prayed for rain on the sixth day of the Fifth Month, on Mount Kiyama, in Sanuki (nkbt 72, p. 689). In poem 255 (not included here) he blames himself for the drought, attributing it to poor administration and noting that he had gone prematurely grey. See nkbt 72, pp. 304–305.

Lamenting My Grey Hair 1



5



My mind hasn’t dimmed at all and I’ve energy to spare. Who’d allow me to leave my stray grey hairs hanging loose? I see my goose-down in the mirror, tiny flashes of white. Frosty hairs caught in my tweezers, little chilly spikes. These willowy tendrils of early decline were seen by both of us, But when I first caught sight of them I was older than Pan Yue. My mouth is not yet sprouting whiskers, for I often chew sugar cane. The hair on my head is becoming sparse; I miserably brush my cap. Curious, how day by day my appearance continues to change.

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It’s just that as I journey along, the road of life is hard. Don’t talk to me about my strength or about how old I am: Surely I can’t be fading away at the age of forty-five.

白毛歎 心情不減氣猶寬 誰許班毛放若干 鵝毳鏡中分影白 霜毫鑷下寸芒寒 早衰蒲柳雖同顧 初見春秋已過潘 口未生鬢多食蔗 頭將少髮苦彈冠 怪來日日形容變 祇是行行世路難 筋力莫言年幾老 四旬有五豈凋殘 Source: kkbs 301, in nkbt 72, pp. 345–46; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). Title: This poem was likely written in 889, while Michizane was still governor in Sanuki (nkbt 72, p. 87). Line two: Wearing one’s hair loose, instead of tied up under an official’s cap, alludes to retirement. Lines five and six: Michizane likens his greying hair to the catkin willow (horyū 蒲 柳, also called kawayanagi 川柳), traditionally associated with premature aging since it is one of the first plants to decline with the onset of autumn. The poet Pan Yue (247– 300) reputedly saw his first grey hairs at the age of thirty-two. Michizane is deriving comfort from the fact that his own grey hair began appearing at a much later age. Line seven: A passage in the Nan Tang shu 南唐書 (History of the Southern Tang Dynasty, 923–34) states that once when a military official named Lu Jiang 盧絳 fell ill, a lady in a white robe appeared before him in a dream and suggested he chew sugar cane to cure his illness; see nkbt 72, p. 695. Though this text was written well after Michizane’s death, it is a reminder that in traditional Chinese medicine sugar cane had long been considered to possess certain health benefits. Line eight: Brushing one’s cap is usually associated with preparing to resume one’s official duties after an absence. But here Michizane is brushing it to remove stray hairs, whose loss causes concern about his health.

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Dwelling in Idleness A thatched hut with three rooms, several stalks of bamboo; Handily situated next to water—such a peaceful life. On scattered plots I planted millet, barely getting any. A pity that in my remaining years I can’t dispense with eating! 閑居 茅屋三間竹數竿 便宜依水此生安 疏畦種黍纔収得 殊恨餘年不棄飡 Source: kkbs 321, in nkbt 72, p. 356; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line one: A possible locus classicus for the expression “thatched hut with three rooms” is a quatrain by the monk Longshan 龍山禪師 (ca. 740–ca. 830) of Tanzhou, Hunan, also known as Yinshan 隠山 (Hidden Mountain); he was a Dharma-heir of Mazu 馬祖 in the Chan (Zen) tradition. His poem reads: “Always have I lived in this three-room thatched hut. / In the Single Path’s divine light all things rest in tranquility. / Do not judge me with words like “right” or “wrong.”/ This ephemeral life and hairsplitting arguments are of no concern to me” 三間茅屋從來住。一道神光萬境閑。莫作是 非來辨我。浮生穿鑿不相關.

Sentiments Expressed on a Spring Day at the House Where the Late Minister of the Right Once Lived [The next thirteen poems, including this one, were written after I had

completed my appointment and returned to the capital.]

Green willows, supple and pliant, in the sun’s pale slanting rays. All traces of footsteps have vanished from the sand that fills the courtyard. At this moment roosting for the night—birds beside the eaves; As before, in the quiet of spring the flowers below the steps. I was never able while you were alive to come and pay my respects; With unbearable feelings of melancholy I stare at the gate and sigh. Those visitors who came by litter and carriage, where might they be now? Even before you were buried, they’d run off to the homes of the powerful.

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春日感故右丞相舊宅 自此以下十三首、罷秩歸京之作。 綠柳依依白日斜 人蹤銷滅滿庭沙 只今暮宿簷間鳥 仍舊春閑砌下花 不得平生排閤謁 無勝感悼望門嗟 駕肩來客知何在 未葬爭馳到勢家 Source: kkbs 323, in nkbt 72, p. 357; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: Michizane had just finished his term as governor of Sanuki, in 890. The minister of the right was Minamoto no Masaru 源多 (831–88), one of Emperor Ninmyō’s sons; at the age of four he was reduced to commoner status and given the surname of Minamoto. In 880, while Masaru was serving as major counselor, the Imperial Police arrested him for wearing the deep crimson robes reserved for the upper nobility. Some two hundred households from which Masaru derived income were confiscated as a penalty. Michizane drafted two formal petitions on Masaru’s behalf: for these documents, see nkbt 72, p. 563, nos. 591–92.

Facing the Moon on a Frosty Night [Using “mud,” “lost,” “cry,” and “west” as the rhyme words]

My feelings tonight are hard to bear, for the moon seems ready to sink. Its pure light untainted by the muddiness of my heart. By the little window next to the fire I sit securely ensconced; The slanting paths outside in the frost: all sight of them is lost. The sound of a flute from a neighbor’s house brings the bitterness of yesteryear; The birds respond from distant trees, in chilly tones they cry. Back in those days, who would have thought that I’d be a busy man? With sad affection I gaze, alone, at the solitary orb in the west. 霜夜對月 勒泥迷啼西 夜感難勝月易低 清光不染意中泥 小窗爐下身猶穩 斜徑霜前眼更迷

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笛欲鄰家懷舊怨 鳥應遠樹帶寒啼 當時誰道四方在 苦惜孤輪獨望西 Source: kkbs 361, in nkbt 72, p. 392; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The rhyme words in the original poem occur at the ends of lines two, four, six, and eight. This verse was probably written in 892, two years after Michizane returned to the capital. Line two: “The muddiness of my heart” 意中泥 may derive from the term deishin 泥 心, which occurs in the Dainichi-kyō 大日經 (The Mahāvairocana [Cosmic or Great Sun Buddha] Sutra), a major Shingon text, where it denotes man’s ignorant, unenlightened mind. This is the forty-fifth of sixty conditions of the heart identified therein (nkbt 72, p. 392). Line four: Michizane has previously referred to these “slanting” paths that run through his garden, in kkbs 182. Line seven: Michizane is observing that his post in Sanuki turned out to be more onerous than he had imagined.

Enjoying the Plum Blossoms: Written by Imperial Command Plum trees growing everywhere, all to be admired, Yet none compares to the solitary one standing in the moonlight. The breeze-borne fragrance surely doesn’t come from just the flowers: Half of it is incense smoke, from the Seiryōden! 翫梅花

應製

隨處有梅惣可憐 不如獨立月明前 香風豈啻花吹出 半是清凉殿裏煙 Source: kkbs 376, in nkbt 72, p. 404; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Title: The poem was written in early spring 894. Line two: This is doubtless a reference to the sovereign, the implication being that although the blossoms are beautiful they cannot match the “beauty” of his virtue and nobility.

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Line four: A similar line occurs in kkbs 468, below. The fragrant incense smoke emanating from the Seiryōden (the emperor’s private residence) is a metaphor for imperial favor and beneficence.

Willow Fluff Spring snow, whirling in profusion, around the willow branches. Seeing it I know that this fluff over time will lie fallen on the roads. Poets versifying on this topic feel such bitter emotion. Don’t let the fluff be the first to be scattered by the furious winds! 柳絮 春雪紛紛繞柳枝 見知老絮陌頭垂 詩人詠得詩情苦 莫使狂風第一吹 Source: kkbs 394, in nkbt 72, p. 416; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Comments: For comments on this classic eibutsu poem, see the Introduction.

Written by Imperial Command at a Palace Banquet in Early Spring; Everyone Composed a Poem Using the Phrase “Fragrant Breeze” The fragrant breeze is half composed of fragrance from the palace, Blowing forth from filmy silks, spreading in all directions. Over plants, trees, fish and insects, taking the chill off the air; But what can it do for my frosty temples, now that I’m fifty-six? 早春侍內宴同賦香風詞

應製

香風半是殿中香 吹自綺蘿及四方 草樹魚蟲寒氣解 如何七八鬢邊霜

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Source: kkbs 468, in nkbt 72, p. 467; quatrain (heptasyllabic). lines three and four: Just as the warmth of spring brings renewal to the natural world, the emperor’s favor nourishes his subjects. However, no amount of imperial kindness can prevent the graying of Michizane’s hair. The figures “seven-eight” in the final line of the original are meant to be multiplied. Comments: In this poem, written in 900, Michizane praises the benevolence of the emperor, perhaps in appreciation of the honors conferred upon him in 897, when he was elevated in rank to senior third, and in 899, when he was promoted to minister of the right. In 901/2 Michizane fell from power and was sent into exile, where the next two poems were written.

Light Snowfall on the Eastern Hills White the snow this early winter evening. Blue the hills in the afterglow of the sun. I mistook it simply for clouds in the valley; Suspected it was cranes that had not yet returned to the fields. Unable to go and enjoy the sight of the snow, Helpless I sit, gazing fondly from afar. This outsider finds his spirits starting to fail; My situation exactly as it was before. 東山小雪 雪白初冬晚 山青反照前 誤雲獨宿磵 疑鶴未歸田 不放行看賞 無端坐望憐 客魂易消滅 遇境獨依然 Source: Kanke kōshū [kkks] 487, in nkbt 72, pp. 505–506; octave (pentasyllabic). Title: This poem was written in Dazaifu in 901. Line four: Michizane is playfully mistaking the snow on the distant hills for white cranes, using the poetic-confusion trope: one phenomenon is deliberately taken to be something else to draw attention to their similarity.

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Line five: Michizane was apparently under house arrest, living under close watch and without a salary. See Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, p. 289. As Ivan Morris relates, only his two youngest children had been allowed to go with him. The Government Headquarters in Kyushu (Dazaifu) was located in an isolated place; the official residence was run down, leaking, and in an advanced state of disrepair, “contrasting rudely with his patrician mansion in the Fifth Ward,” in Heian (Morris, p. 57). Not only did his son die shortly after their arrival, but Michizane himself eventually took ill with stomach maladies and, it appears, beriberi from malnutrition; poetry became his main source of solace. On Michizane’s banishment, see ibid., pp. 54–58, in ch. 4, “The Deity of Failures,” which tells Michizane’s story. Line eight: He is referring back to his unhappy years in Sanuki, feeling the same loneliness and depression.

End of the Ninth Month On this day, the Ninth Month of my second year comes to an end. This body of mine has now lived through fifty-eight autumn seasons. What’s on my mind as here I stand within the central courtyard? The fading yellow chrysanthemums and the white hair on my head. 九月盡 今日二年九月盡 此身五十八廻秋 思量何事中庭立 黃菊殘花白髮頭 Source: kkks 512, in nkbt 72, pp. 522–23; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Line one: This poem was written on 902/9/30. Michizane is reflecting upon his second year in exile at Dazaifu. Line four: Chrysanthemums symbolized longevity and official success. But now, several weeks after the flowers have looked their best (traditionally on the ninth day of the Ninth Month), their faded condition reminds Michizane of his own failing health and ruined career. He died five months later.

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Kikeshū 紀家集 (The Ki Family Collection, ca. 911–19), Verse by Ki no Haseo Ki no Haseo. Lament for the Fallen Flowers 1



5



Haven’t you noticed Trees full of blossoms blooming in the breeze? Lightly, lightly, falling, falling, consigned to the dust. And haven’t you noticed How yesterday’s young girl Has become today’s white-haired old woman? Whatever flourishes withers. Whatever begins ends. Who among us will remain in this world forever?

紀長谷雄

落花歎

君不見 滿樹花顏笑向風 微微落落委塵中 又不見 昨日少年女 今朝變作白頭翁 榮有悴 始有終 人間誰與世無窮 Source: Kikeshū (ks) 3, in Miki Masahiro, ed. and annot., Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū narabi ni kanji sakuin [Izumi Shoin sakuin sōsho 27] (1992), p. 24; orig. preserved in Chōya gunsai; zatsugon, nine lines. Anthology: The work known today as Kikeshū (Kikashū) 紀家集 (The Ki Family Collection) is an anthology of 108 literary and utilitarian pieces by Ki no Haseo (845– 912) that have been reassembled in modern times from diverse sources. The original collection is lost except for one fragment (maki 14, missing its opening part) from a manuscript transcribed by Ōe no Asatsuna (886–958), completed in 919. The existing portion of this document contains seven pieces that are more or less complete. The maki 14 fragment is owned by the Archives and Mausolea Department of the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_009

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Imperial Household Agency and is available through a 1978 facsimile publication. Miki Masahiro’s 1992 edition was compiled using material from 23 primary sources (among them, the Asatsuna manuscript) and includes prose pieces (52 items); pentasyllabic shi, heptasyllabic shi, couplets, and single lines of verse (46); zatsugon (5); and fu (5). The prose genres represented are highly diverse, ranging from Japanese and Chinese prefaces, appointment notices, biographies, and inscriptions, to memorials, Buddhist and Shinto prayer texts, records of unusual occurrences, and various other documents. For a complete list of the contents, and the source for each piece, see Miki, pp. 17–22. Biography: The son of Ki no Sadanori 紀貞範, Ki no Haseo became the s­ tudent of Miyako no Yoshika (834–79) at around seventeen, working also with Ōkura no Yoshiyuki 大蔵善行 (832–921?). Haseo composed his first significant kanshi at eighteen. How exactly he spent much of his twenties is unclear, although a matter involving “slander” is mentioned as a reason for an apparent break in his formal education during this early period (see Miki, p. 6). At any rate, Haseo was finally admitted to the Academy in 876, studying under Sugawara no Michizane beginning the following year, when Michizane himself obtained a hakase (professor or erudite) appointment. Michizane had a high regard for Haseo’s literary works and became his lifelong friend, later presenting him with Kanke kōshū, his final collection of Chinese literary pieces, shortly before his death. After completing the monjōshō course, Haseo was recommended for graduate studies by Michizane in 879 [Gangyō 3] /11/20, according to the appointment decree preserved in kkbs—see item 634. Nihon sandai jitsuroku records that Haseo passed the taisaku exam on 883/12/27, when he was around thirty-eight and holding the junior eighth rank, upper. Borgen notes that Haseo’s exam essays were on “the use of rites to improve public morality and the mystical effects of personal virtue” (Sugawara no Michizane, p. 136). Earlier in the year, in the Fourth Month, he had been tasked with assisting guests from Parhae. In 884, Haseo took a post as secretary of Sanuki, at the junior seventh rank. (He had previously held the position of provisional junior clerk of that province in 881, while still at the Academy.) His next assignment was as junior secretary in the Council of State, beginning in 886. In 890 he became director of the Bureau of Books and Drawings and the following year was appointed professor of history and literature, whereupon the learned scholar Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki 三善清行 (847–918), Haseo’s close contemporary and rival, is said to have infamously remarked that “[the problem of] professors having no talent started with you!” (Gōdanshō 3–27, in snkbt 32, pp. 81–82). Gōdanshō 1–34, ibid., p. 24 preserves another anecdote about Haseo, showing him expressing opposition to an attempt by the Fujiwara to establish a power base within the Academy by allowing Fujiwara no Sukeyo (who later compiled Nihonkoku genzai sho mokuroku) to take the taisaku examination. He reportedly stated that if the Academy were to

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become “tangled up in the vines of the wisteria” ( fuji, i.e., the Fujiwara clan), scholarly lines like his own would cease to prosper. In 893 Haseo was appointed as junior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial. The following year he was made minor right controller and Sugawara no Michizane’s vice-ambassador to the Tang court, for a mission that never took place. In 895/8, Haseo became director of the Academy. He retained his post in the Ministry of Ceremonial until receiving a promotion to senior assistant head in the same ministry two years later, while still professor and head of the Academy. Other later posts include consultant (902) and governor of Sanuki (907). In 911 he was raised to the senior third rank, holding the post of middle counselor. Haseo also acted as advisor to Emperor Daigo, a high honor. Known for his sense of duty, honesty, and his rational, even temperament, Haseo nevertheless had his critics, including the less than objective Sugawara no Fumitoki 菅原文時 (899–981), who considered Haseo’s talents well beneath those of his own illustrious grandfather Michizane, stating condescendingly that Haseo’s writings are “like [a piece of] cryptomeria (hinoki) that had been whittled down and polished, able to be used by anyone as a model” (Gōdanshō 5–16, in snkbt 32, p. 180). For his own part, Haseo appears to have had little regard for those among his colleagues whom he saw as enmired in the formalities of kanshi poetics. In his poetic preface titled “Engi igo shijo” 延喜以後詩序, he explains that he tries to stay aloof from poetic activities at court, refraining from showing his works to anyone. For more on this passage, see the Introduction; the original text is found in Honchō monzui, book 8, in snkbt 27, pp. 50–54, 254–55. For two recent studies of Haseo’s life and literary legacy, see Inoue Tatsuo, “Ki no Haseo: sessō no bunjin,” in Jōsai Kokusai Daigaku kiyō 16.2 (Mar. 2008); and Inoue, Heian shoki no bunjin kanryō: eikō to kunō (2013). Haseo is one of the ten best-represented literati in Honchō monzui (ca. 1060); he was also an excellent waka poet, with four poems in Gosenshū. A second private collection of Haseo’s works, known by the title Zoku Kike shishū 續紀家詩集, is lost. One of his final contributions was his service as co-compiler of Engi kyaku 延喜格, a non-extant collection of edicts and daijōkan documents, completed in 908. Various popular accounts about Haseo’s life have come down to us in such narratives as Kokon chomonjū 古今著聞集 (A Collection of Stories Heard from Writers Old and New, 1254), the aforementioned Gōdanshō, and Konjaku monogatarishū 今昔物語集 (A Collection of Tales of Times Now Past, mid-twelfth century, anonymous).

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Written in the Style of “The Woodpecker Tune” 1



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I will not buy a sword that is sharp: Pointless cutting poles of linyu bamboo. I have within me tangled threads of resentment And know this resentment is hard to overcome. I will not avail myself of miraculous potions: Pointless hearing about immortality pills. I have an illness, noble poverty, And know this illness is difficult to cure. I will not try the wine of happiness: Pointless building a hermitage of drunkenness. I have worries that bring me deep distress And know these worries are difficult to forget. I will not become fond of study that requires seclusion: Pointless wasting all that mental energy. I have within me bitterness and suffering And know this suffering is difficult to bear. A sword cannot cut these threads of resentment; Medicine cannot cure my noble poverty. Wine cannot make me forget my deep distress And study cannot cure my bitterness and suffering.

[This poem is not as good as your three excellent verses, which I keep close at hand to nourish my spirit.]

慣啄木曲 莫買銛刃劍 虛剪箖箊竿 我有纏怨緒 知其怨斷難 莫趁靈方藥 虛聽金丹丸 我有病清貧 知其病治難 莫嘗來樂酒 虛考一醉槃 我有憂沉困 知其憂忘難 莫好抽身學

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虛費人心肝 我有抱苦辛 知其苦堪難 劍不能斷怨緒 藥不能補清貧 酒不能忘沉困 學不能補苦辛 不如君三首佳什。 常置居邊谷精神。

Source: ks 5, in Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū, p. 26; orig. in Chōya gunsai; kyoku song form in twenty lines; (pentasyllabic, increasing to six words in the last four lines). Title: “The Woodpecker Tune” was a classical biwa 琵琶 (Ch. pipa) piece, accompanied by percussive effects. It was well known in the court around the time of Emperor Ninmyō (r. 833–50). This poem may have been a set of lyrics for the tune. Lines one and two: In ancient times, a martial artist named Yuan Gong 袁公 used a pole made of linyu 箖箊 bamboo in a match with a female master known as Yue Nü 越女. Having challenged the woman, Yuan Gong was defeated almost immediately; legend has it that he turned into a white ape and ran off into the nearby forest. This allusion serves to pave the way for a litany of pursuits the poet considers just as futile as Yuan Gong’s challenge to the female master. Line ten: The hermitage reference is derived from Ode 56, “Kao pan” 考槃 (Building a Hermitage), in Shijing. The notion of drunkenness has been fancifully introduced by the poet and is not seen in the original ode. Poet’s note: It is not clear whom the poet is addressing. Miki treats the remarks as being the final couplet of the poem, but this seems unlikely. The gu 谷 in this note is a cognate for gu 穀, whose meanings include to benefit or nourish. This usage may be traced back to a line in Ode 211, “Fu tian” 甫田 (Extensive Fields): “In order to nourish our husbands and their wives” 以穀我士女. Comments: Everything about this verse seems calculatedly eccentric, beginning with its structure. In essence, it consists of four fused quatrains, all observing a fixed pattern and employing considerable repetition. These are followed by four lines in hexameter, in which all the prior statements are revisited and drawn together into one final grand declaration. Perhaps the most distinctive feature is the narrator’s dramatically defiant rejection of the traditional paths to happiness and self-fulfillment: not only Daoist transcendence, achieved by embracing hermitage and imbibing wine and immortality elixirs, but also the orthodox Confucian path to officialdom through painstaking study. The spirit of resignation beyond resignation seen here is unlike anything else among extant Heian kanshi. Whether this poem truly reflects Haseo’s state of mind at the time or was written simply as a poetic jeu d’esprit is impossible to gauge. In any event, the

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abrupt tonal shift created by his upbeat footnote at the end certainly raises questions about the authenticity of the poem’s sentiments.

A Poem to My Sons and Grandsons Six decades old, my remaining days are few. Three paths, the difficult times have been many. How wrong it is that I’m not a wealthy man. For my sons and grandsons there is nothing I can do. 與兒孫詩 六旬餘日少 三徑苦時多 不義非我富 兒孫莫奈何 Source: ks 6, in Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū, pp. 26–27; quatrain (pentasyllabic). Line two: “Three paths” crossed the wooded estate of a first-century official named Jiang Xu, who had left public life as a political protest and gone into reclusion; see the notes to kkbs 182. The phrase became commonplace in poems about the joys of bucolic retirement and a humble lifestyle. Here, by contrast, Haseo resents his poverty, sardonically turning the allusion on its head to create a clear distinction between the small number of paths on his property and the vast quantity of hardships he has had to endure. Line four: Instead this may mean, “My sons and grandsons, there’s nothing you can do!” Comments: This verse is cited as an example of a pentasyllabic quatrain in Sakumon daitai.

Sitting Peacefully, Enjoying the Autumnal Waters The wind is cold, and yet I cherish its invisible, empty nature. A pool of rainwater has collected, and I love its mindless calm. At other times my shame and worry are like a journey of a thousand miles. But this evening the chilly sound is worth ten thousand pieces of gold.

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閑居樂秋水 風冷可憐虛有性 潦收還愛靜無心 他時垢慮程千里 晚日寒聲直萬金 Source: ks 15, in Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū, p. 30; quatrain (heptasyllabic).

Looking for a Man of the Mountains But Not Finding Him The sun has set in the valley, the pavilion in the pines is quiet. The wind strums the vine strings on his qin, causing them to ring. It turns out that he’s gone to tend the flowers to support his family; He is surely picking medicinal herbs on the way for his livelihood. 尋山人不遇 日落澗中松榭靜 風排琴上葛絃鳴 家資只見栽花去 產業應知採藥行 Source: ks 17, in Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū, pp. 30–31; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Comments: Poems about going into the wilderness to visit a recluse and discovering that he is not at his cottage form a minor subgenre of their own. A well-known Tang example is Meng Haoran’s quatrain “Looking for the Chrysanthemum Lake Master But Not Finding Him” 尋菊花潭主人不遇, which reads: “I walked to Chrysanthemum Lake. / West of the village the sun had already set. / The master had gone high into the hills. / Just chickens, a dog, and an empty house” 行至菊花潭、村西日已斜。主人登 高去、雞犬空在家. Sometimes the recluse has left his hermitage to gather medicinal plants or is seeking an even deeper level of solitude and contact with nature. Poems in this subgenre often suggest that the seeker’s journey was not in vain, for he has somehow shared in the recluse’s transcendence just by being there, experiencing a kind of epiphany. For a thought-provoking exploration of this theme see Paula M. Varsano, “Looking for the Recluse and Not Finding Him In: The Rhetoric of Silence in Early Chinese Poetry,” in Asia Major [Third Series] 12.2 (1999): pp. 39–70.

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In Attendance at a Banquet on the Ninth, I Witnessed His Majesty Presenting Chrysanthemums to the Assembled Courtiers; Written by Imperial Command We depart the mortal world awhile for the realm where immortals dwell. A healthy tonic we soon taste: delicate chrysanthemum flowers. Bestowed by His Majesty in all his kindness, replete with beneficent dew; A gift by the grace of His celestial will, mixed with flowing mist. We separate out the jade stamens, sweeter than honey they taste, Extract for ourselves the golden essence, granular as sand. Eating this, we now have hope that our lives will be prolonged. Limitless the number of years we may each expect to live! 九日侍宴觀賜群臣菊花

應製

一時辭俗入仙家 上藥先嘗嫩菊花 賜在帝恩含湛露 出從天意混流霞 分將玉蘂甘於蜜 把得金精碎似沙 餌後始期年久視 擬教生路不知涯 Source: ks 18, in Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū, p. 31; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The occasion is the Double Ninth (The Chrysanthemum Festival), when the chrysanthemums were at their peak. Concerning this celebration, see rus 6. Chrysanthemums, traditionally associated with the poet Tao Yuanming, were believed to possess longevity-promoting properties. Tao himself writes of taking the flowers apart and floating the petals in his wine. Line two: “Healthy tonic” (jōyaku 上藥): a traditional category of herbal medicine that could safely be taken in large quantities on a daily basis. LineS three and four: Dew and mist are allusions to the succor provided by the emperor. Line six: Golden essence: presumably pollen. Line eight: The phrase jiu shi 久視 means “to live a long time and not age.” The locus classicus is Laozi 59.

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On the morning after the Ninth, while in attendance at a banquet in the Suzakuin, we each wrote a poem using the line “Our thoughts on autumn while among cold pine trees” at the Retired Emperor’s command. [Preface] 1

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The notion that our minds are affected by autumn and that autumn brings on certain feelings is in the natural order of things. These thoughts arise spontaneously, especially when we are in the presence of great pines and our minds are free of defilement. Whenever I behold those frigid trees, with their wind-blown frosty appearance, I feel overwhelmed by their mindless calm and tranquility. There is also the way these gigantic trees rouse us at dawn, causing us heartbreak by waking us from our dreams. We note the noise their massed branches make during the night, intruding to the point where we can hear them in our sleep. Harsh and chilling: autumn thoughts are hard to suppress! Master Song said, “So miserable, the autumn weather: desolate and bleak.” And Confucius said, “When the season turns cold, you learn that pines and cypresses wither later than the rest.” The observations made by the ancients can be put to the test even today. The Retired Emperor now is reposing in the transcendental sphere, having escaped the entanglements of the world of dust. He is enjoying a peaceful stay in a forest where chilly winds blow, having entered a realm beyond the ordinary. He takes enormous pleasure in the banks of the autumn ponds and has come very close to The Land of Nothing-At-All. It is the morning after the Yellow Flower Festival, and we serve in His Majesty’s lower echelons. His fig-leaf and rabbit-floss garments fill our eyes; it is as though we have climbed Mount Gushe. Rivers and rocks are all around us; it is almost like reaching the summit of Mount Kongtong. What need for us to take magnolia oars and cassia paddles, pick ourselves up, and head into reclusion east of the Eastern Sea? Or, in cliffside dwellings among pine columns, relax propped up on pillows, north of the North Mountains, only to decide later not to return because we have become content to remain there? At such times, with that brisk soughing heard ever more loudly, we would find it quite dreary. As I gaze upon the things in nature poetry flows forth; they tug on my emotions, compelling me to versify. This is how it is!

[Poem: Our Thoughts on Autumn While Among Cold Pine Trees] 1



Whenever we watch the fragrant flowers fade as days go by, We know that the pines, with their special integrity, will see the year to its end. Bleak, bleak, somehow evoking complex anxious thoughts; Rustling, rustling, causing tangled emotions to arise.

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When the dense needles are brushed by the wind I feel it first in my bones; When the masses of branches are shaken I lose my appetite. The sound takes on a doleful tone, in harmony with my mood; The ringing blends with the pure shang notes plucked by my fingers. Friends of mine as I grow old: the pines that rise through the mist. Matchmaker of broken hearts: the dawn winds swirling about. Feelings of emptiness, old promises vanishing with the frost; Awake from my dreams, lingering sounds as I lie upon my pillow. Nearby, as I look about—perhaps the murmur of intimate talk? Here in seclusion, who would tire of lifting the blinds to look out? It’s sure to make the aggrieved lady weep in her golden boudoir; She’s bound to worry that on the desert frontier his battledress is too thin.

九日後朝侍宴朱雀院、同賦秋思入寒松、應太上皇製。 夫思之感秋、秋之動思、自然之理。不覺而生、況復有長松於 前、無垢氛於意。每看風霜之寒色、不堪幽閑之虛懷。至如夫千 丈曉警、斷盡夢後之腸。  攢枝夕鳴、徹入眠中之聽。凛凛然秋思 之難禁也。宋生有言、悲哉秋爲氣也蕭瑟矣。夫子且云、歲寒然 後知松柏之後凋。古人之言、在今可驗。太上皇栖心象外、逃累 塵中。偃泊於凉風之林、坐入於不群之境。酷嗜於秋池之浦、近 到於無何之鄉。臣等屬黃花之後朝、侍玄覽之末席。薜蘿在眼、如 登姑射之山。水石隨身、疑尋崆峒之頂。何必蘭棹桂楫、拂衣東 海之東? 巖室松楹、高枕北山之北、然後甘以長往、期不歸者乎? 于時爽籟増聲、蕭索倍思。睹物流詠、觸緒擒文。云爾。 秋思入寒松 毎望衆芳隨日謝 更知孤節送年完 凄凄暗引繁心惱 瑟瑟還教亂緒攢 密葉拂時先動骨 疊枝驚處欲忘飡 聲添苦韻緣情和 響混清商任指彈 偕老交朋煙色聳 斷腸媒介曉風摶 懷虛古契霜中過

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夢罷餘音枕上殘 近對顧疑傾蓋語 閑居誰厭卷簾看 應催怨粉金閨泣 定感征衣沙塞單 Sources: ks 26, in Ki no Haseo kanshi bunshū, pp. 62–63 (preface) and pp. 35–36 (poem); pailü, sixteen lines (heptasyllabic). For the preface, we have also consulted Honchō monzui, book 10, in snkbt 27, item 287, p. 297. Small variations between these editions exist, none significantly altering the sense of any passage in either the poem or its preface. Title: “Morning after the Ninth” refers to the Double Ninth; see rus 6. This poem is not a kudaishi, in spite of the assigned five-word topic-line that appears in the title. Suzakuin 朱雀院 was an imperial residence established by Emperor Saga then rebuilt by Emperor Uda (r. 887–97), the retired sovereign at whose behest this poem was written. During the reign of Emperor Murakami (r. 946–67) it was rebuilt again. Suzakuin was bounded by Sanjō-dōri 三条通 and Shijō-dōri 四条通 to the north and south respectively, and by Suzakuin Ōji 朱雀院大路 to the east and Kōkamon Ōji 皇嘉門大路 to the west. Three years after retiring, Uda entered the Buddhist priesthood, spending the next thirty years at Ninnaji, which he had established in 888. This poem may have been written during the years between Uda’s abdication and his relocation to Ninnaji. The digression about his eremitic pursuits in the second half of the preface is clearly designed to link his retirement to the tradition of reclusion in China. Preface, LINES NINE AND TEN: “Master Song” is Song Yu, to whom some of China’s most admired prose-poems are attributed. These include the “Jiu bian,” which opens with the words quoted here. This group of verses contains the earliest evocations of autumn melancholy and provided a model for generations of later poets, foremost among them Pan Yue. Preface, lines TEN THROUGH TWELVE: This famous observation is found in the “Zi Han” chapter of Lun yu. Preface, line SEVENTEEN: “The Land of Nothing-At-All” 無何[有]之鄉 comes from the “Xiaoyao you” chapter in Zhuangzi and refers to an imaginary place empty of all things. Again, the poet lends an air of Daoist mysticism to the emperor’s retirement, placing it within the hallowed traditions of hermitage in China. Preface, lines EIGHTEEN AND NINETEEN: The notion of “fig-leaf and rabbit-floss garments filling one’s eyes” harks back to the Chu ci and is adapted from a poem by Xie Lingyun (d. 433) titled “From Jinzhu Valley Crossing Peaks and Wandering Along a Stream” 從斤竹澗越岭溪行. This contains a couplet which reads: “I imagine seeing

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a mountain-hermit, / His fig-leaf and rabbit-floss garments are as if before my eyes” 想見山阿人、薜蘿若在眼. Adapted from Chang, Six Dynasties Poetry, p. 73. On the fabric of these garments, see the notes to kks 56. Preface, lines NINETEEN THROUGH TWENTY-ONE: Mount Gushe 姑射 is located in Linfen county, Shanxi province, and was considered one of the sacred mountains of Daoism. A well-known allusion to this site is found in the “Xiaoyao you” chapter in Zhuangzi, where it is referred to as the dwelling place of an old hermit who subsists on dew and has the complexion of a young child. Mount Kongtong 崆峒, another of the sacred mountains, is located in eastern Gansu. Legend has it that an immortal named Guang Chengzi 廣成子 lived there in a stone cave, and the Yellow Emperor once paid a visit to hear his preaching. Emperors Qin Shi Huang (third century bce) and Han Wudi (r. 145–86 bce) also reputedly climbed this mountain. During succeeding dynasties Mount Kongtong became covered with shrines and temples, and today it is a popular destination for sightseers. References to boats made of cassia, with oars of cassia or magnolia, are common in Sinitic verse. The original source is “Xiang Jun” 湘君 (Lord of the River Xiang), from the “Jiuge” 九歌 (Nine Songs) section of the Chu ci. “Xiang Jun” is written in the voice of a seeker (traditionally identified as Qu Yuan) on a quest to find the spirit of the River Xiang, journeying in a cassia boat. In Haseo’s poem, such descriptive terms are present for the elegance and tone of Daoist mysticism they impart. For two contrasting translations of “Xiang Jun,” see Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature, pp. 157–58 and also Liu and Lo, Sunflower Splendor, pp. 17–18. Preface, lines TWENTY-ONE TO TWENTY-FOUR: The tone of the narrative here calls to mind anti-reclusion (fan zhaoyin 反招隱) verse, a topical subgenre popular in China during the third through fifth centuries. It was written to discourage scholars from abdicating their public responsibilities by going into reclusion and to summon back those who had left. Haseo outlines a couple of reasons why he and the other courtiers should not emulate Retired Emperor Uda’s example. First, he hints that having already had a taste of this life, simply by being in the emperor’s presence at this event, they have no need to experience reclusion for themselves, especially since they might decide never to return. (This gesture is meant as an expression of loyalty.) The second reason, commonly seen in anti-reclusion verse, is that life in the wilderness is fraught with hardships and privations; Haseo’s reference in lines twenty-five and twenty-six to the dullness of such an existence seems related to this theme. Poem, line eight: The shang 商 note is the second tone in the Chinese pentatonic scale. Poem, lines fifteen and sixteen: This abrupt and clichéd ending is a pastiche of several motifs common in early Sinitic verse: the first is the solitary well-born lady

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pining away in her boudoir; the second, the husband away at the frontier on military service. Linking them is the ancient theme of women in autumn fulling cloth and tailoring winter garments to send to their absent husbands. Haseo’s couplet is reminiscent of the seventh poem in a series of eight collectively titled Ni gu 擬古 (In Imitation of Ancient-style Poetry), composed by Bao Zhao 鮑照 (d. 466), the most important yuefu poet of the Six Dynasties period.

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Fusōshū 扶桑集 (An Anthology of Poetry from the Land of Fusang, ca. 995–98), Compiled by Ki no Tadana Sugawara no Michizane. Grieving for the Presented Scholar Fujiwara: A Poem Offered to the Household Staff of the Eastern Pavilion We now have reached that stage in life when each of us has grey hair. Why is it that all evening long our thoughts have been so sad? His texts lie open, not yet rolled up, at the spot where we used to gather. I removed the medicine that did no good, after he was laid to rest. Though my tears can’t compare to those I shed the autumn my father died, I cried far more than I did each morning after sad dreams of my son. [I make these comparisons having had these experiences.]

In this life forever ended: his talk and his laughter. For now, I weep as I prepare to recite his poem on maternal devotion.

[The verse in question was written by the Presented Scholar at a Classic of Filial Piety Banquet held at the Eastern Pavilion. For clarification, I have added this note.]

菅原道眞

傷藤進士呈東閣諸執事

我等曾爲白首期 何因一夕苦相思 披書未卷同居處 捻藥空歸已葬時 不校秋聲喪父哭 猶勝曉淚夢兒悲 余先皆所有。今而喻之。

此生永斷俱言笑 且泣將吟事母詩 東閣孝經竟宴。進士事母之詩。故云。

Source: Fusōshū (fss) 1, in Tasaka Junko, ed., Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin (1985), pp. 8–9; octave (heptasyllabic). This poem, with a one-character variation, also appears as kkbs 140; see nkbt 72, p. 216. We have also consulted Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 7, pp. 187–204 for the poems translated from this collection. Helpful commentaries by Tasaka Junko on fss 1–23 are found in “Fusōshū zen chūshaku” (i), in Sōgō Kenkyūjo hō 119 (Mar. 1989), pp. 37–55 (for fss 1, see pp. 38–40);

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_010

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“Fusōshū zen chūshaku” (ii), in Sōgō Kenkyūjo hō 120 (Feb. 1990), pp. 159–72; and “Fusōshū zen chūshaku” (iii), in Sōgō Kenkyūjo hō 152 (Sept. 1993), pp. 15–28. Anthology: This collection of kanshi was compiled 995–98 by Ki no Tadana 紀齊名 (957–99, originally named Taguchi no Tadana 田口齊名). A leading literatus during the reign of Emperor Ichijō, Tadana studied under Tachibana no Masamichi, who was a student of Minamoto no Shitagō (d. 983) and tutor to Prince Tomohira. Tadana passed his taisaku examination while secretary of Owari province. He served as senior private secretary (dainaiki 大内記) in the Ministry of Central Affairs and as junior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial. After Tadana’s death, the Fusōshū manuscript was in the care of his widow; it appears that it was later presented to Emperor Ichijō in the Eighth Month of 1006 by Fujiwara no Michinaga. The anthology may have been intended as a belated sequel to the three early ninth-century imperially-sponsored literary anthologies. It originally consisted of 16 maki (12 by some accounts), with verse by 76 poets. Only the seventh and ninth have survived, containing 104 poems by 24 literati. Maki 7 (poems 1–74) has works written to acknowledge gifts received, as well as diplomatic and social exchanges, recollections of the past, historical verse, laments, and items on such topics as illness and reclusion. Maki 9 (poems 75–104) mainly features palace banquet verse, much of it composed at events centered around lectures and discussions of canonical Sinitic texts; a further theme is success and failure in the examinations. Twelve poems have prose prefaces, 11 of them for banquet poems. Heptasyllabic octaves account for some four-fifths of the verse, evidence of the continued preference for this form. Most of the extant Fusōshū poems, composed by some of the foremost poets of the age, date from the first half of the tenth century. The text appears to have received relatively little scholarly attention until recent times. Tasaka Junko has published collated textual portions in installments under the title “Fusōshū zen chūshaku,” as cited above, with provisional corrections and annotations, together with the above-mentioned collated edition, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, based on seven manuscripts. Tasaka’s scholarly endeavors are a valuable contribution, although many orthographic and textual issues remain unresolved. In addition to the selection of Fusōshū poems below, translations of eighteen more can be found in Butterflies. There are many semi-legendary tales about Tadana. Gōdanshō 5–4 relates that he was asked by Retired Emperor Ichijō to produce an annotated edition of the “second (下) volume” of Yuan Zhen’s verse, but he “evaded the task” (snkbt 32, p. 173). In Gōdanshō 5–29 there is speculation to the effect that a disproportionately large number of Minamoto no Shitagō’s poems were included in the collection because Tadana’s own teacher Masamichi had been Shitagō’s pupil, causing grumbling among contemporary poets (snkbt 32, p. 186). Tadana is elsewhere criticized for his supposed lack of originality and reliance upon old models in his own verse; see snkbt 32, p. 204.

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Regarding the title of the anthology, fusō 扶桑 (Ch. fusang) is a term dating back to the ancient mythic geographical text Shanhai jing 山海經 (The Classic of Mountains and Seas, ca. first century bce). It mentions a legendary island east of China, which was supposedly the source of the rising sun and later came to be identified with Japan. Perhaps in connection with fusō and the origin of the rising sun, the use of the term Nihon (日本, “source of the sun”) in reference to Japan arose in the mid-seventh century; it is also seen in Tang shu 唐書 (The History of the Tang Dynasty, 945). Thus, Fusōshū effectively means “a collection [of poetry] from Japan.” Title: “Eastern Pavilion” 東閣 (Tōkaku) was a reception hall in Fujiwara no Mototsune’s residential estate where banquets and lectures were held; in the text of this poem found in Michizane’s collection (kkbs 140) the same building is called Tōkō 東閤 (“Eastern Gate”). See nkbt 72, p. 674, n. 140. Tōkaku is said to have been named after a building erected by the Han dynasty prime minister Gongsun Hong 公孫弘 (200–121 bce). See Taniguchi Makiko, “Kanshi waka kaisetsu kōza” 漢詩和歌快説講座 at http://michiza.net/jcp/jcpkb186.shtml (Nov. 2017). Mototsune was chancellor at this time and also served as regent for four emperors. The identity of the dead youth is unknown, but he appears to have been one of Mototsune’s sons; Michizane was likely his teacher. For more about “presented scholars,” see the Introduction, note 49, on university credentials. Line five: Michizane’s father, Sugawara no Koreyoshi, died in 880/8. See nkbt 72, p. 674. Because of the poem’s position in kkbs, Tasaka speculates that the death of Mototsune’s son occurred sometime after 884/2. See Tasaka, “Fusōshū zen chūshaku” (i), p. 39. Line six: “Son” 兒 might actually be “sons,” since Michizane lost two sons in 883. See nkbt 72, p. 87 (in the entry for 883). For Michizane’s poem on his deceased son Amaro, see “Dreaming of Amaro,” see kkbs 117, translated in Borgen, Sugawara no Michizane, pp. 144–45. Michizane’s interlinear note is intended as a reminder that he was not merely indulging in empty rhetoric. Biography: See the notes to kkbs 39.

Takaoka no Tomotsune. During a three-day stay in the mountains, we each wrote a poem on the line “The green valley is his home.” [Using as rhyme words “spring,” “dust,” “neighbor,” “guest,” “befriend,” and “to fish”] 1



This rustic man with lofty thoughts and tastes Has rested in the clouds for who knows how many springs. Alone, he drinks the waters of the southern mountains; He’d surely never tread the dust of the northern palace.

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10



The green valley is all he has for a dwelling; The cerulean caves […] are his neighbors. Han Rites aside, we still must call him old; The Tang court’s guest he would not wish to be. Visits from ordinary folk are far apart, But birds tamely approach and become his friend. His occupation—just what might this be […]? Beside the Yanling Shallows catching fish.

高丘五常

三日山居同賦青溪即是家 勒春塵隣賓親綸

野夫高意趣 雲臥幾廻春 獨飲南山水 寧蹈北闕塵 青溪唯作宅 翠洞□爲隣 漢曲猶稱老 唐朝不要賓 俗人尋訪隔 禽鳥狎來親 自業何爲□ 嚴陵瀨上綸 Source: fss 29, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 31; pailü (twelve lines, pentasyllabic). Title: The six rhyme words mentioned here occur at the ends of the even-numbered lines in the original, and in the order listed. The poem is a kudaishi, with what appears to be an invented title line; only two of its five topic words are reproduced, in line five. The three remaining graphs in this line, however, could be considered adequate substitutes for the other “missing” kudai words. Synonymous substitution and the use of associated words or comparatives in lieu of the actual kudai words was common practice. The final couplet does not feature a distinctive jukkai closure; in some respects the entire poem functions as a lyrical portrait of the chosen subject, likely an imaginary recluse. Line four: In other words, nothing would induce this hermit to come out of reclusion and return to the palace. The character ning 寧 we interpret as being similar in sense to qi 豈 (“surely not” or “surely never”), rather than its more common meaning “would prefer.”

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Line seven: This line is problematic, our translation tentative. Han qu 漢曲, rendered provisionally here as “Han Rites,” may be a reference to the “Qu li” 曲禮 section of the Li ji 禮記, a text which was largely finalized during the Han dynasty. In paragraph seventeen of the first part (上) of the “Qu li,” we find the sentence 恆言不稱老, which may be rendered “In normal conversation with one’s parents, one does not speak of oneself [or, following another interpretation, speak of them] as being old.” The overall sense of this line appears to be: “Despite what is stated in the ‘Qu li’ [about avoiding making one’s parents feel old], the recluse must nevertheless be recognized as old.” Lines eleven and twelve: Guangwu Di, founder of the Later Han dynasty (23–220), had a friend named Yan Guang 嚴光 (known also as Yan Ziling 嚴子陵), with whom he studied while they were both young. After Guangwu Di became emperor, Yan went into reclusion. Because he admired Yan’s wisdom, the emperor ordered that he be sought out and brought back to the capital to serve the new dynasty. A reported sighting of Yan indicated that he was seen fishing in a marsh, clad in sheepskins. Later, this place was named Yanlinglai 嚴陵瀨 (Yanling Shallows) in honor of Yan Ziling, who was never seen again. Biography: Takaoka no Tomotsune (Kazutsune, fl. ca. 860–90) was a courtier-poet descended from Chinese nobility. His career can only be roughly pieced together using fragments (some with conflicting dates) from historical sources. He eventually advanced through his studies to monjō tokugōshō status around 859. See Gotō Akio, “Ki no Haseo ‘Engi igo shijo’ shichū (1),” Shizuoka Daigaku Kyōiku Gakubu kenkyū hōkoku 25 (Mar. 1975), p. 4. He earned the shūsai distinction around 883, with Sugawara no Michizane acting as his examiner. Tomotsune’s appointments included provisional secretary of Izumo (ca. 859), secretary of Tanba (one of several provincial posts he received), vice governor of the provinces of Chikugo and Kii, and senior secretary in the Council of State (885). His most important position was assistant director of the Academy (891). See Honma Yōichi, Ruijū kudaishō zen chūshaku, p. 941. Tomotsune attained at least the junior fifth rank, lower, under the “outer” (ge-i 外位) rank system used for provincial families of lower status. The distinguished literatus Ki no Haseo, who may have once been a student of Tomotsune (see Gotō Akio, ibid.), is said to have admired the latter’s kanshi, although few of them have survived. Besides the present poem, one titled “Bearing Wine and Visiting the Hermit” appears in Ruijū kudaishō (see the note in Honchō monzui, snkbt 27, p. 390). A prose memorial to the throne is preserved in Honchō monzui, snkbt 27, pp. 206–207.

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Koreyoshi no Harumichi. Ono and I wrote eleven poems back and forth to each other. After our exchange there were still some thoughts I had not yet disclosed, so I have written two more poems to convey them. (#1) You’re ashamed of taking a post as attendant to escape from hunger and cold. The warblers possess their lofty branches, the roosters have their combs. You’ve made friends and are about to discard your idle, meager existence; In court society all your life these things you will [readily?] see. The snail has a dwelling of its own and may feel secure within; A caged tiger will bow its head and have trouble showing spirit. Should you find yourself exchanging verse with anybody else, You won’t be able to hold in check your feelings about the past. 惟良春道

與野十一唱和、往復之後、餘思未洩、更勒二章、以代懷。

慙登清貫免飢寒 鶯有喬枝雞有冠 交友欲拋閑境薄 世情到老□頭看 蝸牛有舍容身穩 檻虎低顏作氣難 儻有與君詩唱和 未能鎖盡舊心肝 Source: fss 30, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 32; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The person being addressed in this poem was Ono no Takamura 小野篁 (803–52). The eldest son of Ono no Minemori, chief compiler of Ryōunshū, Takamura excelled in waka and kanshi and was also considered one of the finest prose stylists and calligraphers of his day. He completed his studies in 822 and by 833 was serving on the Board of Censors and as mentor to the crown prince. Takamura also held a senior secretarial appointment (dainaiki 大内記) in the Ministry of Central Affairs. He was one of the compilers of Ryō no gige 令義解 (An Explication of the Civil Codes). In 838/6 there was an incident that saw Takamura refusing to carry out his duties as vice-envoy on a mission to the Tang court, an assignment he had received four years earlier. During the intervening years, the mission had twice failed to set sail for China; on the third attempt, in 838, Takamura quarreled with the envoy Fujiwara no Tsunetsugu 藤原常嗣, whom he considered high-handed for having commandeered

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Takamura’s ship for his own use after Tsunetsugu’s became damaged. Takamura ended up withdrawing from the mission (possibly taking some lower-ranking sailor-officials with him), stating that he was ill and needed to care of his aged mother. Apparently he was also nursing doubts over whether the mission truly served Japan’s interests. At any rate, when the fact that his illness had been feigned and that he had thus deceived the court came to light, Takamura compounded his crime (already a capital offense) by composing “Saidōyō” 西道謡 (Ballad of the Road to the West, non-extant), evidently a taboo-laden kanshi which satirized the mission to China. Incensed by Takamura’s disobedience and lèse majesté, Retired Emperor Saga demoted him and sent him into exile to the island of Oki, treating the offense relatively lightly owing to his affection for Takamura’s father Minemori. In 841, Takamura was brought back to the capital, his rank restored. He resumed tutoring the crown prince and served as governor of Mutsu, also heading the Chamberlains’ Office for a time. Then in 847 he became consultant and in 850, by some accounts, was raised to the junior third rank. A private anthology of Takamura’s verse is no longer extant; many legends about his brilliant but eccentric ways have come down to us, as recorded, for example, in Takamura monogatari (anonymous). These describe his anguished love for his half-sister, his supposed sexual misconduct with one of Saga’s daughters, and his complex shifting relationship with Saga. For Takamura’s official biography, which includes high praise for him as a literatus and a sympathetic account of his troubles, see Nihon Montoku Tennō jitsuroku for 852/12/22; for an English rendering of this passage, see Sakamoto Tarō, The Six National Histories of Japan, trans. John S. Brownlee (1991), pp. 165–66. line two: This line appears to be a cynical observation about the hierarchical and stuffy world of courtiers, those “bush warblers and roosters” whose company Takamura must now endure, having returned to court. The allusion here to the “lofty branches” inhabited by spring warblers is inspired by a passage in Ode 165, “Fa Mu” 伐木 (Felling Trees) in Shijing, which reads: “On the trees go the blows chang-chang; / And the birds cry out ying-ying. / One issues from the dark valley, / And removes to the lofty tree.” See James Legge., trans. and annot., The She King or the Book of Poetry (rpt. ed., 1991), p. 253. Line four: The lost word in this line may be tai 抬, meaning “to raise [one’s head],” or perhaps hui 回 “to turn [one’s head],” meaning, in effect, readily or in no time at all. Five of the texts collated in Tasaka’s edition (see p. 32) give the missing graph as kou 口 (mouth), but this possibility seems unlikely. Takamura evidently had no choice but to return to court with a fairly lowly post, and Harumichi may be reminding him that having to swallow one’s pride and accept one’s place is just the way of the world. Lines five and six: Harumichi is observing that if Takamura behaves properly, then like a snail in its shell he will be protected. However, in his new position he will also find himself more confined, somewhat like a caged animal.

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Lines seven and eight: This is likely a warning to Takamura that he ought to comport himself more discreetly. “The past” probably refers to the trouble that led to his exile. Biography: See kks 45.

(#2) A useless man with white hair, born into a prosperous age: Only fit for spending my days slowly bumbling along. My mind spins around like a whirlwind, I’ve never had any success; Empty fame is exactly like water, and writing things is hard. Years of famine—I didn’t receive the salary of affluent times; Talents meager—like dust in the air, my title as vice-governor. For now I have had my fill of witnessing glory and disgrace. I will give you a copy of “Ju gexing” for you to recite aloud. 無能白首遇休明 只合騰騰過一生 心事結風功不就 浮榮盡水字難成 年荒不食明時俸 藝薄空塵別駕名 眼下飽看榮辱盡 贈君吟動鞠歌行 Source: fss 31, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 32–33; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: Xiu ming 休明 is an abbreviation of the phrase xiu ming sheng shi 休明盛世, “a prosperous and flourishing age.” The locus classicus is Pan Yue’s “Xi zheng fu” 西征賦 (Rhapsody on the Western Journey). Line four: In other words, fame is evanescent, disappearing like the waters of a swiftly flowing river. Line six: Harumichi is likely alluding to the post he once held as vice-governor of Ise. He uses the same term for himself in line six of fss 58. Line eight: “Ju gexing” 鞠歌行 (The Kickball Song) was an ancient tune title and the name of a category of yuefu folk ballads written in lines of three and seven characters. Later poets who wrote poems employing this meter and title include Lu Ji 陸機 (261–303), Xie Lingyun, and Zhang Zai 張載 (third century). Li Bai also composed poems using this title, but not in the traditional meter. The poem by Lu Ji expresses sadness over failing to have his talents recognized and his lack of an understanding friend; this may be the verse Harumichi has in mind.

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Biography: See the notes to kks 45. Comments: Harumichi is bitterly looking back on what he views as a failed career, having been by his own account unsuccessful both as a scholar and as an official. Twice he alludes to having lived in prosperous times, insinuating that he should have fared better. Much of his life was spent in poverty and relative obscurity (the “years of famine” in line five), which he attributes to indolence and to being temperamentally unsuited for a public career. Harumichi seems to be warning Takamura that he may face similar disappointments; as it turned out, Takamura prospered in the long run.

(#1) Minamoto no Fusaakira. To the talented scholar Tachibana: We recently met at a mountain temple. “Pure conversation” ensued in a relaxed fashion as we discussed poetry and Buddhism. In both fields you are thoroughly knowledgeable; I am not your equal, but I found you really delightful, and we returned home together in the same carriage. I admire how you possess divinelyconferred nobility in abundance, but I lament that you have not been given a post. I have made an attempt to write an extended poem outlining the situation. [Noble?] conduct, famed for your talent—you, sir, stand alone. “Pure conversation” the moment we met—but I am not in your league. When Tao Yuanliang came into the world he was able to versify; When Wugoucheng entered this life he excelled in Dharma texts. Pure nobility enduring the cold—a pine standing in the snow. Lofty ambitions, soaring alone—a crane dwelling in the clouds. You still wear your blue-collared garment and carry your yellow books; But great vessels take years to produce, as we’ve heard since ancient times. 源英明 近曾與橘才子相逢山寺。清談間發、或言詩章、或論釋 教、兩道兼通、  一不可及。予不堪欣感。同載歸家。嘉天爵之有餘、 歎人位之未備。聊題長句、叙其所由。 □行才名獨有君 清談一接我非群 陶元亮出能詩句 無垢稱生長法文 貞節寒含松立雪 高情孤聳鶴棲雲 青衿未改携黄卷 大器晚成是舊聞

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Source: fss 32, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 33–34; octave (heptasyllabic); all of the poems in this series exchanged between Minamoto no Fusaakira and Tachibana no Aritsura can also be found in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 7, pp. 191–93. Title: This poem is the first of twenty-two exchanged between Fusaakira and Aritsura, for whom biographies are provided below. All of them are heptasyllabic octaves and use the same five rhyme words, always in the same order: jun 君, qun 群, wen 文, yun 雲, and wen 聞. The expression “pure conversation” (qingtan 清談) originally referred to the rarified discussions on metaphysics and philosophy held by the third-century coterie of scholars known as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (Zhu lin qi xian 竹林七賢). It occurs again in line two. By using this phrase, which had become heavily freighted with associations, Fusaakira is attempting to situate himself and Aritsura within the Seven Sages tradition: intellectually and spiritually a breed apart from, and morally superior to, their contemporaries at court. Line one: The first character is missing. Judging from the context, it appears to be an adjective meaning “noble” or something similar, modifying xing 行 (conduct). Line three: Tao Yuanliang 陶元亮: the poet Tao Yuanming. Fusaakira is implying that like Tao, Aritsura was born with a talent for verse. By extension, he is placing Aritsura’s verse on the same level, a rather extravagant claim. A similar implicit comparison is made in the next line concerning Aritsura’s command of Buddhist doctrine. Line four: Wugoucheng 無垢稱, “The Unsullied One,” is a kenning for Vimalakīrti, the central figure in the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra (ca. first century). This sutra, known in Japan as Yuima-kyō 維摩經, was first translated into Chinese during the third century, by Zhi Qian 支謙, and titled Weimojie jing 维摩詰經 (The Vimalakīrti Sutra). A later Chinese translation by Xuanzang 玄奘 (602–64) bears the title Shuo Wugoucheng jing 說無垢稱經 (Discussion of the Sutra of the Unsullied One). Vimalakīrti is represented in the sutra as a profoundly enlightened and accomplished Mahayanist lay practitioner. During the Six Dynasties this text was popular among the elite, who were attracted to its notion of a middle way between asceticism and materialism that legitimized keeping one’s possessions and staying within the lay world. Line seven: The blue collar was part of the traditional garb of students. Aritsura may have been an outstanding talent, but he evidently did not become a “scholar of letters” (monjōshō) until he was thirty. See Honma Yōichi, annot., Nihon kanshi: kodai-hen (1996), p. 154. Aritsura’s books were yellow from an insect-repelling dye. Line eight: The vessel reference in this line is derived from Laozi 41. Biography: Minamoto no Fusaakira (ca. 900–39) was a courtier-official and kanshi poet. The eldest son of Prince Tokiyo, he was descended from Emperor Uda. His mother was a daughter of Sugawara no Michizane. Fusaakira entered palace service at the junior fourth rank, aged sixteen, becoming a gentleman-in-waiting in service to the

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emperor the following year. He was made middle captain in the Imperial Bodyguards in 927, at which time he was also appointed head of the Chamberlains’ Office. Fusaakira’s career seems to have stagnated, however, after the passing of his father and Emperor Uda. Although he remained employed at court, he appears to have become increasingly preoccupied with seeking pleasure, giving himself over to wine and poetry, making excursions to the countryside, and forming friendships. He was toasted by Emperor Daigo at a chrysanthemum-viewing banquet in 926 after presenting a poem, and he is known to have written another some three years later at an imperial composition gathering. An entry for 940/2/25 in Rihō-ō ki 吏部王記 (Journal of the Prince of the Ministry of Ceremonial), a record kept by Prince Shigeakira (906–54), indicates that Fusaakira died after a short illness in the Seventh Month of 939, although a note in the text states that two named genealogical records give the year as 940. Fusaakira’s long poetry exchange with Tachibana no Aritsura is his principal literary legacy. Besides this series, translated in its entirety here, Fusaakira has several items in Honchō monzui. A five-volume family verse collection titled Genji shōsō 源氏小草 has been lost (this work is mentioned in Minamoto Shitagō’s preface to Aritsura’s literary collection—see the notes to the next poem), but some ten pieces believed to be from it survive in other collections. He fulfilled his father’s last wishes by attempting to complete a biography (titled Jikaku Daishi-den 慈覺大師傳) of Priest Ennin (Jikaku Daishi, d. 864). Comments: This first poem in the series was written after Fusaakira and Aritsura met at a temple. Fusaakira celebrates his new (or perhaps rediscovered) friend, praising him as a scholarly genius. Gratified to have found a kindred spirit, he likens their conversation to the rarified philosophical discussions held by the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. The Sages, and a parade of other famous Chinese personages from antiquity, are never far away in the series, embodiments of erudition, refinement, and spiritual freedom. In the second couplet Fusaakira goes even further, implicitly equating Aritsura with two of the most renowned figures in the realms of Sinitic poetry and Mahāyāna Buddhism. Fusaakira next compares his friend to the stalwart pine, a perennial symbol of moral rectitude and endurance, and to the crane, which represents lofty aspirations and longevity. In the final couplet he returns to reality, noting that Aritsura has yet to finish his studies and receive a post. In the same breath, he adds that Aritsura’s late blooming is a sure sign that a brilliant career lies ahead. The five rhyme words in this poem occur throughout the entire series; they are always in the same order as well, in the manner of jiin rhyme-matching (see the Introduction). These stand out as key thematic motifs in the unfolding debate between the two men: kun 君, “gentleman,” lies at the heart of the courtiers’ identities; at the same time, they consider themselves separate from and superior to the collective body (gun 群) of courtiers who are their colleagues. The centrality of literature and learning in the men’s lives is symbolically represented by the recurrent use of bun 文 (letters,

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culture, texts) as the third rhyme, while the penultimate rhyme word, un 雲 (clouds), points to one pole in the debate over the correct course for a gentleman to follow: freedom (as symbolized by clouds) and life outside the government bureaucracy. Bun 聞 (hear, reputation, etc.), the final rhyme word, is used in different ways, sometimes denoting reputation and elsewhere referring either to what the gentlemen have heard or learned concerning recent or former times or to what the “lesser” persons at court might hear about them. These and other themes will be discussed within the commentary for each verse.

(#2) Tachibana no Aritsura. Though undeserving, I was presented with a new poem written by you, Middle Captain Minamoto of the Right Imperial Bodyguards, and I could not help bowing twice! I now presume to offer my humble thoughts. [Using the original rhyme words] Among pines and cassias late one day I chanced to meet up with you. Who could say that swans and swallows never flock together? Filled with emotion, you recited your lines about white duckweed on the pond, As my tears rolled down and stained the green bamboo texts in my box.

[Recently the Middle Captain wrote a poem titled “The Pavilion by the Pond at Kawara no In.” It contained the lines “Lake Qingcao, like a painting with waves drawn in. / White Duckweed Lake, resembling one great spreading shore.” After looking at the poem reverently and hearing these lines recited, I was overcome with emotion and my tears flowed. Hence this note.]

For a “leopard change” I will hide awhile in the mists of the southern peaks, While the roc soars skyward and loses itself in the clouds of the northern abyss. For your sake I’ll recite again the “Cypresswood Boat Ode,” But do not let that vulgar bunch hear about what I am doing! 橘在列

右親衛源亞將軍忝見賜新詩。不勝再拜敢獻鄙懷。 本韻

松桂晚陰一遇君 誰言鵠燕不同群 感吟池上白蘋句 泣染箱中綠竹文 近曾將軍有河原院池停之詩。々中有青草湖圖波寫得。白蘋湖樣岸相傳之句。 余奉拜之次。一聞此句感懷交至。涕泣漣如。故云。

豹變暫藏南嶺霧 鵬搏空失北溟雲 爲君更詠柏舟什 莫使凡流俗客聞

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Source: fss 33, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 34–35; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The annotation hon’in 本韻 indicates that this poem is using the rhyme words of another poem (in this case the previous one in the series) and in the same order. The term is synonymous with jiin. Line two: Swans and swallows, i.e. large birds and small birds, are metaphors for noble and ordinary men. Line three: The allusion to White Duckweed Lake 白蘋湖 is perhaps derived from the second in a pair of short lyric poems (ci 詞) by Wen Tingyun 溫庭筠 (ca. 812–70), known by various tune titles including “Yi Jiangnan” 憶江南 (Remembering the Land South of the Yangzi). This is written in the voice of a lonely woman gazing across the water at sailboats, hoping to see the one that bears her lover. It ends with the words “Heartbroken [here by] White Duckweed Islet” 腸斷白蘋洲. The islet was apparently situated on Lake Tai (Taihu 太湖) near Huzhou, in Zhejiang, and was a place where people bade farewell to friends journeying north by boat. Line four: While most texts have 箱 in this line, Tasaka has provided a handwritten graph composed of 霜 with the bamboo radical on top, which we have not been able to identify. Green bamboo texts: an anachronistic-sounding reference to works written on bamboo slips. Aritsura may be referring to books he brought with him on his visit to the temple, but there is perhaps more to it than this. The two poets allude several times to the well-known story of Emperor Shun’s wives shedding tears over his grave in the wilderness and upon the bamboo nearby, then throwing themselves into the Xiang 湘 River. According to legend, the mottled appearance of a variety of bamboo growing in this area was caused by the wives’ tears. Aritsura may have created an extended pun in this line involving (1) the two homophones xiang 箱 (box) and xiang 湘 (the Xiang River / Xiang bamboo) and (2) the word wen 文, which means both “texts” and “markings.” Thus, the line could also be rendered “my tears staining the green bamboo by the Xiang with markings.” Poet’s note to lines three and four: Kawara no In 河原院 was the personal residence of Minamoto no Tōru 源融 (822–95), son of Emperor Saga. It had a beautiful garden complete with a pond into which salt from Osaka Bay was regularly added, creating a salt flat and a saltwater beach with shells and fishnets, apparently inspired by Shiogama, near modern Sendai. After Tōru’s death, his third son dedicated it to Retired Emperor Uda. The estate appears to have been used as a temple for a period after Uda’s passing. Lake Qingcao 青草湖 is located at the southern extremity of Lake Dongting 洞庭, in Hunan. Line five: We have emended 貌 (meaning “physical appearance”), which is found in Tasaka, to 豹 (leopard). Aritsura is lying low in semi-reclusion (at a Buddhist temple,

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judging from subsequent textual evidence), undergoing self-cultivation and training, developing his wen (culture, refinement), a term that originally referred to stripes or spots on the fur of tigers and leopards. The “leopard change” 豹變 reference connotes a retreat for self-cultivation and perhaps lying in readiness. An early source is a commentary to hexagram 49 (ge 革) in the Yijing, which states: “Whereas the noble man here would do a leopard change, the petty man should radically change his countenance … To set forth would result in misfortune, but to stay put and practice constancy would result in good fortune.” See Richard John Lynn, trans., The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (1994), p. 448. The presence of the word “awhile” (zan 暫), taken together with the leopard change reference, suggests that Aritsura maybe plans to wait for the right moment to resume his career. This line also owes a debt to a poem by Xie Tiao 謝朓 (464–99), “En route to Xuancheng, Emerging from Xinlinpu and Heading toward Banqiao” 之宣城出新林浦向 板橋. The relevant portion has been translated by Kang-i Sun Chang as follows: “Noise and dust are blocked out from now on, / My heart’s content will here be fulfilled. / Though I lack the beauty of a panther, / At last I can retire into the South Mountain mist” 囂塵自茲隔、賞心於此遇、雖無玄豹姿、終隱南山霧. As Chang explains, “A panther in the South Mountains was said to have soaked in heavy mist for seven long days, with complete abstinence from food in order to refine the quality of its hair and patterned skin … The allusion is especially appropriate here, since Hsieh T’iao wishes to devote himself to moral growth in semi-retirement” (Chang, Six Dynasties Poetry, p. 133). The words for leopard and panther are close to identical, the difference being the addition of the character xuan 玄 (dark) as a modifier in the latter instance. Line six: The roc (peng 鵬) was a gigantic mythical bird described in the “Xiaoyao you” chapter of Zhuangzi and associated historically with physical power and spiritual independence. Line seven: “Cypresswood Boat” (Bo zhou 柏舟) is the title of Odes 26 and 45 in Shijing; Aritsura probably had the former in mind, considering the allusion to the same ode found in the next line. Ode 26 is in the voice of an official lamenting how little he is understood by his contemporaries and how unkindly he has been treated. We note that this ode features in the climax of “Si xuan fu” 思玄賦 (Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery) by Zhang Heng 張衡 (78–139); in his final poem, Aritsura pointedly urges Fusaakira to read this rhapsody, perhaps hoping it will inspire him to abandon his career. In Ode 45, a widow declares that she will never remarry, swearing undying loyalty to the memory of her deceased husband. This poem seems the less likely alternative but is not unimaginable: Aritsura may have seen in the widow’s devotion a mirror image of his feelings for Fusaakira. Line eight: The “vulgar bunch” 凡流 reference may be a homonymic (and visual) pun on the phrase 汎[其]流 “floating on the current,” which occurs in the opening

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couplet of Ode 26. This reads: “It floats, that cypresswood boat, floating about on the river’s flow” 汎比柏舟亦汎其流. Biography: Tachibana no Aritsura (893?–953?) was a literatus-official who later in life took Buddhist vows as monk Sonkyō 尊敬. He was the third son of Tachibana no Namiki 橘秘樹 (b. 874?), who once served as governor of Owari. Although from a far less distinguished lineage than Fusaakira, Aritsura was viewed in literary circles as an unusual talent; an account of his life (see below), dated 954/3, indicates that he completed his studies at thirty and did not go any further. Aritsura takes stock of his life in a kanshi titled “Deep Feelings on an Autumn Night: Respectfully Presented to Fujiwara, Supernumerary Middle Captain in the Imperial Bodyguards” (Honchō monzui 21, snkbt 27, pp. 132–33), where he reflects ruefully as follows: … I gaze at the moon, feeling disheartened and sad. / Why is it that I feel disheartened and sad? A graduate of the Academy am I, / Began my studies at the age of ten. / But for all my studying, nothing have I gained, / And now I am more than thirty years of age. / I muddled along, then came back empty-handed; / Now I loll about here in my hut. / My family is poor, acquaintances and relatives few. / Down in the world, I’ve grown distant from old friends. / The Chang’an moon is all that I have now, / Coming each night to visit me in my idleness. (Butterflies, pp. 168–69) Indeed, Aritsura’s career never brought him much distinction. After leaving the Academy he held the most ordinary of posts, first serving as the vice-governor of Aki. After various switches in assignments, Aritsura landed a position as junior assistant director of Censors, holding it for about a year. He became widely known for the strict, dignified, and proper way in which he performed his duties. One of Aritsura’s more significant appointments was as tutor to Minamoto no Shitagō, who was greatly impressed by his teacher’s literary acumen. Shitagō also glowingly described Aritsura’s character as being “without fault and morally pure.” Perhaps in keeping with these traits, Aritsura is said to have greatly disliked cliques and social climbing and, having grown tired of the academic factionalism and competitiveness of court life, took Buddhist vows in 944/10 and went to live at Enryakuji. Aritsura is also remembered for thirty-two poems he wrote to accompany a series of “praise portraits” of Great Masters (Daishi gasan 大師画賛) at this temple, painted on a wall in the Lotus Sutra Repentance Hall (Hokke Sanmaidō 法華三昧堂). See Honma, Ruijū kudaishō zen chūshaku, p. 942. Shitagō later edited a journal by Aritsura titled Sonkyōki 尊敬記 (Monk Sonkyō’s Diary, non-extant), as well as a collection of his kanshi and prose pieces known as Shamon Kyōkō shū 沙門敬公集 (The Collected Works of Lord Monk [Son]kyō, in seven

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maki, comp. 954); only the preface of this latter work survives. This preface, which provides a valuable biographical synopsis, is preserved in Honchō monzui, book 8 (snkbt 27, pp. 54–57, 255–56). In it, Shitagō praises Aritsura as having “outstripped others in his knowledge,” being naturally endowed with the talent of Sima Xiangru and Yang Xiong. Be that as it may, the world was disappointed, Shitagō opines, that so fine a scholar as Aritsura had taken such a long time to become established in the world, noting that “many men of lofty talent fail to receive the recognition they deserve.” Shitagō further states that Aritsura felt an antipathy for the “glory” of court life and was drawn to the Buddhist lifestyle: “He abandoned the ‘five intoxications’ and subdued the ‘four demons,’ but the demon he could not subdue was poetry.” Concerning the friendship between the two men, Shitagō explains that after Fusaakira learned of Aritsura’s literary brilliance he wanted to meet him and test his knowledge and skills. One day the pair finally became acquainted, and over wine they composed numerous verses, “each writing ten poems before they had drunk three cups.” The preface quotes the second couplet from the first poem in the present series, written by Fusaakira, which Shitagō indicates was composed on this particular occasion. Comments: Aritsura returns some of the compliments he received in the previous poem and marvels that a noble “swan” like Fusaakira should deign to associate with a lowly “swallow” such as himself. Aritsura explains that he is waiting for his fortunes to improve and, with a second high-flying bird image, expresses confidence that in the meantime Fusaakira will soar in his own career. In the final couplet Aritsura proposes to recite one of the Odes for his friend’s sake, in what is likely a gesture of sympathy: Fusaakira is experiencing adversity, which we learn more about further on. In the final line, we see the first of several attempts by the pair to establish a sphere of privacy and exclusiveness around themselves, separate from the “vulgar bunch” at court.

(#3) Minamoto no Fusaakira. The talented scholar Tachibana responded to my clumsy poem, and I have written in reply to offer thanks, using the same rhymes. I feel regret that for many years we never managed to meet. Then in the hills one day we met and our friendship came into being. Boon companions just as before, from the moment we stopped to talk; Comrades forever precisely because of our shared devotion to culture. Like lacquer and glue our relationship, a drink of plain, fresh water; Fine jade your beauteous verse, halting the clouds in their tracks. Your plan is for us to go together to a place with forests and springs, The clamor of the workaday world no longer fit to be heard.

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橘才子見酬拙詩、以本韻答謝。

恨我多年未遇君 山頭一旦適成群 知音如舊初傾蓋 會友無期只以文 膠漆交情斟淡水 瓊瑤麗句遏青雲 相携欲結林泉計 塵網諠譁不足聞 Source: fss 34, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 35; octave (heptasyllabic). Line three: “Boon companions” (zhiyin 知音, J. chiin) is literally “[those who] understand the music.” See the notes to dsks 213. “Stopped to talk” is literally “inclined our carriage canopies” 傾蓋, a stock reference to intimate conversations between refined gentlemen, originally when their carriages met on the road. A passage in “Zunxian” 尊賢, in Shuo yuan 說苑 (Garden of Sayings, by Liu Xiang 劉向, first century bce), reads: “When Confucius was in Tan he met Chengzi on the road. They inclined their carriage canopies and talked all day long” 孔子之郯、遭程子於塗、傾蓋而語終日. The phrase also occurs in the common expression qing gai ru gu 傾蓋如故, “inclining our carriage canopies and behaving like old friends.” Ru jiu 如舊, “as before, as in former times,” in Fusaakira’s line is an adaptation of the synonymous ru gu如故; both are somewhat ambiguous, meaning not only “as before” but also “as if long acquainted.” Line four: This is based on a passage in Lun yu 12.24, which reads: “Zengzi said, ‘The gentleman forms friendships on the basis of shared devotion to culture, and thereby is assisted in developing virtue’” 曾子曰、君子以文會友、以友輔仁. Line five: Once combined, lacquer and glue cannot be separated. This is a conventional figure used to describe a state of deep intimacy. A relationship like “[a drink of] plain, fresh water” 斟淡水 is one that is pure and noble: see the “Biao ji” 表記 chapter of Li ji, which states, “[Hence,] the gentleman in his dealings is like water, the petty man like sweet wine. The gentleman through this blandness achieves perfection; the petty man through this ‘sweetness’ does harm” 故君子之接如水、小人之接如醴。君 子淡以成、人甘以壞. Line six: The notion of halting the clouds in their tracks (e qing yun 遏青雲) derives from Liezi 5.11. A man named Xue Tan 薛譚 studied singing with Qin Qing 秦青, but after a while he decided to end his lessons and return home. At a farewell banquet for Xue, Qin Qing performed music that was so mournfully beautiful the clouds above stopped to listen. Deeply moved, Xue decided to remain with his teacher.

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Line seven: The phrase xiang xie 相携 can mean either to follow someone to a place or to go there hand in hand. Line eight: “Workaday world” (chen wang 塵網): literally “dusty net,” a Buddhistinspired phrase referring to the entanglements and corrupting influence of the material world. The locus classicus is Tao Yuanming’s poem “Gui yuan tian ju” 歸園 田居 (Returning to My Garden and Fields), which has the following lines: “By mistake I fell into the dusty net / And went away for thirteen years” 誤落塵網中 一 去三十年. (“Thirty” 三十 in the second line is generally regarded as an error for “thirteen” 十三.) Comments: Fusaakira asserts that his ties with Aritsura are unbreakable and yet manages to sidestep the issue of joining his friend in the countryside, leaving his intentions unclear.

(#4) Tachibana no Aritsura. A further poem offered to match the one I was presented by you, Middle Captain Minamoto of the Right Imperial Bodyguards. [Using the original rhyme words]

The Confucian classics, your “general’s axe,” have been handed down to you. Furthermore, there is your poetry, which stands out from all the rest. Whenever I read your divine creations I marvel at their brilliance And realize that this culture of ours has never “fallen to the ground.” In the forest it’s the protruding foliage that is first destroyed by the wind; Above the peaks the moon shines forth and then is obscured by clouds. If I had a house in the mountains and you were to follow me there, We could listen to the sounds of the pines and springs, surely to our hearts’ content! 橘在列

繼奉和右親衛源亞將見酬之詩 本韻

儒書將鉞共傳君 況是篇章別絕群 每見天然詞自妙 便知地未墜斯文 林中木秀先摧吹 嶺上月明更遇雲 若占山居相從去 泉聲松響飽應聞 Source: fss 35, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 36; octave (heptasyllabic).

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Line one: Aritsura sees his friend as the scholarly counterpart of a military leader, implying that for Fusaakira the classical texts are the intellectual equivalent of a mighty axe wielded by a general in battle. This military analogy is echoed in line three of Fusaakira’s response, where he demurs at the suggestion that he is worthy of being viewed as a warrior, even in a figurative sense. Line four: This line is a particularly hyperbolic piece of flattery: Aritsura is endeavoring to depict Fusaakira as a guardian and transmitter of ancient values in the mold of Confucius himself. The words “… this culture has not ‘fallen to the ground’ ” 地未墜斯文 are derived from two separate passages in Lun yu. The first, from Lun yu 9.5, reads: “When the Master encountered danger in Kuang he said, ‘King Wen having died, doesn’t this culture lie with me? If Heaven had wanted this culture to perish, then it would not have given this culture to a later decedent like me. Heaven has not allowed this culture to perish, so what can the people of Kuang do to me?’” 子畏於匡。曰: 文王既沒、文不在茲乎? 天之將喪斯文也、後死者不得與於斯文也、天之未喪斯文 也、匡人其如予何? The second excerpt, from 19.22, reads: “Gongsun Zhao of Wei asked Zi Gong, saying, ‘Where did Zhong Ni [Confucius] acquire his learning?’ Zi Gong replied, ‘The doctrines of [Kings] Wen and Wu have not yet fallen to the ground. They are to be found among men. The worthy are familiar with the greater principles, while lesser men know the lesser principles. None among them is unaware of the doctrines of Wen and Wu’” 衛公孫朝問於子貢曰: 仲尼焉學? 子貢曰：文武之道、未墜於地、在人。賢者識其 大者、不賢者識其小者、莫不有文武之道焉. Trans. adapted from James Legge, trans. and annot., Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean (rpt. ed., 1971), p. 346. Lines five and six: This portion is based on a passage from “Yunming lun” (Discussion on Fate 運命論), by Li Kang 李康 (ca. 196–ca. 264), which reads: “When a tree is protruding [luxuriantly] in a forest, the wind is sure to ravage it. When earth is mounded up on a riverbank, the flow is sure to erode and wash it away. If your conduct is nobler than that of others, they are sure to disparage you” 木秀於林、風必摧之、   堆出於岸。流必湍之、行高於人、衆必非之. The extant part of this text is preserved in Wen xuan 53. Comments: Through the images of the new foliage destroyed by the wind and the moonlight blocked by clouds, Aritsura strives to portray Fusaakira as a victim, hoping perhaps to alienate him from the court. As becomes clear in poem 5, Aritsura’s hint that they should live together seems to fall on deaf ears.

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(#5) Minamoto no Fusaakira. To the talented scholar Tachibana: You’ve presented me with another poem. The first of your two verses lamented the stagnation of my career; the second one praised my poetry. In the course of all this praise and lamentation, we have written five poems using the original rhyme words. Seeking my inkstone and brush each day I feel extremely ashamed: Pearls and jade so often strung with clusters of pottery shards. I’ve never had any martial stratagems and am poor at the warrior arts, But I have studied the Confucian texts, encountering splendid works. It’s surprising to think that the Xie clan managed to beget Anshi; I’m aware as well that the Yang family gave birth to Ziyun. If you compare our talent and fame there’s a hundred miles between us; I remain afraid that others will hear your words of praise for me. 源英明 橘才子重見寄。初二篇歎余之沉滯、後一章褒余之詩章。 褒歎之間五綴。本韻。 日尋筆硯甚慙君 珠玉頻連瓦礫群 兵略素無猶拙武 儒書曾學適飛文 應驚謝氏生安石 自識揚家有子雲 比校才名程百里 褒詞還恐外人聞 Source: fss 36, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 36–37; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The text has 初二篇 (the first two poems), but here it seems to mean “the first of [your] two verses.” Lines one and two: Fusaakira feels ashamed that his talents do not measure up to those of his friend, comparing himself to a mere pottery shard strung alongside gems on a necklace. Line five: Anshi is Xie Anshi 謝安石 (320–85), great-granduncle of the poet Xie Lingyun. He was renowned as a military commander and strategist. Xie Lingyun, by contrast, was a distinguished poet but had no martial proclivities and his political career was unsuccessful. Fusaakira finds it surprising that Xie Lingyun inherited none of his relative’s military talents, achieving fame in a completely different field of endeavor.

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Line six: The Tasaka text and Gunsho ruijū, p. 192, both have 揚 written as 楊, which we have emended. Yang Ziyun 揚子雲 is Yang Xiong 揚雄 (53 bce–ad 18), one of the Han dynasty’s most prominent intellectuals. Yang had a speech impediment but overcame it and went on to become a famous poet and philosopher. Fusaakira is implying that he and Aritsura will likewise transcend their circumstances and be recognized for their talents. Line seven: For the character 比 we have followed Gunsho ruijū; the Tasaka text has 此, a less likely alternative. The second graph, 校, is a variant for both 較 and 挍 (to compare); Gunsho ruijū has the latter orthography. Comments: Responding to the “general’s axe” remark in poem 4, Fusaakira notes that he lacks military skills; the one realm where he possesses any competence is traditional scholarship (line four).

(#6) Tachibana no Aritsura. Middle Captain Minamoto: You keep turning out poetic masterpieces! These stunningly magnificent and rare jewels are unparalleled in the world. Giving no thought to my mediocrity and vacuousness, I have presumed to offer up my own clumsy poems, with rhymes matching yours. My urge to versify has not yet run its course, and the impulse to compose continues to spur me on! Your literary gems dazzle my eyes, and I find my mouth frozen in awe. Overcome by feelings and emotions, I have once more stitched together the following piece of chaff. [Using the original rhyme words] Heaven indeed has endowed you with an unlimited measure of talent. The Two Bans and the Two Lus—surely not in your league! And consider Scholar Yang—why would anyone take fine gold And seek to buy his writings, which have the value of Kunshan jade? Chen Kongzhang’s verse is empty, just good for curing ills; Sima Xiangru’s rhapsodies are simply off in the clouds. Who would imagine your verse could display a brilliance so rare? It inspires the spirits, moves the gods, and the birds and beasts all listen. 橘在列 源亞將軍頻投瓊章。絕妙奇珍、無比於世。余不顧庸虛、 敢獻拙和。  而餘興未盡、 、感吟更催。冰霜在口、黼黻昭目。不堪情 感、重綴蕪詞。 本韻 應是以才天縱君 二班二陸豈同群 還將揚士兼金價 欲買崑山片玉文 陳孔璋詞空愈病

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馬相如賦只凌雲 誰知亞將詩奇絕 鬼感神憐鳥獸聞 Source: fss 37, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 37–38; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: The phrase “mouth frozen in awe” is literally, “[having] ice and frost in one’s mouth.” Aritsura appears to be saying that he finds Fusaakira’s verse so splendid that he is speechless. The phrase “offer up my own clumsy poems” follows Gunsho ruijū. Tasaka has 戲 (play or jest), which we have emended to 獻 (offer). Line one: Aritsura has reworked a passage in Lun yu 9.6. Confucius’ disciple Zi Gong 子貢 is being questioned about his master’s abilities, and Zi Gong replies: “Heaven certainly endowed him with unlimited talent, and he is virtually a sage” 固天縱之將聖. Line two: The “Two Bans” are Ban Biao 班彪 (3–54) and Ban Gu 班固 (32–92), father and son. Ban Biao began the task of compiling Han shu, the official history of the Former Han dynasty, but died before it was completed. The project was continued by Ban Gu, aided by his sister Ban Zhao 班昭. The “Two Lus” are the brothers Lu Ji 陸機 (261–303) and Lu Yun 陸雲 (262–303). Both were scholars, military leaders, and statesmen. Lu Ji is best known for his “Wen fu” 文賦 (Rhapsody on Literature), a landmark piece of original literary criticism. Lines three and four: We have provisionally emended the fourth character in line three (tu 土 “earth,” found in both texts) to shi 士, “scholar, gentleman.” If read as given, Aritsura may be ridiculing Yang Xiong, calling him “stirred up dust” 揚土. This challenging couplet may be alluding to an anecdote about a wealthy man who was willing to pay a vast sum of money just to receive a mention in Yang Xiong’s essay “Model Sayings” (Fa yan 法言), “buying” Yang’s writings, in effect. See Wang Chong 王充 (27–91), Lun heng 論衡, ch. 20. Kunshan 崑山 is a mountain in Jiangsu, northwest of modern Shanghai. Nearby was the ancestral home of the Lu brothers (see the note to line two), who at one stage returned to reside here, producing works that were praised as “pieces of jade from Kunshan” 崑山片玉. More commonly, however, Kunshan refers to Kunlunshan 崑崙山, a mountain range in the northwest of China; jade was abundant there, but much of it had little value. Aritsura appears to be referring here to the low-value jade of Kunlunshan, to belittle Yang Xiong’s works and perhaps those of the Lu brothers as well. Line five: Chen Kongzhang 陳孔璋 (Chen Lin 陳琳, d. 217) was one of the great prose writers and poets of his time, ranked among the Seven Masters of the Jian’an Era 建安七子 (196–220). The military leader and statesman Cao Cao 曹操 (155–220) is said to have once recovered from a headache after reading Chen’s writings. Aritsura’s reference to curing illness appears to hark back to this anecdote. This line and the next are cited in Sakumon daitai to illustrate the use of proper nouns in parallel couplets—see Gunsho ruijū, vol. 6 (1931), p. 498.

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Line six: The phrase “off in the clouds” (lingyun 凌雲) is often associated with Sima Xiangru’s poetic style, referring to its extravagant flights of fancy. Sima Qian’s biography of this poet in Shi ji relates that after reading Xiangru’s “Da ren fu” 大人賦 (Rhapsody on the Great Man), Emperor Wu said he experienced a light and transcendent feeling, as if he were “fluttering about, off in the clouds, wandering languidly between Heaven and earth” 飄飄有凌雲之氣、似遊天地之間意. While Xiangru’s poetic skills have generally been admired, Aritsura, by contrast, is being dismissive, in keeping with his overall contention that Fusaakira was superior to many of China’s foremost literary figures. Comments: Fusaakira’s earlier plea that Aritsura moderate his praise has been ignored: after a hyperbolic introduction Aritsura again attempts to place Fusaakira in the same league as Confucius. He goes on to rank Fusaakira above six of the most distinguished scholars of the Han and Wei-Jin dynasties, whom he dismisses one after another. As before, his apparent goal is to evoke righteous indignation in Fusaakira and maneuver him into abandoning his official career by depicting him as a genius deprived of the recognition he deserves.

(#7) Tachibana no Aritsura. Middle Captain Minamoto: You’re like a dragon hesitating to leap and remaining in the depths. In our poetic exchanges I have often lamented this. But you are modest in your ambitions and have indicated at every turn that your career has gone as far as you would desire. Thus, I have written the following poem, with the original rhyme words, presuming to offer my humble opinions. The entire court, if only they knew, would all feel sorry for you. For those unaware, I present these words without omission to all. Don’t demur if I loudly praise you for having a phoenix’s virtue; It truly pains me how timid you are, despite the tortoise marks on your feet! I remain here at Xiliu, lonely camp in the moonlight; Shedding tears at Cangwu, just a single cloud. Though I cannot bear to look back in time and ponder past events, The words and decrees of former emperors still resound in my ears. 橘在列 源亞將軍或躍在淵。唱和之間、余常歎之。而亞將獨秉謙 虛之志、動陳止足之詞。因綴本韻、敢獻鄙懷。 滿朝有識盡悲君 無識人言自備群 莫謝放聲歌鳳德 猶憐累足履龜文

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身留細柳孤營月 淚灑蒼梧一片雲 不耐廻頭思往事 先皇綸旨耳中聞 Source: fss 38, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 38–39; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: Tasaka has 詩 (poem), which we have emended to 詞, following Gunsho ruijū, p. 192. “[Like a dragon] hesitating to leap and remaining in the depths” 或躍在淵 is derived from the Fourth Yang of Hexagram One in Yijing. This translation is adapted from Lynn, The Classic of Changes, p. 136, where the passage in question reads, “Hesitating to leap, it still stays in the depths, so suffers no blame.” The commentary states: “… The noble man fosters his virtue, cultivates his task, and wishes to be ready when the moment arrives. Therefore he suffers no blame.” Whereas the Yijing depicts patience as a virtue and a sign of wisdom, Aritsura sees it as a manifestation of a passive nature and a factor in Fusaakira’s lack of career success. Line four: In Chinese physiognomy, markings on the soles of the feet resembling those on a tortoise’s carapace were seen as portending future greatness, an early allusion to this being found in the biography of Li Gu 李固 (d. 147), in Hou Han shu, ch. 63. Li is described as having “strange marks on his face, a head which was pointed like a rhinoceros horn, and tortoise-shell marks on the soles of his feet” 固貌狀有奇 表、鼎角匿犀、足履龜文. The Li Xian 李賢 (654–84) commentary states that according to works on physiognomy, possessing such features meant that one was destined to become an official with a two-thousand picul salary 足履龜文者、二千石、見相書. Aritsura appears to have created a piece of word play here by overlapping the phrases 累足 (rendered as “timid,” literally “having one’s legs crossed”) with 足履龜文, “tortoise marking on the soles of one’s feet,” the character 足 serving as a pivot word. Line five: The phrase gu ying 孤營 (lonely camp) in some contexts means “lonely grave,” although when the latter meaning is intended the second graph is usually 塋. It seems plausible that the poet intended to evoke the notion of “lonely grave” here in order to create a parallel with a famous grave site alluded to in line six. Xiliuying 細柳營 (Xiliu Camp) was an encampment near Xianyang, once under the command of the general Zhou Yafu 周亞父 (d. 152 bce). Line six: This is based upon lines from two quatrains by the Tang poet Song Zhiwen 宋之問 (d. 712): see Quan Tang shi 53.60, 61. Cangwu 蒼梧, in modern Hunan province, was a place in the remote countryside where the semi-legendary sage-emperor Shun is said to have died and been buried while on an inspection tour of the south. See the notes to fss 33. Aritsura is doubtless drawing a parallel between his sense of loss (over being apart from Fusaakira) and the grief experienced by Shun’s wives.

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lines seven and eight: We have followed the Gunsho ruijū text. The Tasaka version reads 不耐□廻思往事, with a lacuna in the third position. Comments: This is another poem by Aritsura—an unexplained variation from the usual pattern of alternation between the two poets; one suspects that an intervening reply poem from Fusaakira was lost. In the first four lines Aritsura shows his intention to let the world know of his unending admiration for his friend’s virtues, yet he places some of the blame for Fusaakira’s lack of recognition on the man himself, seeming to chide him for being diffident and apparently willing to settle for so little. Aritsura also acknowledges his own loneliness, perhaps to tug on Fusaakira’s heartstrings and convince him to leave the court. At the same time, he reveals in the final couplet that he is somewhat conflicted, still feeling twinges of nostalgia for his past life, a revelation that Fusaakira seems to exploit in the next poem.

(#8) Minamoto no Fusaakira. To the talented scholar Tachibana: You believe that I have let slip the opportunity to advance, and your response poems often mention this. I beg to differ, explaining my reasons in a reply that once again uses our original rhyme words. Although you’ve now withdrawn from the court, you once served Emperor Yao. In the beginning you belonged to that cohort of cranes and simurghs. At sunrise you entered the Purple Palace, delivering imperial edicts; At dawn you hastened to the palace gates, starlight on your back. By the bamboo they grieved on the banks of the Xiang, tears shed in vain; The dragon took umbrage at Tripod Lake, then vanished into the clouds. Times come and times go—of this I am not unaware. But I need you, my boon companion, to pay heed to what I say! 源英明 橘才子以予爲失時。贈答之中屢有此句。余乃不然。故述 來由、復次本韻。 抽身也昔侍堯君 便是當初鸞鶴群 晨入紫微傳鳳詔 曉趍青瑣戴星文 竹悲湘浦空留涙 龍怨鼎湖遂隔雲 時去時來非不識 吾教知己一言聞

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Source: fss 39, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 39; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: The mention of China’s semi-historical sage emperor Yao is a reference to Emperor Daigo, whom Aritsura served at court before withdrawing (Honma, Nihon kanshi, p. 155). Line two: Cranes and simurghs: auspicious and noble birds in Chinese mythology, but here a metaphorical reference to palace aristocrats. Line three: Purple Palace (Palace of Purple Tenuity) 紫微 (Ch. Ziwei): normally this designates the Inner Palace Compound (Dairi 内裏), where the emperor had his residential buildings, although here the term could instead refer to the Secretariat (more typically written 紫薇, “purple myrtle,” i.e. crepe myrtle). This is where documents were drafted for the emperor. During the Tang dynasty, many of whose institutions became models for the Nara and Heian court, the building where this office was housed had crepe myrtle growing beside it. Within the Dairi were the Shishinden 紫宸殿 (The Purple Sanctum Hall), the Seiryōden 清涼殿 (The Hall of Cool and Refreshing Breezes, where the emperor resided), and the Jijūden 仁壽殿 (Benevolent Longevity Hall), together with many other buildings. Line four: The second graph is a variant for qu 趨. Lines five and six: The character 留 is a variant for 流 (to flow). This line contains yet another allusion to the tears shed by Shun’s wives over his grave in the wilderness near the river Xiang. Here, Fusaakira might be saying that Aritsura’s tears of loneliness (see line 6 in the previous poem) will be no more effective in drawing him to the mountains than were the tears of these women in restoring the king to life. Tripod (or Cauldron) Lake (Dinghu 鼎湖) in Henan is where the legendary Yellow Emperor is said to have mined copper and cast tripods (a symbol of imperial authority), then rose to heaven on a dragon’s back with seventy of his high officials. Some of them tried to cling onto the dragon (which may account for the dragon’s “taking umbrage” in this line) but fell off as it ascended. A translation of the Lun heng account of this story is found in Fabrizio Pregadio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (2006), p. 42. As with line five, the significance of this imagery is not entirely clear, but Fusaakira appears to be taking the “hesitant dragon” simile from the title of poem 7 in this series and transforming it into a soaring dragon, perhaps offering the consolation that, just as the dragon in the legend left the world, he too may eventually leave the court when the time is right. Comments: In the first half of the poem Fusaakira reminds Aritsura about his earlier service at court, perhaps following up on his friend’s confession in the final couplet of the previous poem and using it to encourage him to return to court. The second half of the verse is less than entirely coherent but seems to show Fusaakira standing his ground, while conceding that what is in the past cannot necessarily be brought back (“times come and times go”).

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(#9) Tachibana no Aritsura. Another Matching Poem East of the walls I fled the world, exactly like Wang Jun, Desiring to head to a Buddhist temple and be among the arhats. My lifelong profession: the learning of the three thousand disciples, The “abstruse discussions,” and the eighty thousand texts in the canon. Wang Chong in regard to lifespan makes reference to ice; The Yuima sutra in describing the body likens it to clouds. Once the laws of non-duality have all been fully discussed, I will go beyond mere self-enlightenment and the level of the śrāvaka. 橘在列

重奉和

牆東避世似王君 欲逐浮圖羅什群 素業三千人外學 玄談八萬藏中文 王充因命還論凍 摩詰將身更喩雲 不二法門皆話盡 應超獨覺與聲聞 Source: fss 40, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 40; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: Wang Jun 王君 (Wang Jungong 王君公) was a Daoist scholar who lived during the Han dynasty. Refusing to serve the usurper Wang Mang (r. 9–23), he feigned madness and went into reclusion by the eastern wall of the capital, becoming a cattle-dealer. Line two: Arhat (arakan 阿羅漢, Ch. luohan) here denotes Buddhist priests. Originally one of the ten appellations of the Buddha, the term later came to designate his five hundred disciples. One source defines an arhat as someone who is “free from all craving and rebirth … a saint who has already freed himself from all defilements [and] has achieved perfect knowledge …” See Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary, ed. by Iwano Masao (1965), p. 10. Line three: Aritsura is referring to his study of the Confucian classics: Confucius is said to have had some three thousand disciples over the course of his lifetime. “Learning” is more literally “outside learning” (wai xue 外學), a Buddhist term for doctrines outside of Buddhism. Line four: “Abstruse discussions” 玄談: a term mainly associated with the Daoism of the Later Han and Wei-Jin periods. It also occurs in Buddhist contexts and in this

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instance may refer to Buddhist learning instead. The figure 80,000 is an approximation of the number of sutras (traditionally said to have been 84,000) compiled during the lifetime of the historical Buddha. Line five: In the “Lun si” 論死 (Discussion of Death) section of Lun heng, Wang Chong writes, “People are born between heaven and earth as though they are upon ice,” as noted in Honma, Nihon kanshi, p. 155. Wang again uses ice metaphorically in the “Dao xu” 道虛 (Daoist Untruths) section of the same work, which reads: “Human life is like water. Water frozen gives ice, and the vital force concentrated forms the human being. Ice lasts one winter, then it melts; man lives a hundred years then he dies. Bid a man not to die, can you bid ice not to melt?” Orig. trans. by Alfred Forke, reproduced in Victor Mair, ed., The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (1994), p. 77. Line six: Yuima-kyō 維摩經 was an influential Mahāyāna text. See the notes to fss 32. The “Hōben-bon” 方便品 (Expedient Means) chapter of this sutra contains the following passage, which may have been the inspiration for this line: “This body is like floating clouds. Very soon it will change and be extinguished” 是身如浮雲、須臾變滅. See Honma, ibid., p. 155. Line seven: “Non-duality” 不二 (Skt. advaita) is the core Buddhist concept of a oneness that links everything. It holds that all things in their intrinsic nature are connected, creating a basic equality and unity despite the superficial differences and seeming separateness inherent in matter. Line eight: Aritsura aspires to achieve the highest form of Buddhist perfection, that of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. The crux of his declaration is that he is far from completing his training and not yet ready to leave the temple. Fusaakira evidently was not pleased to hear this, making his dissatisfaction clear in the next poem. The term “self-enlightenment” (dokkaku 獨覺, Skt. pratyeka-buddha), follows Gunsho ruijū (Tasaka has 獨學 “self-study”). Dokkaku harks back to the Hīnayāna notion of finding spiritual liberation on one’s own, through the “twelve links of causation” (jūni in’en 十二因縁). Śrāvaka (shōmon 聲聞) in the same line denotes a disciple who has absorbed the teachings of the Buddha and achieved nirvana. It may also refer to a high priest who has gained perfect knowledge and arhat status, comprehending the Four Truths of Buddhism. Comments: Rather than risk offending Fusaakira further by harping on his stalled career, Aritsura now appears to have changed tactics: he outlines his own spiritual aspirations, maybe hoping that Fusaakira will follow his example. Aritsura declines to respond to Fusaakira’s observations concerning his past service at court in the previous poem.

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(#10) Minamoto no Fusaakira. Another Poem in the Series, with “Group” as a Rhyme Word Rhapsodizing on mysteries, reciting impromptu—no one as skilled as you. You’re like a descendant of Jia and Ma, to be grouped with Yuan and Bai. Even better than Master Mao with his collection of three hundred odes And more noble than Mister Lao with his classic of five thousand words. For Buddhahood, what need is there for arhats as one’s teachers? Enlightened, at last you know that you have reached the hōun realm. Seldom has a student mastered the Buddhist teachings so well; I suspect that you met the Sixteen Disciples and heard it all from them! 源英明

重次群字

賦玄吟興不如君 賈馬後身元白群 過自毛公三百首 貴於老氏五千文 空門何必師羅漢 證地終知至法雲 少有書生通法教 疑逢十六會中聞 Source: fss 41, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 40–41; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: “Rhapsodizing on mysteries” (fu xuan 賦玄) is an allusion to Zhang Heng’s “Si xuan fu” 思玄賦 (Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery). See David R. Knechtges, trans., Wen xuan or Selections of Refined Literature (1996), vol. 3, pp. 105–39 for a translation. See also notes to fss 33, line seven, above. Note that in fss 53, the final poem in this series, Aritsura enjoins Fusaakira to read this piece. The phrase bu ru jun 不如君 (“no one as skilled as you”) could instead mean “I’m not as skilled as you.” Line two: Jia and Ma are Jia Yi 賈誼 (200–168 bce) and Sima Xiangru. Sima is referred to earlier, in fss 37, where Aritsura insinuates that Sima was less talented than Fusaakira. Yuan and Bai are the Tang poets Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi; they are mentioned together partly because they were fellow-students and close friends. Fusaakira may also be drawing a parallel between their relationship and his friendship with Aritsura. Line three: Master Mao (Han dynasty; identity uncertain) produced an edition of Shijing that became accepted as the standard text; this was known as Mao shi 毛詩 (The Mao Odes). The actual number of poems in this work is 305.

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Line four: The “classic of five thousand words” is Laozi 老子, known also as Daode jing 道德經 (The Classic of the Way and Its Power). Line six: Hōun 法雲, “dharma [Buddhist law] clouds,” is a term used in the sutra Kegon-kyō 華嚴經 in a reference to the “stage of the dharma clouds,” the highest of ten stages a bodhisattva experiences in the pursuit of Buddhahood (dharma meghā bhūmi). Line eight: The poet is referring to the legendary sixteen arhats (jūroku rakan 十六羅漢), the original disciples of Buddha, as seen in the sutra Amida-kyō 阿彌陀經. Comments: Following Aritsura’s digression on Buddhist doctrine, Fusaakira attempts to redirect the discourse. The first half of the poem is taken up with praise for Aritsura’s talents: Fusaakira likens him to six of China’s greatest poets and scholars, in a manner reminiscent of Aritsura’s compliments in poem 6. His point may be to remind Aritsura not to hide his light under a bushel. In the second half of the poem, Fusaakira asserts that Aritsura has already acquired all the Buddhist knowledge he needs, probably hinting that it is time to come home.

(#11) Tachibana no Aritsura. Another Poem, Using “Hear” as a Rhyme Word [I am no] different from Cassia Man or the Masters Mao. By the Yi and Luo rivers I wander freely, far away from the crowd. After [… ], beside the lotuses I begin reading the gāthās; When the mood strikes, on bamboo slips I start composing verse. In the Western Paradise, I shall tread the earth in the land of lapis lazuli; In the Upper Realm, I will surely behold the carnelian-colored clouds. On the path between Existence and the Void lies the doctrine of the Middle Way: I would not lament if I died at night, after hearing it in the morning. 橘在列

重押聞字

□殊桂父與茅君 伊洛逍遙自出群 □後蓮花先展偈 興來竹簡更排文 西方欲蹈瑠璃地 上界應看碼碯雲 空有道中々道理 不憂夕死爲朝聞

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Source: fss 42, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 41–42; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: The first character is missing; thus, our translation is tentative. The sixth character 茅 follows Gunsho ruijū, which appears to be correct. Tasaka’s text has 第, an apparent error. “Cassia Man” 桂父 was an ancient immortal who dwelt in the wilds, subsisting on cassia leaves and mallows. He had the complexion of a child and his skin color was variously black, white, brown, and red. A brief account of him is given in Lie xian zhuan 列仙傳 (Biographies of Immortals; authorship uncertain, ca. first century bce), a collection of seventy short sketches of Daoist adepts said to have attained immortality. “The Masters Mao” 茅君, or the “Three Masters Mao” 三茅君 (second century bce), were three brothers who lived as Daoist adepts and supposedly became immortals. They resided on Mount Juqu 句曲 (later renamed Sanmaoshan 三茅山 or Maoshan 茅山, after the brothers) in modern Jiangsu. Line two: The Yi and Luo were two of three rivers that converged at the ancient capital of Luoyang. The joint mention of the Yi and Luo rivers calls to mind Pan Yue’s masterpiece “Xian ju fu” 閒居賦 (Rhapsody on the Idle Life), where in the second stanza Pan states that he has withdrawn from the city to live on the banks of the Luo, gazing toward the Yi. For a translation, see Knechtges, Wen xuan, vol. 3, pp. 145–57. The Yi is also mentioned in poem 15, below, again because of its association with detachment from worldly cares. “Wander freely” (xiaoyao 逍遙) recalls the title of the first chapter of Zhuangzi, “Xiaoyao you.” In this couplet Aritsura is attempting to create for himself the persona of a Daoist immortal. Line three: The first character is missing. Gāthās 偈 were hymns sung to praise the Buddha and reinforce points of Buddhist doctrine. Line four: “Bamboo slips” is fanciful here, a deliberate anachronism for the sake of rhetorical elegance. Line five: Lapis lazuli was one of the Seven Treasures (qi bao 七寶) of Buddhism. The “Western Paradise” in Mahāyāna Buddhism is the Pure Land (Sukhāvatī), where the Buddha Amitābha dwells. Here and in the next line, Aritsura is rhapsodizing about his anticipated ascent to higher levels of Buddhist consciousness and eventual rebirth in the Pure Land. Line six: The graphs 碼碯 are variants for 瑪瑙, “agate” or “carnelian.” Line seven: “The path” is the way to true wisdom or nirvana in Buddhism. “Middle Way” refers both to the principle of non-duality, positing a reality lying beyond existence and non-existence, and to a path of moderation between the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. Line eight: This line, an almost jarring reminder of the intellectual eclecticism seen in this series, is a reworking of a well-known remark attributed to Confucius, Lun yu 4.8, which reads, “[The Master said:] ‘If a man hears The Way in the morning, he will be content to die in the evening’” 子曰朝聞道夕死可矣.

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Comments: Aritsura offers no response to Fusaakira’s volley of blandishments delivered in the previous poem or to the suggestion that his spiritual training should be considered complete.

(#12) Minamoto no Fusaakira. Another Poem, Using “Literature” as a Rhyme Word The garden sunflowers have faith enough to turn to the Lord of the East. You, Bao Shu, know that I’d never leave my cohorts behind. My golden armor hangs unused, I’ve set my arms aside; In the pagoda-tree grove I flourish alone, cultivating the arts of peace. A man of leisure with much free time should be versifying in the moonlight. My talented one, just when do you expect to walk among the clouds? Painstaking study is surely better than the wasteful neglect of learning. Let’s not allow those summer insects to hear about winter’s ice!

[At this time learned people are stagnating in obscurity, while those with shallow wisdom are advancing. Hence this remark.]

源英明

重賦文字

園葵有信向東君 鮑叔知吾不棄群 金甲空懸依偃武 槐林獨茂爲修文 閑人多暇宜吟月 才子何年欲蹋雲 苦學寧如奢不學 冬冰莫使夏蟲聞 于時學者沉滯、淺智昇進、故云。

Source: fss 43, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 42; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: “Lord of the East” 東君: the sun. The image of sunflowers turning towards the sun is a figure for devotion to the emperor. Line two: The poet likens Aritsura to Bao Shu 鮑叔 (i.e., Bao Shuya 鮑叔牙, d. 644 bce), an intimate friend of the great statesman Guan Zhong 管仲. It was on Bao’s recommendation that Duke Huan of Qi 齊桓公 employed Guan as his prime minister. Guan Zhong, in a famous comment, summed up his respect and affection for Bao, saying: “It was my parents who gave birth to me, but the one who knows me is Master Bao” 生我 者父與母、知我者鮑子也. Fusaakira is reminding Aritsura that although he considers him the closest of friends, he has no intention of abandoning his office for his sake.

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Lines three and four: Fusaakira once served in the Imperial Bodyguards but now devotes himself to literary activity and his clerical duties within the court. “Set aside my arms” 偃武 is derived from the expression 偃武修文, “to set aside one’s arms and cultivate the arts of peace.” The second half of this phrase occurs in line four. The locus classicus is the “Wu cheng” 武成 (Successful Completion of the War) section of Shujing. “Pagoda-tree grove” 槐林 is a reference to Fusaakira’s fellow-officials at court. The pagoda tree (Sophora japonica), an ornamental introduced to Japan from China, is also known as the Chinese-scholar tree and was a symbol in Japan for courtier families that produced influential ministers. More generally, it was a metonym for the palace. Line five: Fusaakira believes that Aritsura should redirect his efforts to more traditional pursuits, such as writing nature poems, and overcome his preoccupation with the search for enlightenment. Line six: “Walking among the clouds” harks back to Aritsura’s previous poem about being among the “carnelian-colored clouds” of the Pure Land. Fusaakira is pouring cold water on the idea that this dream will ever come true. Line seven: As in line five, Fusaakira is decrying Aritsura’s apparent neglect of Confucian studies. Line eight: The reference to summer insects and winter ice derives from the “Qiu shui” 秋水 (Autumn Floods) chapter in Zhuangzi: “Ruo, [Spirit-lord] of the Northern Sea, said, ‘You cannot talk to a frog in a well about the ocean—he is limited to the confines of his hole. You cannot talk with a summer insect about ice—it knows nothing outside of its own season. You cannot enter into a discussion about the Dao with a scholar who has narrow views—he is restricted by the instruction he has received’ ” 北海若曰、井蛙不可以語於海者、拘於虛也。夏蟲不可以語於冰者、篤於時也。曲 士不可以語於道者、束於教也. Just as summer insects have no experience of “winter

ice,” those possessors of “shallow wisdom” cannot comprehend the intellectual world that he and Aritsura inhabit. Comments: Fusaakira reaffirms his dedication to serving the emperor, perhaps implying that anyone who possesses moral integrity would do the same. With regard to his colleagues in the “pagoda-tree grove,” Fusaakira sees himself as the sole tree producing foliage: in other words, the only scholar at court engaged in worthwhile literary activity. He informs Aritsura that his abundant leisure time should not be wasted on pursuing the chimerical goal of “walking among the clouds.” Having failed with the gentler approach seen in poem 10, Fusaakira is no longer mincing words.

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(#13) Tachibana no Aritsura. Another Poem, Using “Literature” as a Rhyme Word Ever since I left the palace, taking leave of our sacred lord, I’ve buried all traces, wishing to follow those who hide from the world. Bo Luan had long desired to be a hermit in the mountains; Gao Feng continued reading his literature in the rain. Clad in straw, drinking water in the lane where Yan resided; Gathering ferns, searching everywhere, in the clouds on Mount Shouyang. A word to all you cold cicadas, your voices echoing in these grottos: You’re worlds apart from the pagoda-tree grove and all that I used to hear. 橘在列

復賦文

一自漢宮辭聖君 晦蹤欲逐隱倫群 伯鸞久抱山中志 高鳳猶看雨裏文 披草飲來顔巷水 採薇捜盡首陽雲 寄言巖戸寒蟬響 應異槐林昔日聞 Source: fss 44, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 43; octave (heptasyllabic). Line three: Bo Luan 伯鸞 was the style-name of Liang Hong 梁鴻 (first century), one of China’s best-known recluses. A poor scholar who once worked as a swine herder, he is remembered for his honesty, erudition, and determination to live a simple life. After he married Meng Guang 孟光, a woman of similarly high moral caliber, the two of them moved to the hills east of the capital, where they supported themselves by farming and weaving. They always lived frugally, and Liang himself never held office. An account of his life is found in the “Yimin liezhuan” 逸民列傳 (Biographies of Disengaged Persons) chapter of Hou Han shu. For a comprehensive discussion of Liang Hong, including his relationship with his wife and his place in the eremitic tradition, see Alan Berkowitz, Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China (2000), pp. 106–12. Line four: Tasaka has du 獨 “alone” for the third character; we have followed Gunsho ruijū, which has you 猶. Gao Feng 高鳳 (first century) was from a peasant background and was noted for his scholarly dedication. One day his wife entrusted him with keeping the hens away from wheat spread out on the ground to dry. While keeping watch, Gao read a book,

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becoming so absorbed that he did not notice it had started to rain, soaking the wheat. Gao’s devotion to study was rewarded, for he eventually became a distinguished scholar and teacher, although he never held an official post. He later went into hiding and spent his final years fishing. For his biography, see the “Yimin liezhuan” chapter of Hou Han shu. Liang Hong and Gao Feng reappear in fss 54, which is also by Aritsura but not part of the present series. Line five: Aritsura appears to be describing himself here, using the trope of happiness amidst poverty to convey his contentment with the monastic life. “The lane where Yan resided” refers to the humble living circumstances of Yan Hui 顏回, Confucius’ favorite disciple. Yan willingly accepted his situation, as is related in Lun yu 6.11: “The Master said, ‘Admirable indeed was the virtue of Hûi! With a single bamboo dish of rice, a single gourd dish of drink, and living in his mean narrow lane, while others could not have endured the distress, he did not allow his joy to be affected by it’” 子曰: 賢哉回也。一簞食、一瓢飲、在陋巷。人不堪其憂、回也不改其樂. Trans. by Legge, Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, p. 188. Line six: The plant wei 薇 (J. zenmai) is the royal fern, Osmunda japonica, also sometimes translated as “thornfern.” “Gathering ferns” 採薇 calls to mind the hermits Bo Yi 伯夷 and Shu Qi 叔齊 (eleventh century bce). Disenchanted by the future King Wu’s overthrow of the last Shang king, despite the fact that he had been a tyrant, the two of them refused to serve the new Zhou dynasty. They remained in seclusion on Mount Shouyang, subsisting on ferns and eventually starving to death. “Gathering ferns” is also the name of a song attributed to Bo Yi, expressing righteous indignation and despair. At least two versions are preserved in ancient texts, including Shi ji. Aritsura also refers to the song in fss 54. Lines seven and eight: The “cold cicadas” are the monks practicing Buddhist austerities at the temple where the poet now resides. This expression resonates with Fusaakira’s “summer insects” in the preceding poem. The droning of the monks during sutra recitations brings Aritsura more pleasure than the empty talk he used to hear at court. Comments: Aritsura devotes most of his poem to invoking lofty eremitic models from deep antiquity, whom he wishes to emulate and whose integrity even Fusaakira would doubtless admire.

(#14) Minamoto no Fusaakira. Another Poem, Using “Clouds” as a Rhyme Word Those who are skilled at refining elixirs: there’s me and there is you. If you and I could only join forces we’d outstrip that sickly bunch. You’ve never found the oars you need for immortality at Penghu; Hard to glimpse works fine as “cultured jade” here in the Purple Palace.

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Your mind has left the world of dust, you sport about by the streams. But how can you possibly “lick the mortars” and fly up to the clouds? Composing verse—now that’s the way to lengthen the span of your life. If you don’t believe it, give some thought to the fame of Yuan and Bai! 源英明

復賦雲字

鍊藥有臣又有君 君臣和合拔痾群 蓬壺未得求仙棹 紫府難窺種玉文 心只辭塵行樂水 身何舐臼上飛雲 吟詩便是長生計 不信應尋元白聞 Source: fss 45, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 43–44; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: The expression “refining elixirs” 鍊藥 is associated with Daoist alchemy and the quest for immortality through the use of magic potions. Here, however, Fusaakira seems to be referring to the creation of immortal works of literature. His point is that the two of them stand alone among their contemporaries in possessing the stuff of literary greatness. Line three: Penghu 蓬壺 (The Pot of Peng) is a reference to Penglai 蓬萊 (J. Hōrai), a mythical island said to be the dwelling place of immortals and a fairyland of great beauty. See Knechtges, trans., Wen xuan, vol. 3, p. 74, note to line 5. To lack the oars necessary to reach Penghu means having no way to achieve immortality. Fusaakira is offering another reminder that Aritsura is wasting his time. Line four: In other words, with Aritsura gone there is no one left at court capable of writing fine verse. Thus, he feels isolated and bereft of suitable companions. The notion of “cultured jade” 種玉 is derived from a fable in the collection Soushen ji titled “Boyong Grows Jade” 伯雍種玉. The virtuous Yang Boyong 陽伯雍 provided water to travelers crossing the Wuzhong Mountains 無終山 (near Lantian 藍田, southwest of modern Xi’an), where he lived, tending his parents’ graves. One day a grateful traveler gave him some stone seeds, saying they would grow into a plant producing jade. Yang planted them and soon harvested jade disks, which he used as a dowry. For a translation of this account, see Kenneth DeWoskin and J. I. Crump, Jr., trans., In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record (1996), pp. 133–34. Line six: This line makes the same point seen in line three: “immortality” is unattainable. The expression shi jiu 舐臼, “lick the mortar(s),” is likely an allusion to the

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mythical account of how Liu An 劉安 (King of Huainan 淮南王, d. 122 bce) concocted an immortality elixir and ascended to heaven. This legend relates that his hens and dogs licked the medicine vessel and rose to heaven as well. This account is contained in Shen xian zhuan 神仙傳 (Biographies of Divine Immortals), attributed to Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–343); see ch 6, the “Huainan Wang” entry. Comments: Fusaakira’s poem repeats some of his favorite themes: the wish that Aritsura would join forces with him against their adversaries at court and the belief that Aritsura is squandering his talents in the vain pursuit of immortality. His position is that only by returning to court life and pursuing scholarship can Aritsura find the true path to immortality, which lies, in his view, in leaving a name to posterity through literary writing and court service. The two poets are by now at loggerheads over the correct path to take in life: public service or withdrawal from society. Fusaakira’s contempt for reclusion is reminiscent of a discourse that emerged in fourth-century China, in which verses celebrating the eremitic lifestyle were countered with ones that ridiculed it as futile and even disloyal. Among the better known examples is Wang Kangju’s 王康琚 (fourth century) “Fan zhaoyin shi” 反招隱詩 (A Rebuttal to the Call to Reclusion), Wen xuan 22. This is translated in Watson, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, p. 175. Several examples of kanshi in the anti-reclusion mode are found in Fusōshū, including one by Ki no Haseo, “No Recluses in the Mountains.” For a translation, see Butterflies, pp. 150–51.

(#15) Tachibana no Aritsura. Another Poem, Using “Group” as a Rhyme Word [You?] along with those common types together serve our lord. It pains me that a wild crane should be amongst a brood of hens! Now at leisure I’m always pouring myself wine from a jug; When I left office I promptly set aside the papers on my desk. Announcing the dawn as I lie on my pillow, the ripples of the Yi; Through my blinds a scene of clear skies, clouds above Mount Hua. While I prefer to hide my talents from those in the mundane world, The music of Shao, responding to my idleness, I hear all around. 橘在列

復賦群字

□與凡庸共事君 但憐野鶴在鷄群 閑來時酌樽中酒 衙退暫棄案上文

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報枕曉聲伊水浪 入簾晴色華山雲 雖懐塵土和光意 韶樂應慵處々聞 Source: fss 46, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 44; octave (heptasyllabic). line one: The first character is missing: the original word was perhaps a secondperson pronoun. line two: The crane and hen metaphor is meant to suggest that Fusaakira is a noble figure wasting his talents in public service surrounded by mediocrities. line four: This line could be interpreted in other ways, among them, “If you retired, you could promptly discard the papers on your desk.” The word 暫 means either “promptly, suddenly” or “for the time being, for a little while.” line five: The Yi entered the Luo southeast of Luoyang. Aritsura is alluding again to Pan Yue’s “Rhapsody on the Idle Life,” in which Pan states that he has retired to a place on the banks of the Luo River and gazes toward the Yi. Aritsura has mentioned these two rivers earlier, in poem 11 (fss 42), associating them with carefree retirement. Line six: Mount Hua 華山, in Shaanxi, was one of China’s Five Sacred Peaks 五嶽. Here, it is likely a fanciful designation for Mount Hiei in Heian-kyō, site of Enryakuji, where Aritsura later retired to live as a monk in 944. Line seven: This line contains a reformulation of the expression he guang tong chen 和光同塵 (to blend with the light and be like the dust), which is to say to drift with the current and refrain from showing one’s abilities. The loci classici are Laozi 4 and 56, where the relevant passages read he qi guang, tong qi chen 和其光同其塵. Line eight: Aritsura is indicating that to hear beautiful music he does not need to be at the court; the sounds of nature in the mountains are equally pleasurable. Shao yue 韶樂, the elegant, courtly music associated with the sage-emperor Shun, was performed to celebrate the virtue of Emperor Yao. It is said that once after listening to this music Confucius was so moved by its beauty that he refrained from eating meat for three months.

(#16) Minamoto no Fusaakira. Another Poem, Using “Hear” as a Rhyme Word Loyal subjects, those below, look up to their enlightened lord. Why do you need to follow those who are hiding from the world? On the Southern Peaks, Lu and Qi were enjoined to comb their frost; On Northern Mountain, they refused the moon upon seeing the proclamation. Shake off your cap and leave behind those lonely cliffs and streams; Discard your staff, do not remain in those ancient grotto clouds.

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What drives this ignorant worthless nag to stand to the right of the throne Is the sound of auspicious memorials and edicts entering my ears. 源英明

復賦聞字

忠臣在下仰明君 何必追從遁世群 南嶺梳霜煩甪綺 北山罷月見移文 彈冠有別孤巖水 拋杖無留古洞雲 爭勵愚駑朝右立 表祥奏瑞耳根聞 Source: fss 47, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 45; octave (heptasyllabic). Line three: The graph 甪 is a variant for 角, read lu here. Lu and Qi are “The Master of Lu Hamlet” (Luli xiansheng 甪里先生) and “Ji of Qi Hamlet” (Qili Ji 綺里季), two of the “Four Hoaryheads” (si hao 四皓), a group of very old men who became hermits on Mount Shang 商山 during the Qin dynasty, to escape the oppressive governance of the time. The first Han emperor (Han Gaozu, r. 206–195 bce) invited them to come out of hiding and serve the court, but they refused. Later they were coaxed out of reclusion for a short period to assist in preventing the emperor from setting aside the heirdesignate and selecting someone else. In the present poem, the Four Hoaryheads were combing their “frost” in preparation for their return to the court. Fusaakira is telling Aritsura that he ought to follow their example. For an excellent treatment of the Four Hoaryheads and associated lore, see Berkowitz, pp. 64–80. Line four: The phrases “Northern Mountain” 北山 and “proclamation” 移文 are derived from the title of a parallel prose composition called “Beishan yiwen” 北山移文 (Proclamation on Northern Mountain) by Kong Zhigui 孔稚珪 (447–501), preserved in Wen xuan. In this piece Kong satirizes the inauthentic behavior of a particular person who was pretending to be a high-minded recluse but followed this lifestyle only to gain attention and office. The man in question was a friend of Kong’s named Zhou Yong 周顒 (d. 485). See ibid., p. 137. The notion of “refusing the moon” 罷月 also comes from Kong’s piece: “Autumn cassia sends away the wind. / Spring wistaria refuses the moon.” Trans. in Hightower, “Some Characteristics of Parallel Prose,” p. 74. Nature seems to reject the prospect of the would-be hermit tainting the countryside with his presence. Here, however, Fusaakira is twisting the original sense slightly to suggest that any hermit with a sense of duty would “refuse” the moon (i.e., leave his eremitic lifestyle behind) when summoned by the court.

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Comments: Unmoved by Aritsura’s enduring enthusiasm for the eremitic way of life, Fusaakira responds with a verse that owes a conspicuous debt to the anti-reclusion compositions of the Six Dynasties. He urges Aritsura to recognize the merits of service.

(#17) Tachibana no Aritsura. Another Poem, Using “Clouds” as a Rhyme Word Late in life Emperor Yao had still not met his successor, Though the Worthies and the Harmonies had long been established as groups. I’m very different from Lü Wang who assisted King Wu of Zhou; More like Master Jia, who met Emperor Wen of Han. The “old inscriptions to the right of my seat” I continue to bear in mind; The distant peaks beyond my window stand half covered in clouds. My time has passed, so I follow my desire for a life in tranquil seclusion. It’s as if I had never heard about the world and its transient glory. 橘在列

重賦雲字

晩歲堯朝未識君 尚將元凱久俱群 已殊呂望匡周武 應似賈生遇漢文 座右舊銘猶暗字 窗中遠岫半連雲 失時欲逐閑居志 世上浮榮如不聞 Source: fss 48, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 45–46; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: “Successor” is literally “lord” 君 in the original. This line is likely a reference to Yao’s search for a worthy man to succeed him as ruler, passing over his own sons in favor of Shun 舜, a commoner noted for his filial piety and righteousness. “Worthies and Harmonies” (yuan kai 元凱) alludes to two groups of men known as the “Eight Worthies” 八元 and the “Eight Harmonies” 八凱, who were descendants of the ancient pre-dynastic rulers Zhuanxu 顓頊 and Diku 帝嚳, respectively. Shun’s elevation did not occur until late in Yao’s reign; similarly, the “Worthies and Harmonies,” although long esteemed by the people, were brought in to serve only after Shun took the throne. Aritsura’s point may be that those in power may take a long time to recognize and recruit talent, and in Fusaakira’s case the wait may be too long. Line three: The dissimilarity Aritsura is referring to between himself and Lü Wang is perhaps his own lack of martial skills. Lü Wang 呂望, known also as Lü Shang

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呂尚, was an official (ca. eleventh or twelfth century bce). After retreating from public life during the reign of Zhou Xin 紂辛, the tyrannical last ruler of the Shang dynasty, he was brought back by King Wen 文王 shortly before the establishment of the Zhou to serve as chief counselor. Lü Wang helped Wen’s son (who became King Wu 武王) overthrow Zhou Xin, leading to the foundation of the Zhou dynasty. For more on this story see the notes to rus 27, above. Line four: “Master Jia” is the scholar-official Jia Yi 賈誼 (201–169 bce). At age twenty he was given an audience with Emperor Wen (r. 179–157 bce), who admired his talents and appointed him as an erudite (roughly equivalent to professor), then later promoted him to palace grandee. Jia’s meteoric rise earned him the resentment of others, leading to his exile to Changsha, where he wrote “Fu niao fu” 鵩鳥賦 (Rhapsody on the Owl), his best-known work. The parallel Aritsura is attempting to draw between himself and Jia, beyond their obvious scholarly proclivities, may be that after a promising start the careers of both men went into a decline. Line five: The graph an 暗 is sometimes a variant for 諳 (“to be fully acquainted with”), the intended sense here. With this comment Aritsura appears to be saying that he has not forgotten the correct behavior required of people in public life (even though he wishes to remain in seclusion). The “old inscriptions to the right of my seat” 座右舊銘 refers to maxims on proper gentlemanly behavior. The phrase calls to mind the scholar-official Cui Yuan 崔瑗 (77–142), who had gone into hiding upon killing the murderer of his older brother. After being granted amnesty, he wrote a set of injunctions titled “Zuoyou ming” 座右銘 (Inscriptions to the Right of My Seat), to remind himself to show restraint in all future conduct. Admiring Cui’s example, Bai Juyi wrote his own set of maxims, known as “Xu Zuoyou ming bing xu” 續座右銘並序 (Inscriptions to the Right of My Seat, Continued, With Preface). Line six: This is an expanded version of the fourth line in a poem by Xie Tiao (464– 99) titled “Jun nei gao zhai xian wang da Lü Facao” 郡內高齋閑望答呂法曹 (Gazing at Leisure from High in My Commandery Office: A Reply Poem to Officer of Justice Lü), which reads “Before my window a line of distant peaks” 窗中列遠岫. By harking back to this poem and its evocations of contentment, Aritsura is drawing attention to the contrast between life in the capital and his own tranquil rustic existence. Comments: In the first couplet, Aritsura may be saying that although the talents of Shun and the “Worthies and Harmonies” were eventually recognized by the king, he himself is unlikely to be so fortunate. In the second couplet, Aritsura is noting that his achievements lie in the civil rather than martial realm. In the remainder of the verse, he resigns himself to a life of reclusion.

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(#18) Minamoto no Fusaakira. Another Poem I Sent You know my mind, and I know yours. Good karma from previous lives—you’ve had blessings by the bushel! You constantly think of Amida in whom you repose your faith; Life after life you get closer to the scriptures of the Buddha. Glory and fame are nothing more than froth upon the waves; How can wealth and rank be anything but clouds after rain has cleared? Every single person is cognizant of this fact: Lord Tachibana, you’ve seen and heard it so many times before. 源英明

重寄

君知我意我知君 宿業因縁遇好群 念念歸依觀自在 生生親近釋迦文 榮名皆是波中沫 富貴寧非霽後雲 此事誰人能憶得 橘卿多見又多聞 Source: fss 49, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 46–47; octave (heptasyllabic). Line three: Kanjizai 觀自在, translated here as “Amida,” is a reference to Kanjizaiō Nyōrai 觀自在王如來, the Amitābha Buddha, central deity in the Pure Land faith. Line six: Fusaakira appears to be conceding that wealth and rank are evanescent, but exactly how this figures in their ongoing debate is uncertain. The final couplet does not make the meaning much clearer. Lines seven and eight: Fusaakira seems to be acknowledging that Aritsura does not need to be reminded that fame and glory are fleeting, since he has already turned his back on them. The graph 卿 (kyō), “lord,” was an honorific directed at persons holding the third rank or higher and often serving as head of one of the eight central government ministries. It was also used as a more informal, even intimate, suffix when addressing one’s equals or persons of lower rank. We note that Aritsura’s azana 字 (adult style name) also happens to be this very word.

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(#19) Tachibana no Aritsura. Yet Another Zhaojun in ancient times hated having to leave her lord; Aggrieved to be sent afar to where they fastened their clothes on the left. Cicada-wing hair on her temples untidy, combed by the blowing wind; Wild-goose missives: she longed to send those letters stained with tears. On and on, escorted away from the Han palace in the moonlight; Farther and farther, ever more deeply into clouds of desert sand. Astride her horse, endlessly she played her pipa music. The barbarian lads hid their tears and could not bear to listen. 橘在列

又

昭君古恨出於君 應惜遥交左袵群 蟬鬢不収風櫛色 雁書欲寄涙添文 行行相送漢宮月 去去猶深砂漠雲 馬上琵琶無限曲 胡兒掩泣不堪聞 Source: fss 50, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 47; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: As related in the notes to rus 77, Wang Zhaojun is one of China’s bestknown tragic figures, her tale a common topos in Sinitic verse. Line two: In his writings on the Xiongnu, the historian Sima Qian noted as one their cultural peculiarities the practice of fastening their clothing on the left. Line four: “Wild-goose missives” recalls the tale of Su Wu 蘇武 (140–60 bce), a diplomat who was sent on a mission to the Xiongnu and then held in captivity for some nineteen years. He was eventually brought back to the Han court. See kfs 91. Line seven: The pipa was a stringed instrument that originated in Central Asia and resembled a lute. Comments: How Wang Zhaojun’s story fits into the ongoing debate is far from clear. The poem may have been intended to remind Fusaakira of the isolation Aritsura was experiencing while living without him.

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(#20) Tachibana no Aritsura. Yet Another In ancient times the state of Wei had its Lord Xinling. [… ] long has he been ranked among the Four Great Lords. He wanted to rescue Lord Pingyuan from the perils of the beast’s lair, And thus he stole the divided tiger tallies of General Jin Bi. The defeated generals of the three Qin fiefs went back through the pass by moonlight; The six states of the Vertical Alliance arrayed their forces like clouds. The Han emperors admired these men, and their tombs are still maintained. It’s proper to hear about the sagely and able, now as in the past. 橘在列

又

昔時魏有信陵君 令□長連四子群 欲救平原獸穴厄 分偸晉鄙虎符文 三秦敗將歸關月 六國縱軍結陣雲 漢帝慕名今守冢 賢能應是古今聞 Source: fss 51, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 47–48; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: Lord Xinling 信陵君 (Wei Wuji 魏無忌, d. 243 bce) was one of the so-called “Four Great Lords” (see next note) of the Warring States period (476–221 bce). He was the son of King Zhao of Wei and the half-brother of King Anli. At the height of his career he served as supreme commander of Wei’s armed forces and is viewed as one of the greatest military heroes of his time. In 257 he helped defeat the armies of Qin 秦, a powerful state that had been laying siege to Handan 邯鄲, the principal city of Zhao, for three years. Line two: The intended meaning of the first graph 令 is unclear here as the second graph in this line is missing. It could be an error for ima 今 (now), paired with mukashi 昔 (long ago) in line one. The term “Four Great Lords” 四子 has been applied to various combinations of distinguished figures but refers here to four regional aristocrats from the Warring States period. Besides Lord Xinling of Wei, the group consisted of Lord Pingyuan 平原君 of Zhao, Lord Chunshen 春申君 of Chu, and Lord Mengchang 孟嘗君 of Qi.

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Line three: When Lord Pingyuan brought troops to Handan to relieve the siege mounted by the Qin armies, he requested aid from Lord Xinling, his brother-in-law. Xinling arrived with 80,000 troops, and, assisted by Lord Chunshen, defeated Qin. Their success delayed Qin’s conquest of all of China, albeit only for some three decades. “The perils of the beast’s lair” refers to the aggressive nature of Qin, which had been making war on its neighbors and annexing territories for several centuries by this time. Line four: After Qin attacked Zhao, the king of Wei sent General Jin Bi 晉鄙 with troops to assist Zhao. Soon thereafter the king changed his mind, fearful of angering Qin, and sent orders for Jin Bi to return. At the suggestion of an advisor, Lord Xinling had Jin Bi’s tallies stolen and falsified so that he could take command of the troops and, in disobedience of his ruler, break the siege of Handan. “Tiger tallies” (hufu 虎符) were tiger-shaped tokens made of jade or bronze, which were each in two parts: the left piece was given to military commanders by the ruler, who retained the other half until he wanted to mobilize troops. At that point, the piece was given to the general. Line five: This line may be referring to the fact that the warlord Xiang Yu 項羽, after defeating the Qin forces in 207 bce, divided the lands “within the pass” (guanzhong 關中, Qin’s heartland) into three fiefs and assigned one to each of the three Qin generals who had surrendered. Alternatively, it perhaps alludes to the return of the generals to their state after being defeated at Handan in 257 bce. Line six: Various defensive alliances were created among the feudal states during the Zhou period, the most famous being the “Vertical Alliance” established by Duke Huan of Qi 齊桓公 (r. 685–643 bce) in 651. This pact, an alliance of Qi and five other states, aimed to protect the weaker members. Comments: The larger significance of this second verse in a row by Aritsura is puzzling. Perhaps he is trying to shift their increasingly fruitless conversation to the less contentious subject of Chinese historical figures. But despite Aritsura’s apparent attempts to sidetrack the discussion, Fusaakira is by no means ready to end his remonstrations.

(#21) Minamoto no Fusaakira. Yet Another Poem I planted bamboo and for many years have gazed upon “these gentlemen.” Filled with emotion, I imagine the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Liu Ling always had a complexion that was ruddy; Ruan Ji surely never wrote any “white-eye” compositions. Minds like water, taking the shape of the vessel, square or round; Bodies that simply wandered around in the clouds that touched the cliffs. They never pursued fame or wealth, yet deserved to have more of both. Fame to them was “the guest of reality,” a notion from ancient times.

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栽竹多年對此君 含情想像七賢群 劉伶常有紅顔色 阮籍應無白眼文 心是方圓隨器水 身唯來去觸巖雲 非趨名利宜多取 名是實賓稽古聞 Source: fss 52, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, pp. 48–49; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: “These gentlemen” (ci jun 此君, sometimes “this gentleman”) is a common poetic term for bamboo. It is associated with Wang Huizhi 王徽之 (d. 88), who lived among bamboo and reputedly could not pass a single day without looking at it. Lines three and four: Liu Ling 劉伶 (221–300) was one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. He lived life as he pleased and drank heavily, hence the reference to his red face. Ruan Ji 阮籍 (210–63) was another member of this coterie. An eccentric man, he shunned fame and was said to be incapable of feigning admiration for others. When someone displeased him he would turn his eyes upwards, showing the whites. By “white-eye” compositions Fusaakira probably means poems that were less than satisfactory. Line five: The concept of water taking the shape of the vessel into which it is poured can be traced back to Han Feizi: “Confucius said: ‘The ruler is like a vessel and the people are like water. If the vessel is square then the water will be square; if the vessel is round, the water will be round’” 孔子曰: 爲人君者猶盂也、民猶水也、盂方水方、   盂圜水圜. See section 32.62. See also Xunzi 12.4 for a similar observation. While the original purpose of these remarks was to illustrate the crucial role of the ruler in molding his people, the goal here is simply to highlight the pliability and free-spiritedness of Liu Ling and Ruan Ji, from whom Aritsura needed to learn by negative example. Line eight: “Names are (merely) the guest of reality” 名是實賓 is found in the “Free and Easy Wandering” chapter of Zhuangzi. A man named Xu You 許由 declines the throne when offered it by Emperor Yao, stating that he would be wrong to accept such an honor just for the sake of being named king. “Guest of reality” means the shadow or mere appearance of reality. Comments: Fusaakira appears to be citing Liu and Ruan as examples of talented literati who shunned fame and never lived up to their full potential. He may be making a last-ditch effort to help Aritsura draw a lesson from these figures and come back to resume his career.

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(#22) Tachibana no Aritsura. Yet Another The rivers, rocks, mists, and clouds are all a part of you. Your family fortunes may be meager, yet in learning you’re above the crowd. Put down your cup, read awhile the “Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery.” Lie on your pillow, keep on chanting those “Beckoning the Recluse” poems. The piping of the pines when the wind comes up will sound like rain to your ears; The caps and canopies in the world of dust will all just seem like clouds. Even if you stay in the capital, it can seem like the wooded hills: In your back lane, the sounds of carriages you’ll gradually cease to hear. 橘在列

又

水石煙霞一屬君 家資疎薄業殊群 停杯暫讀思玄賦 攲枕長吟招隱文 風後松篁聽似雨 塵中冠蓋望如雲 雖留朝市同林麓 深巷車聲漸不聞 Source: fss 53, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 49; octave (heptasyllabic). Line one: In other words, Fusaakira has a true affinity with nature. “All a part of you” could instead be rendered as “all belong to you.” Line three: For notes on this rhapsody, see fss 33 and 41, above; its epilogue includes a prominent reference to “Cypresswood Boat,” Ode 26, which has already appeared in this series. Knechtges points out that the boat “stands for the good man who is not used and must consort with petty men,” which is exactly how Aritsura has depicted Fusaakira from the beginning. See Knechtges, Wen xuan, vol. 3, p. 138. Line four: “Beckoning the recluse” (zhaoyin) was a popular topos in verse during the third and fourth centuries. The tradition can be traced back to Chu ci, where we find the poem “Zhao yinshi” 招隱士 (Beckoning the Recluse), attributed to Liu An 劉安 (179–122 bce). This is addressed to a hermit whom the poet attempts to summon back from the wilderness by drawing attention to its perils and discomfort. During the Six Dynasties, by contrast, zhaoyin verse celebrated the purity and freedom that can be found in reclusion, liberated from the duties and dangers of public service. The principal poets associated with this tradition are Zuo Si 左思 (d. 303) and Lu Ji.

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Line six: Caps and [carriage] canopies: metonymy for officialdom. All worldly aspirations and cares will evaporate “like clouds” if Fusaakira can attend to enjoying nature and focus less upon his professional life. Lines seven and eight: The first character in line seven follows Gunsho ruijū, p. 193; Tasaka has 難 (difficult). Aritsura seems to be conceding ground here, pointing out that it is possible to free oneself from cares even in the city, simply by adopting an attitude of detachment from one’s duties. This option, known as chaoyin 朝隱 (reclusion within the court), represented a form of compromise between two opposing lifestyles and had been a topic of discussion as early as the Former Han. Its earliest exponent is said to have been Dongfang Shuo 東方朔 (153–93 bce), although traces of this idea can be found in the writings of Zhuangzi, Yang Xiong, and Wang Chong. For more on the chaoyin phenomenon and its lore, see Aat Vervoorn, Men of the Cliffs and Caves (1990), ch. 4, “Eremitism at Court,” and Berkowitz, pp. 140–45. “Reclusion within the court” was still a subject of discussion during the fourth century, its most prominent advocates including Sun Chuo 孫綽 (314–71) and Deng Can 鄧粲 (fl. ca. 377). See Berkowitz, ibid. Comments: In this final poem of the series, Aritsura has seemingly resigned himself to the fact that Fusaakira will not be joining him in reclusion but believes nonetheless that Fusaakira possesses the ability to achieve spiritual liberation even in the capital. Before long he will feel as free as Tao Yuanming, whose two sets of poems titled “Drinking Wine” (especially poem 5) and “Returning to My Garden and Fields,” doubtless inspired the last line. By way of epilogue, we note that in the next Fusōshū poem Aritsura has found a new acquaintance, whom he is also attempting to entice into reclusion. The poem, translated below, stands alone and is not part of any known series. Whether or not Aritsura was successful in drawing the new friend into his plans is regrettably lost to history.

Tachibana no Aritsura. Yesterday I received from you, our talented scholar Abe, a poem revealing your thoughts. While still in the mood, I sent you another clumsy poem. You presented me with a noble verse in reply, received this morning. I was deeply moved and am writing once again to match your verse. [Using the same rhyme words]

You should not waver in your sense of purpose even for a second, Once you desire to head to the wilds and nourish your passion-nature. Gao Feng kept on reading his book, even when it started to rain; Liang Hong never left any traces, stayed in the clouds for years.

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The wind from the valley blows through the trees, stirring autumn thoughts; The moon above the hills enters the windows, visiting Zen monks at night. Sooner or later the two of us should go off and visit Mount Shang, And when we go we’d do well to chant the poem “Gathering Ferns.” 橘在列 余昨日奉和安才子書懷之詩。餘興未盡、重贈拙詞。才子 高和、拂曉入手、不堪感。吟以和之。 次韻 須臾不可寸心遷 懷到林泉養浩然 高鳳讀書逢雨日 梁鴻晦跡入雲年 溪風吹木搖秋思 山月穿窻訪夜禪 早晩共尋商嶺去 去時宜詠採薇篇 Source: fss 54, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 50; octave (heptasyllabic). Title: Abe may be Abe no Seimei (Haruakira) 安部晴明 (921–1005), a contemporary of the poet and an acclaimed master of divination and astrology. Line two: “Nourish your passion-nature” (yang haoran 養浩然, more fully 養浩然之氣) was an important concept in the philosophy of Mencius. Its most detailed treatment occurs in the “Gongsun Chou” 公孫丑 “upper” chapter in Mengzi 孟子, where the concept of haoran is discussed as follows: It is difficult to describe it. It is exceedingly great, and exceedingly strong. Being nourished by rectitude and sustaining no injury, it fills up all between heaven and earth … It is the mate and assistant of righteousness and reason. Without it, man is in a state of starvation. It is produced by the accumulation of righteous deeds; it is not to be obtained by incidental acts of righteousness. (Trans. by Legge, The Works of Mencius [The Chinese Classics 2], pp. 189–90) In view of the Buddho-Daoist spiritual outlook Aritsura displays in much of his verse, the reference to nourishing one’s passion-nature may simply mean liberating oneself from earthly trammels, rather than cultivating righteousness in the orthodox Confucian sense. Line three and four: Aritsura has alluded to Gao Feng and Liang Hong earlier, in fss 44. Both were scholars from peasant backgrounds who went into reclusion. Aritsura is attempting to impress upon Abe the need to follow their example and retire from the world the moment he feels the urge.

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Line seven: Mount Shang is Shangshan, where the coterie of recluses known as the “Four Hoaryheads” dwelled. See the notes to fss 47. The poet may be alluding to Mount Hiei, where he retired to live as a priest. Line eight: “Gathering Ferns” was a song attributed to the hermit Bo Yi; for the story of Bo and his brother Shu Qi see fss 44. By alluding to this song, Aritsura is obliquely reminding Abe that by going into reclusion together they will be following in the footsteps of this celebrated pair. Biography: See fss 33.

Koreyoshi no Harumichi. Master Ryū, holder of the fifth rank, is one of the greatest talents of our age. After writing a history of our nation, he asked me to compose a poem for it. So I have written the following four-rhyme verse, to be appended at the end of his text. In vain I’ve labored at drawing cakes to satisfy my hunger. While young I studied earnestly; now old, I am ignorant still. I’ve rubbed my ancient bronzes, but they won’t produce any light; I traversed your deep and vast seas but found the going hard. You did well in compiling biographies of our nation’s court officials, But why beg this retired vice-governor to provide you with a poem? Don’t be surprised if many show the whites of their eyes at your work: In life it’s often the case that people fail to achieve their goals. 惟良春道 劉大夫才之命世者也。修國史之次、乞予詩巻。因勒四 韻題于巻後。 空勞畫餅含供飢 幼學孜孜老未知 拭我古銅光不鬻 渉君溟海水難爲 應修有國簪纓傳 那乞休官別駕詩 莫怪巻中多白眼 人生不得志多時 SOURCE: fss 58, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 53; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Master Ryū has not been identified, nor is the name of his historical study known. He may have been a naturalized immigrant from China or Korea. Tayū 大夫 (or

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taifu) was a title originally designating courtiers who held the second through junior fifth ranks, but it came to be used mainly for holders of the fifth. LINE ONE: Harumichi’s point is that to pursue learning when one has no ability is as foolish as drawing pictures of cakes to satisfy one’s hunger. The expression hua bing chong ji 畫餅充飢, “drawing cakes to satisfy one’s hunger,” is still used in China today. Several texts have 合 (suitable, fit) instead of 含 (to hold in the mouth) for the fifth character in this line. LINE THREE: Rubbing ancient bronzes: this appears to mean studying ancient texts. LINE FOUR: Deep and vast seas: probably a reference to Ryū’s work of history. LINE FIVE: Court officials: literally, “hatpins and tassels,” a common metonym for officials. LINE SIX: Harumichi once served as vice-governor (betsuga 別駕) of Ise. See also fss 31. LINE SEVEN: Showing the whites of one’s eyes was a sign of disapproval. See the notes to fss 52. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to kks 45. COMMENTS: At the end of the poem Harumichi is paternalistically reminding Ryū that his biographies might not be well received by some. He is likely referring to nobles whose predecessors have been portrayed in an unflattering light, or (as suggested by the last line) who did not achieve the career success they desired.

Koreyoshi no Harumichi. Vice-Envoy Ono: You are one of the greatest scholars of our time. You often recite my poetry, and I have undeservedly received praise for being special and so on. But whenever I read your writings I truly worry that I am just dust in the wind, for you are a peerless talent, one who transcends the ages. Now if we were to apply Confucian learning to our discussions of verse, we might say that you have “entered the inner rooms,” whereas I have “not yet ascended the hall.” Comparing us, surely no one would think we were closely matched. It is clear that your praise for my writings is excessive. Thus, I have composed and sent to you the following poem with six rhymes to express my thanks. 1





5



Watch them flatter then blacken others and strain to form personal ties. They slander and praise, just as they please, blowing hot and cold. The poems you write are seen as abstruse, and so you are shunned by the world; In my verse I strive for plainness but have come in for ridicule. Together we entered the tiger’s lair, yet you had strength to spare; Both of us sought the dragon’s pearl, but I had no success.

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We may judge it foolish to use a gourd as a vessel to measure the sea; But a lead knife if sharpened might serve for butchering a rhinoceros. Rivers may be narrow trickles by the time they gather at the sea, And yet their force can be greater than the cloth drums of Thunder Gate. If you rise to a high position you will lack for nothing at all. The walls around a house may be fathoms high—gaze up, they seem higher still.

惟良春道 野副使卓世之工文者也。常誦予詩句。枉見褒異云云。 予每見子之文辭、盡怯我風塵。此絕世之大才也。夫以孔門論詩、 野已入室、良未升堂。決其勝負、豈惟伯仲之間哉。即知此華予之 言。故題六韻以寄謝之。 看他諂黷苦相交 毀譽隨心變羽毛 野調又玄遭世忌 良詩尚白被人嘲 俱遊虎窟君餘力 並覔驪珠我未遭 酌蠡判迷量海器 磨鉛嘗合剸犀刀 朝宗海口川流細 却過雷門布鼓勞 如入大官無不有 宮墻數仞仰彌高 SOURCE: fss 59, in Tasaka, Fusōshū: kōhon to sakuin, p. 54; in Honma, Nihon kanshi, p. 156; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). TITLE: Vice-Envoy Ono is Ono no Takamura 小野篁 (802–53). For two other Harumichi poems addressed to Takamura, see fss 30–31, above. The references to entering the inner rooms and ascending the hall are derived from a passage in the “Xian Jin” 先進 (Progress) chapter of Lun yu concerning a man named You (Confucius’ disciple Zi Lu), which reads: “You has ascended the hall, but he has not yet entered the inner rooms,” meaning that he had only made limited progress in his studies. In the present poem Harumichi has separated the allusion into two parts, using it to illustrate the vast gulf between himself and Ono in regard to scholarly talent and potential for a successful career. LINE ONE: Tasaka, p. 54 and Gunsho ruijū both have tao 謟, “uncertain,” for the third character, which appears to be an error for chan 諂 “to flatter.” We have followed the Honma commentary, p. 156.

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LINE THREE: Takamura had a reputation for eccentricity, and various anecdotes about his strange behavior exist. Lines five and six: “Tiger’s lair” appears to be a reference to the harshly competitive world of scholarship and court service. Harumichi is suggesting that Takamura stood up to the slings and arrows better than he did. “Dragon’s pearl” here means scholarly success. Lines seven and eight: The gourd allusion derives from an essay titled “Da ke nan” 答客難 (Responding to the Visitor’s Difficulties), by Dongfang Shuo (d. 93 bce). Harumichi’s point seems to be that someone of his meager talents would never be suitable for certain tasks, just as a gourd would be inadequate for measuring the capacity of the sea. But even he could be trained to serve some purpose: a lead knife is essentially useless, but it could be used at least once if properly sharpened. Lines nine and ten: Harumichi is perhaps saying that if powerless courtiers were to combine forces, their collective strength would be great. Or he may just be referring to himself, saying that even though his abilities (likened to a thin trickle of water) are limited, he is still superior to the mediocrities at court, who pound their useless “cloth drums.” In ancient times, Thunder Gate 雷門, located at the entrance to the southeastern city of Kuaiji 會稽 (near modern Shaoxing), had a drum so loud that, according to legend, it could be heard in Luoyang, far away to the north. The biography of Wang Zun 王尊 in Han shu has a passage that refers to the vanity of banging an ordinary cloth-covered drum in the presence of such a large and powerful instrument—in other words, parading one’s talents before someone who is manifestly superior. See Honma, ibid. LINE TWELVE: This line contains two allusions from Lun yu, both concerning the time and dedication required to master the teachings of Confucius. The first part of the line (adapted from the “Zi Zhang” 子張 chapter) harks back to a discussion where the disciple Zi Gong refers to the walls around Confucius’ house as being “several fathoms high,” which made it impossible to see anything of value within the compound until one entered the gate. His point is that no one can grasp Confucius’ teachings unless the proper gateway of study and application is sought. The second allusion (from the “Zi Han” 子罕 chapter) is based on the following passage about another disciple: “Yan Yuan sighed and said, ‘Gaze up at the Master’s doctrines and they seem all the more high. I try to comprehend them and they seem all the more solid.’” Harumichi is reminding Takamura that no matter how high he rises in the world someone will always outrank him; thus, any sense of security derived from holding high office is illusory. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to kks 45.

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Acknowledgement Fusōshū poems nos. 32–47, and 53 were originally published in David K. Schneider, ed., “The Poet as Scholar: Essays and Translations in Honor of Jonathan Chaves,” in Sino-Platonic Papers 272 (October 2017); see http://sinoplatonic.org/complete/spp272_jonathan_chaves.pdf. Permission to reproduce them here is gratefully acknowledged.

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Honchō reisō 本朝麗藻 (Poetic Masterpieces from Our Court, ca. 1010), Compiled by Takashina no Moriyoshi Prince Tomohira. The Trees in Bloom Are Familiar to Everyone [Using “name” as the rhyme word]

Now that I’m getting on in years, my interest in verse has waned. But inspired by Masters Zou and Mei, I have composed a poem. It’s funny that I have long since lost my love of natural beauty, And apart from peaches and pears, I’ve forgotten the flowers’ names! 具平親王

花木被人知 以名爲韻

年齡稍邁減詩情 被誘鄒枚一句成 應笑久拋風月賞 桃梨之外忘花名 SOURCE: Honchō reisō (hcrs) 22, in Kawaguchi Hisao and others, annot., Honchō reisō kanchū (1993), pp. 52–53; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Anthology: Honchō reisō (Poetic Masterpieces from Our Court) was compiled by Takashina no Moriyoshi 高階積善 (d. ca. 1014), a courtier of middling status from a scholarly family. The fourteenth-century genealogy Sonpi bunmyaku 尊卑分脈 records Moriyoshi’s rank as senior fourth, lower, his posts as left minor controller and junior assistant director of the Board of Censors. Moriyoshi’s sister Takako 貴子 (d. 996) was married to the powerful regent Fujiwara no Michitaka, their daughter Teishi (Sadako) 定子 (977–1001) later becoming the consort of Ichijō; this put Moriyoshi in a favorable position and may help explain how he came to be the compiler of this important anthology. However, his career stagnated after Michinaga came to power. A small corpus of Moriyoshi’s kanshi is extant: roughly ten poems and couplets in Ruijū kudaishō, and five poems as well as two poetic prefaces in the present anthology. He also has two prefaces in Honchō monzui. He was an active kanshi poet of considerable skill, frequently invited to participate in poetic composition events. Moriyoshi is also identified as a Kin’yōshū poet. For additional biographical details, see hcrs 118, below. Completed around 1010 and containing works from as far back as 982, Honchō reisō is thought to have been widely read and circulated at court, with copies being produced at least throughout the twelfth century. It has the character of an official

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_011

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anthology, although the actual circumstances of its compilation are not clear. If the collection originally had a preface it no longer exists, and of the original work only two maki survive, one of them incomplete. The remaining corpus is made up of 155 poems (in some editions, 154), all but one in heptasyllabic meter, with more than two-thirds being octaves; there are also some short prose pieces of various kinds. By Kawaguchi’s count, 81 kudaishi are found among the poems, making this the largest body of topicline verse found in Heian verse anthologies prior to Chūyūki burui kanshishū, which preserves close to five times this number. Among the kudaishi whose kudai sources can be determined, which number at least 20, Bai Juyi is, unsurprisingly, the source of 13 (Kawaguchi, Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 440–41). As might be expected, given the large number of kudaishi in the collection, about 70% of the Honchō reisō poems overall were composed at social gatherings, often on command, with two-thirds using an identified assigned rhyme or some other rhyme-related technique. See ibid., p. 439, for additional details. The organization of the anthology bears strong similarities to Senzai kaku, Gōrihōshū, and Wakan rōeishū (Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 2, p. 609). The 52 poems in the first maki are arranged by season (winter is absent). The second maki contains the following categories: Landscapes (9 poems, on mountains, the sea and rivers, boating, and roaring springs); Buddhism (19, mainly devoted to temple visits); Gods (6, on visits to Shintō sites); Mountain Residences (6); Peaceful Residences (3); Imperial Virtue (5, including 2 sekiten poems); Laws (1 poem concerning a lecture on the law, by Ōe no Mochitoki, with a preface dated 1004/6); Books and Diligent Study (12, 8 of which commemorate the Crown Prince’s first reading of Xiaojing); Sages (2 eibutsu with general remarks praising sageliness); In Praise of Virtue (4, including 3 poems on dreaming of Bai Juyi and a fourth praising Lord Mengchang); Poetry (6 pieces, all kudaishi); Wine (4, on drinking wine and drunkenness); Response Poems (9); Banquet Farewell Poems (4); Recollections of the Past (10); and Expressions of Feelings (2). The extant text has verse by 29 poets, including Michinaga (with 6 poems) and some of his close associates, among them Ōe no Mochitoki (the best represented poet, with 21 poems), Prince Tomohira (18 poems), Fujiwara no Korechika (15), and Fujiwara no Arikuni (10). One of the more curious omissions from the lineup is Ōe no Masahira, who has only a single poem and one preface, despite being one of the most prolific poets, with an extant corpus of at least 186 verses and prose pieces (Kawaguchi, Honchō reisō kanchū, p. 462). Kawaguchi suggests, citing the writings of Fujioka Tōho 藤岡東圃 (1870–1910), that Masahira had been ostracized by the compiler Moriyoshi, in view of his distasteful reputation as a “petty erudite and the world’s most rotten Confucian,” a self-aggrandizing character who would trample his subordinates while happily currying favor to advance his own interests (ibid., p. 464). Even with only two maki remaining, the collection provides a remarkable crosssection of late-tenth and early-eleventh century kanshi, offering a wealth of insights

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into the private lives of courtiers, their daily pleasures, preoccupations, and social relationships. There are also many impersonal formal poems composed in the refined style characteristic of occasional palace kanshi. Twelve of the banquet poems have prefaces, as do many poems in other categories, indicative of the growing interest in the genre of prose prefaces at this time. TITLE: This quatrain appears to have been intended as a kudaishi, but Tomohira employs only two of the five kudai words in the poem. He substitutes 桃梨 (peaches and pears) for “tree” 木 in the last line. In kudaishi quatrains the kudai words were generally scattered throughout the poem. LINE TWO: Masters Zou and Mei are Zou Yang 鄒陽 (206–129 bce) and Mei Sheng 枚乗 (d. 141 bce). Both were influential figures in the development of fu poetry. LINE FOUR: This confession of memory loss seems a little ironic considering the poem’s title. BIOGRAPHY: Prince Tomohira (964–1009), the seventh son of Emperor Murakami and progenitor of the Murakami Genji branch of the Minamoto, was a leading literary figure at court, respected for his kanshi and waka. In this collection he is identified as Chūsho-ō 中書王, “Prince and Minister of Central Affairs.” Tomohira served as head of the Ministry of Central Affairs following the death of Prince Kaneakira 兼明親王 (the so-called Former Minister of Central Affairs), around 987. Because he followed Kaneakira as minister, Tomohira is also sometimes referred to as “Nochi no Chūsho-ō” (Prince and Latter Minister of Central Affairs). Despite his excellent lineage and connections, he spent most of his life outside the political limelight, devoting his energy to poetry, music, calligraphy, and medicine. He often held poetry gatherings at his residence, associating closely with some of the preeminent literati of his generation. Tomohira held Yoshishige no Yasutane in particularly high esteem, regarding him as his teacher. Together with Fujiwara no Korechika 藤原伊周 (974–1010), he comes in for praise by Kawaguchi as perhaps the foremost talent among the poets represented in Honchō reisō, having an unmatched ability to “quietly reveal true, subjective feelings while observing the objective world” (Kawaguchi, Heianchō no kanbungaku, p. 166). In 991 Tomohira compiled Guketsu getenshō 弘決外典抄, a fourvolume Buddhist text that provides commentary on non-Buddhist textual allusions found in the Chinese priest Zhanran’s 湛然 Tendai treatise Shikan bugyō den guketsu 止觀輔行傳弘決 (eighth century). Tomohira’s kanshi are preserved in Honchō reisō, Honchō monzui, and Wakan rōeishū, his waka in Shūi wakashū (Shuishū) 拾遺和歌集 (1005–1007), Goshūi wakashū (Goshūishū) 後拾遺和歌集 (The Second Collection of Japanese Poetic Gleanings, 1086), and elsewhere. His private waka anthology, as well as a poetic treatise on the “ten styles” of poetry and certain other works, have all been lost (Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 397–98).

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Ōe no Mochitoki. Same Title as the Previous Poem Springtime, and the blossoming trees are enhanced by the “fragrantly glorious.” Because they are known to everyone they are able to bask in their fame! Whereabouts do you not behold their pink and misty beauty? At whose homes are folks not distinguishing the calls of the different birds? A lustrous beauty recalling the lady of the Tang emperor’s chambers; A loveliness making light of Qin’s music and the singing the townsmen enjoyed. I’m not downhearted to be among the lower ranks of scholars, In the Western Gardens here today I can mix with men of distinction. 大江以言

同前

春天花木富芳榮 自被人知得擅名 何處未承霞養色 誰家不審鳥呼聲 匂同唐帝專房女 粧笑秦聲一里兄 莫悵翰林零落去 西園今日接群英 SOURCE: hcrs 23, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 54–55; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: In this kudaishi, Mochitoki has incorporated all five words of the title into the first couplet. LINE ONE: The “fragrantly glorious” are high-ranking courtiers, the “men of distinction” seen in the final line. LINE FIVE: The lady in question is Yang Guifei 楊貴妃, favorite concubine of the eighth-century emperor Xuan Zong. The best-known account of their love affair is Bai Juyi’s “Chang hen ge” 長恨歌 (Song of Unending Sorrow). LINE SIX: This rather recondite line appears to be praising the melodious singing of the birds, which surpasses even “Qin’s music,” likely a reference to a musician named Qin Qing 秦青, whose story and marvelous music is recounted in the “Tang wen” 湯問 chapter of Liezi (see Honchō reisō kanchū, p. 55). See also line six in fss 34. The “townsmen” reference seems to hark back to a lady named Han E 韓娥, another famous musician; a brief biography of her is found in the same chapter of Liezi, immediately after the Qin Qing account. Once while traveling in Qi, Han E ran out of provisions and sang in exchange for food, the beauty of her voice deeply moving the townspeople. The words 一里兄 “[all] the townsmen” in Mochitoki’s line echo the phrase 一里老幼, “all the townsmen, young and old,” which occurs twice in the Liezi account of Han E.

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LINE EIGHT: The “Western Gardens” 西園 were situated within the palace of Emperor Wen of Wei (Cao Pi), a great literary patron and distinguished scholar. Here, the term is employed as a flattering allusion to Prince Tomohira’s palace, implying that as a sponsor of literary activity he is in the same league as Emperor Wen. The word 英, “heroes” or “men of distinction,” also means flowers, a piece of wordplay reflecting the fact that Mochitoki is surrounded both by flowers and men of distinction, a calculatedly respectful reference to his superiors. BIOGRAPHY: Ōe no Mochitoki (955–1010) was the son of Ōe no Nakanobu 大江仲宣, once governor of Ōsumi. The poet Ōe no Chisato, compiler of Kudai waka, was Mochitoki’s grandfather. Originally, Mochitoki’s family name was Yuge 弓削, connected to the Mononobe lineage, but in 1003 it was changed to Ōe 大江, a hereditary-scholar family. The genealogy in Sonpi bunmyaku notes that this was in fact their legitimate original family name; on this point, see the Gōdanshō commentary in snkbt 32, p. 156, n. 4. A student of Fujiwara no Atsushige 藤原篤茂, Mochitoki was a prominent member of the Kangaku-e 勸學會 (The Society for the Promotion of Learning), a coterie of literati, devotees of Sinitic poetry and Buddhist doctrine who met twice yearly with Hieizan Tendai monks and students of the Kangakuin, a former residence hall for the Academy. For more on Kangaku-e, see the notes to hcrs 118. Following his Academy studies, Mochitoki was appointed secretary of Iyo in 983 and around 988 received an order to take the hōryaku exam, which he passed. Next, he was appointed as a senior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs. His fortunes were closely linked with those of Fujiwara no Korechika, son of regent Michitaka 道隆 (953–95), whom Korechika hoped to succeed upon his father’s death in 995. In a power struggle with his uncle Michinaga (Michitaka’s younger brother), Korechika ultimately failed, and in 996 he was banished to Dazaifu after being accused of involvement in a plot to intimidate Retired Emperor Kazan (r. 984–86). Mochitoki too was sent away, to serve as provisional governor of Hida, relinquishing his post as an investigator in the Office of the Records of Outgoing Officials (Kageyushi). Korechika and Mochitoki were both brought back to the court in 997. In 998, Mochitoki was appointed junior assistant head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs at the rank of junior fifth, lower. He next received an appointment as faculty examiner (montō hakase 問頭博士) for a taisaku examination, before gaining a further post as provisional senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, with a full-step promotion to junior fourth, lower. Although Michinaga had been sufficiently impressed with Mochitoki’s poetry to invite him to many composition occasions, there was still bad blood between the two. After Mochitoki sent Emperor Ichijō a satirical poem suggesting that he had not been well served by his advisors, Michinaga and his circle blocked Mochitoki’s appointment as chamberlain in retaliation. Indignant, Mochitoki wrote another even more daring poem criticizing Michinaga, implying that he had deceived Ichijō and that the latter had allowed himself to be manipulated, just

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as the second emperor of the Qin dynasty had been deceived by Zhao Gao, his minister. This invited a reply poem written by chamberlains punning on Mochitoki’s original surname Yuge (homophonous with “rising steam”) and implying that he had ambitions to rise above his station. For these anecdotes, see Gōdanshō 4–99 and 6–17. In 1001 Mochitoki was appointed to a literature professorship, becoming tutor to Emperor Ichijō’s son Prince Atsuyasu 敦康 (999–1019) around the same time. Despite Mochitoki’s middling political career, which no doubt stemmed in large part from his rather lowly Yuge lineage and his troubled relationship with Michinaga, he was one of the most distinguished and prolific literati of the period, with the most couplets of any poet in Ruijū kudaishō. Some 21 kanshi by Mochitoki appear in the present collection, making him the best-represented poet in this work as well. He receives high praise in Gōdanshō 5–62, where his style is seen as a model of originality and free expression (snkbt 32, p. 204). Accordingly, his skills were also much in demand for the writing of petitions and prefaces to collections. Couplets from 11 of Mochitoki’s kanshi are also found in Wakan rōeishū, with 27 pieces in Honchō monzui, and 35 more in Shinsen rōeishu.

Fujiwara no Kintō. Fourth Month, Weather Not Yet Completely Hot The steamy heat has not yet reached the point where it brings distress, Yet I’m well aware that before too long seasonal weather will follow. Across vast fields of wheat blows the wind—a secret harbinger of autumn; But the heat of the duckweed pentad made me feel especially languid. Though I tried unrolling my bamboo mat, I had to put it away; Began to make a plantain robe but only stitched a half. I call for wine, recite verse, forgetting the mundane world, And laugh about Liu Song of old, on the northern bank of the river. 藤原公任

四月未全熱

炎蒸未及惱心胸 便識有時節氣從 千畝麥風秋暗報 一旬萍日暑猶慵 試披筠簟還應卷 初製蕉衣半不縫 命飲言詩忘俗境 更嘲河朔昔劉松

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SOURCE: hcrs 29, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 65–67; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The Fourth Month in the lunar calendar was the first month of summer. The title is a line from a Bai Juyi poem “Floating on the Pen River” 泛湓水. The poem appears to be a rather unorthodox example of a kudaishi: only one of the kudai words is reproduced and three are alluded to indirectly. One less important graph (全) is passed over altogether. Also, the poem places the honmon into the closing couplet instead of the third, although this is not unusual. Lines three and four: In line three, Kintō observes that the current weather can seem autumnal; in the next line, he recalls the late spring as being unseasonably hot. His overall point is that the weather is unpredictable at this time of year. The “duckweed pentad” is the first pentad—a period five days long—of the so-called “Grain Rain” (Ch. Guyu/J. Koku’u 穀雨) solar term, the sixth of twenty-four such intervals into which the calendrical year was divided. Occurring in late spring, the duckweed pentad lasted roughly April 20–25 in the Western calendar. Xun 旬 means a period of ten days; here it appears to denote the ten days within which the duckweed pentad fell. Lines five and six: Bamboo mats and plantain robes were associated with summer. The weather is not consistently hot enough yet for the poet to need these things, so he has put them away. LINE EIGHT: This contains an allusion to a passage in Dianlun 典論 (Treatise on the Classics), by Cao Pi. A local aristocrat named Liu Song 劉松 (King of Yuyang 漁陽王), along with the warlord Yuan Shao 袁紹 (d. 202) and his sons, held a drinking party on the northern side of the Yellow River at the height of summer one year to ward off the heat, imbibing day and night to the point where they became insensible. Though seldom seen in verse by Chinese poets, references to this episode are not uncommon in kanshi, particularly where drinking wine during hot weather is taking place; another example is seen in Tachibana no Tameyoshi’s poem “From All Around Pleasant Breezes Arise,” translated in Butterflies, p. 158. By laughing about (or at) Liu Song and company, Kintō is perhaps marveling at their behavior or suggesting fancifully that the scale of his own merry-making exceeds even theirs. BIOGRAPHY: The eldest son of the regent Yoritada 賴忠, Fujiwara no Kintō (966–1041) was a well-regarded waka and kanshi poet later chosen for representation in Ogura hyakunin isshu 小倉百人一首 (The Ogura Collection of One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets), putatively compiled by Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家 (1158–1237). Kintō became governor of Sanuki in 983, also receiving a post as middle captain in the Left Imperial Bodyguards. He went on to hold the governorships of Owari and Iyo (984/986) and was eventually appointed to the top positions in the Chamberlains’ Office (989) and the Left Middle Palace Guards (995), becoming consultant in 992, between these two appointments. The following year, Kintō was made head of first the Right Gate Guards, then in 1001, the Left Gate Guards, the title by which he is listed in the present collection, using its Chinese name 左金吾. He also served in

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more substantial posts at various points in his career, including superintendent of the Imperial Police and middle and major counselor. He reached the senior second rank. Kintō was a renowned literary critic, poetry contest judge, and the compiler of several important official waka anthologies. Murasaki Shikibu is said to have praised his literary acumen when she remarked, “How very careful one [has] to be not only with the words but also with the delivery when composing [poems] in the presence of the Shijō Major Counselor Kintō” (Quoted in Marian Ury, “The Ōe Conversations,” Monumenta Nipponica 48.3 [1993], p. 379). Kintō’s literary works include the poetic treatise Shinsen zuinō 新撰髄腦 (The New Essentials of Poetry), Waka kuhon 和歌九品 (Nine Grades of Japanese Poetry, ca. 1009), Hokuzanshō 北山抄 (a compendium of court rites and practices), and the celebrated couplet collection Wakan rōeishū. He apparently assisted Retired Emperor Kazan in the compilation of the third official waka anthology Shūishū, which has some fifteen of Kintō’s verses. Additional anthologies include a collection of Kintō’s favorite verse, Kingyoku shū 金玉集 (The Gold and Jade Collection, ca. 1007), and a body of his own poetry known as Kintōkō shū 公任公集 (Lord Kintō’s Collection), date unknown. His literary contributions and high rank notwithstanding, Kintō never exerted considerable political influence and in 1025 retired to Kitayama, taking his vows at Gedatsuji 解脱寺 the following year.

Ōe no Mochitoki. Spreading out the Mats, Waiting for Guests to Arrive [Using “come” as the rhyme word]

Summer day, I spread the mats then stand and pace about, All day long anticipating the arrival of my guests. I sweep awhile beyond the door where the mats in the moonlight are unrolled; I’ve cleared the area to the right of the seats to let the breezes through. The entire expanse now slippery with dew, but I’m counting on promises made. The six-foot dark green mats are down; I refrain from drinking wine. I value your ability to entice the Consultant to attend! How else could I have lasted until the late evening cool returned? 大江以言

敷簟待客來 便用來字

夏天敷簟立徘徊 終日相期待客來 且掃門前當月展 預空座右任風開 一條露滑憑言約 六尺煙平誡酒盃

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珍重相公招引德 不然爭到晚凉廻 SOURCE: hcrs 38, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 81–82; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The phrase 便用 (“to conveniently use [something]”) signifies that the poet has used a word from the kudai (topic-line) to set the rhyme category for the poem. Spreading out the mats and viewing them with affection—on account of the cool relief they provide in summer—is a theme encountered also in continental poetry, an example being the quatrain “Bamboo Mat” 竹簟 by Yuan Zhen. Lines five and six: The unrolled mats are now moist with dew owing to the lateness of the hour. While trying to remain confident that his guests will sooner or later appear, Mochitoki worries that they may have stood him up. Just to be on the safe side, and as a courtesy, he is refraining from drinking any wine until they arrive. LINE SEVEN: Addressing the mats, Mochitoki seems to be telling them that their presence is a guarantee that the invited guests will attend his late evening soirée. For “consultant” (sangi) the poet uses the Tang term shōkō 相公, possibly in reference to Sugawara no Sukemasa 菅原輔正 (925–1009), another Honchō reisō poet, who was appointed sangi in 996 (Honchō reisō kanchū, p. 82). LINE EIGHT: Mochitoki’s point is that he could never have made it through this anxious day without the mats, whose presence makes him confident that the event will be a success—assuming the guests show up. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcrs 23. COMMENTS: This poem is a kudaishi, the poet using each of the five title words within the first couplet. The honmon reference is found in the second couplet: this is the phrase “to the right of the seats” 座右, likely an allusion to the scholar-official Cui Yuan, who wrote admonitions to himself on the right side of his seat. See the notes to fss 48. The cautious, genteel tone of this verse, suggesting a keen awareness of the hierarchical distinctions within court society, is also detectable in the last couplet of hcrs 23 (above), another Mochitoki poem.

Prince Tomohira. A Poem Written in Early Autumn Using the Topic-Line “Autumn Begins with the Mats” [Rhyme word chosen from among the words in the topic-line]

When autumn arrives the slight cool is hardly cause for surprise. It begins by making its presence felt upon the bamboo mats. A body’s length, unrolled in the heat, not yet put away; Six feet long, in the autumn winds spread out to keep me cool. When dawn arrives I am keenly aware that the dark bamboo feels slick;

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When the sun shines I love how the dewdrops sparkle on the mats. Throughout the dog days you and I were always on intimate terms. Don’t take offense if in the late autumn moonlight you find yourself neglected! 具平親王

早秋賦秋從簟上生 題中取韻

秋至微涼未足驚 初從簟上漸應生 一身暑氣施未去 六尺商風展得清 曉後彌知煙竹滑 日中更愛露花瑩 炎天與汝相親久 莫恨秋深月自輕 SOURCE: hcrs 49, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 100–102; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Autumn’s onset was often first perceived while people were sitting on their bamboo mats, which kept them cool in summer but by autumn seemed to trap the cold and collect dew at night. The title includes a line from the Bai Juyi verse “Sitting at Night” 夜坐. All five words in the topic-line have been reproduced in the opening couplet. LINE FIVE: The word mi 彌, rendered here as “keenly,” could instead be construed as “increasingly.” Lines seven and eight: Using language suggestive of a love relationship, the poet is whimsically telling the mat not to feel slighted once the weather cools down and it is no longer needed. The honmon reference in this couplet harks back to a poem attributed to Imperial Concubine Ban (Ban Jieyu 班婕妤, Han dynasty), who was set aside by the emperor after he found a new favorite. Resentful of her treatment, Ban compares herself to a fan that has been put away because summer is over and its services are no longer required. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcrs 22.

Ōe no Mochitoki. Visiting the Area Above Onjōji Temple Late in the Year [With set rhymes] 1



Year’s end, we find ourselves climbing to a mountain temple for a visit. Bleak and silent as we gaze about, inspiring all kinds of feelings. Our hometown far away in the distance, by clouds blocked from view; The forest plants decayed and withered, heavily laden with snow.

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10



15



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As cold winds from the valley blow we drink green cassia wine; When the stone bridges are slippery we lean on red wisteria canes. By a pine tree gate our intimate friends—the cranes glimpsed at dusk; A flowered path, distant roosters—like houseflies heard at dawn. I’ve invited along some fellow revelers who hail from the “frosty tower.” Our first encounter with the heira-robed priests who live in the cloudy grottoes. Poetic feelings suddenly arise, but chanting is nonetheless hard; The sun is gradually sinking, but we cannot yet go home. Springside hut: the plants in decline, weighed down by chilly snow; Mountain cookhouse: tea is ready, rising dusky smoke. I now repent my burden of sins, which appear before my eyes; I shall rid myself of the worldly vexations cluttering my mind. The empty fame of the scholarly path shames me this moonlit night; Steps I’ve taken on the road to service are like treading upon spring ice. We prepare to return but linger here as the dark of night descends. I point afar to west of the river—a single shining lamp.

大江以言

歲暮遊園城寺上方 勒

歲暮偶尋山寺登 蕭蕭四望感相仍 鄉園迢遰令雲隔 林草彫殘被雪凌 風澗寒時斟綠桂 石橋滑處杖紅藤 松門親友昏看鶴 花路遠雞曉聽蠅 共引霜臺歡會客 初逢雲洞薜蘿僧 風情忽發吟猶苦 日脚漸斜去未能 泉戶草殘寒雪厭 山厨茶熟暮煙興 懺來累業眼前結 除却塵勞意裏凝 學路虛名慙夜月 官途寸步踏春冰 欲歸近佇及昏黑 遙指河西一點燈

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SOURCE: hcrs 72, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 157–61; pailü (twenty lines, hepta­syllabic). TITLE: Onjōji 園城寺, better known as Miidera 三井寺, is a Tendai temple in modern Shiga prefecture. It was founded in the seventh century and rebuilt by Priest Enchin 円珍 in the ninth, following his return from China. Onjōji was heavily patronized by the nobility and the military elite as a center of worship. Pitched battles were fought between the armed supporters of this temple and those of its rival, Enryakuji, with Onjōji being destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. LINE FIVE: Cassia wine was scented with bark from the cassia tree, but often this usage is just an elegant Daoist-inspired way of referring to wine in general. LINE EIGHT: The poet is highlighting their distance from the city, which is so far away that even the dawn roosters cannot be heard clearly; the sound of their crowing resembles the faint hum of insects. This is an unusual image and the hcrs commentator suggests it was inspired by lines in Ode 96, “Ji Ming” 雞鳴 (Cocks Crowing) in Shijing, which read: “The cocks are crowing, / The court is full. / But it is not the cocks, / It is the sound of flies” 雞既鳴矣。 朝既盈矣。匪雞則鳴。蒼蠅之聲. LINE NINE: “Frosty tower” 霜臺 refers to the Board of Censors, formally known as Danjōdai 彈正台. LINE TEN: On the significance of heira, see the notes to kks 56, above. LINE ELEVEN: Mochitoki and his companions find it hard to compose and chant verse probably on account of fatigue from walking in the winter cold. LINE TWELVE: The sun may be sinking, but the beauty of the scenery makes the sightseers reluctant to leave. LINE THIRTEEN: The graph 厭, taken by the commentator to mean “to cover,” is most likely a variant of 壓 “to weigh down,” which, as the commentary notes, is used in another text of the poem. Line four has similar content to this line, perhaps an unwitting repetition. LINE SEVENTEEN: The poet’s shame about his ambitions and worldly entanglements is felt all the more keenly when he gazes at the moon, which is often used as a symbol of Buddhist higher wisdom. LINE EIGHTEEN: “Treading upon spring ice” refers to the insecurity generally faced by court officials. LINE TWENTY: “West of the river” is reminiscent of the “western shores,” symbolic language for the Pure Land paradise of the Amidist sect. Similarly, a single lamp suggests Buddhist truth, a light in the darkness. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcrs 23.

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Fujiwara no Korechika. Feeling Deeply Moved After Learning that a Lady-inWaiting in the Ministry of Popular Affairs Has Taken Buddhist Vows [During the

Ōwa period (961–64) she served as a lady-in-waiting for the minister of the right]

Fingering her hairpins, long ago she frolicked in the vermilion tower. Facing her mirror, now she mourns in her plain and simple room. Those who flourish will in time decline—this she has just discovered. Now cut off, her frosty tresses; she has left the world of dust. 儀同三司

憐戶部出家 應和右丞相之侍婢也

撫簪昔戲紅樓上 對鏡今愁白屋中 盛者必衰新見取 剃除霜鬢出塵蒙 SOURCE: hcrs 79, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 193–94; quatrain (heptasyllabic). Poet’s note to the TITLE: The minister of the right during the period indicated was Fujiwara no Akitada 藤原顕忠. The term kohō 戸部 refers to the Ministry of Popular Affairs. The lady not been identified. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Korechika 藤原伊周 (974–1010) was the second son of Regent Michitaka 道隆 (d. 995) and the brother of Emperor Ichijō’s primary consort, Teishi (Sadako 定子, d. 1001). He advanced rapidly through the bureaucratic hierarchy, serving in a number of posts that included gentleman-in-waiting (986), head of the Chamberlains’ Office, and middle captain of the Right Imperial Bodyguards (990), by this time holding the senior fourth rank, lower. The following year he was named a consultant and elevated to the junior third rank, before serving in two counselor posts at the senior third rank, then becoming palace minister in 994 at the age of twenty. After the death of his father Michitaka, on whose behalf he had briefly served as acting regent, Korechika aspired to be formally named the new regent. Instead, power was passed to his uncle Michikane, then after Michikane’s sudden death the same year, to the latter’s younger brother Michinaga. A protracted and bitter succession dispute ensued between Korechika and Michinaga. In 996 Korechika and his brother Takaie were exiled to Dazaifu and Izumo, respectively, on the charge of having ordered their attendants in 996/1 to shoot arrows at Retired Emperor Kazan (r. 984–86, suspected at the time of courting Korechika’s own favorite, the third daughter of Fujiwara no Tamemitsu 藤原爲光), in order to scare him off, as related in Eiga monogatari 榮華物語 (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes,

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late-eleventh century). Besides his alleged complicity in this affair, Korechika was also suspected of conducting an esoteric Shingon ritual known as the Daigen suihō (大元帥法), normally reserved for the imperial family, which supposedly caused the Grand Empress Senshi (Michinaga’s older sister) to fall under a spell and become seriously ill. For details, see A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, pp. 181–82. In 997 Korechika was rehabilitated, perhaps thanks to his close ties to the reigning sovereign through his sister Teishi. Nevertheless, Korechika could not shed the taint of his banishment and was still considered a lingering threat by Michinaga. After his rehabilitation he no longer wielded political influence and mainly devoted himself to literary activities, attending events both at the palace and even at Michinaga’s private residence, holding his own poetic contests as well. During his post-exile years he was known by the quasi-official title of Gidō sanshi 儀同三司, tantamount to associate minister, which he was the first to hold. Originally a Chinese court title, this gave him at least nominal status as one of the top three ministers of state (sanshi). This is the title used to refer to Korechika in the present collection. Korechika was promoted to the junior second rank in 1003 and the senior second in 1009, the year before his death. Fifteen of his poems are preserved in the present anthology; further items are found in Wakan rōeishū and Honchō monzui, with five waka in Goshūishū as well. A collection of his private verse, known as Gidō sanshishū 儀同三司集 (The Collection of the Associate Minister), is lost.

Prince Tomohira. A Poem Written in Response to One by Lord Takashina of the Ministry of Popular Affairs About How He Dreamed Again of the Former Imperial Tutor Bai [ Juyi] from the Tang Dynasty From ancient times to the present day, so many famous poets! But Master Bai outstrips them all—worth reciting, his verse. His thoughts hew to Nature’s realities, plumbing their very depths; His mind flows in harmony with the creative forces of the universe. In China poetic fashions have changed, but we are used to his mode; The season’s leaves may wither in the wind, yet we’ve never corrupted his style.

[The poetic luminaries of our court take the collected works of Master Bai as their model. Thus, since the Shōwa period (834–47) those who versify have never lost sight of his style.]

That once again he entered your dreams is exactly what we’d expect: Those who are writing verse today—you surely surpass them all.

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和高禮部再夢唐故白太保之作

古今詞客得名多 白氏拔群足詠歌 思任天然沉極底 心將造化動同波 中華變雅人相慣 季葉頽風體未訛 我朝詞人才子、以白氏文集爲規摸。 故承和以來、言詩者皆不失體裁矣。

再入君夢應決理 當時風月必誰過 SOURCE: hcrs 116, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 290–92; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Lord Takashina is Takashina no Moriyoshi 高階積善, compiler of Honchō reisō—see the notes to hcrs 118, which appears to be the poem to which he is responding. Regarding Bai Juyi, the Honchō reisō kanchū text gives his post as dabao 大保, which corresponds to the office of you chengxiang 右丞相, minister of the right. This appears to be a scribal error for taibao 太保, imperial tutor, referring to Bai’s service as imperial advisor during 808–809. We have provisionally amended the text, following Nihon shiki 日本詩紀, referenced in Honchō reisō kanchū, p. 191. LINE FOUR: Prince Tomohira has based the second part of this line on a passage in the “Tian dao” 天道 section of Zhuangzi, which reads: “Those who understand Heaven’s joys … when at rest have the quality of yin, and when moving flow forth with yang” 知天樂者 … 靜而與陰同德、動而與陽同波. LINE SIX: Tomohira is perhaps referring to the political weakness of the Tang dynasty during the ninth century and its eventual collapse in 907. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcrs 22. COMMENTS: This poem and the next are a reminder of the high esteem in which Bai Juyi was held in the Heian court. His popularity in Japan was largely due to his penchant for realism and the accessibility of his verse, inspiring poets to write on mundane and personal subjects themselves, using direct language. Several other mid-Tang poets also deserve credit for their contributions toward the evolution of this plainer style, including perhaps Han Yu (768–824) and Bai’s close friend Yuan Zhen, who shares the stage with Bai in the next poem.

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Takashina no Moriyoshi. Meeting Imperial Tutor Bai [ Juyi] and Chancellor Yuan Zhen in a Dream The two lords have passed away and have long since turned to dust. But their private collections were handed down, belonging to later generations. Their limpid verse I have read myself—both these men are jewels. Their sentiments lofty, yet we do not know which god Yuan Zhen became. [Tutor Bai’s biography states that he was made the god of the Wenqu star in Ursa Major and the Patron Saint of Letters. But I have never read anything in this regard about the Chancellor.]

Their style I heard about long ago, in the days when my cheeks were pink, [During my youth, my late father often told me stories about Yuan and Bai.]

And find myself ardently longing for them, now that my hair is white. Their faces and hair were true to life when they both appeared in my dream: The Han capital was bathed in moonlight, the riverbank shrouded in mist. 高階積善

夢中同謁白太保元相公

二公身化早爲塵 家集相傳屬後人 清句已看同是玉 高情不識又何神 白太保傳云、太保者是文曲星神。 而相公未見其所傳矣。

風聞在昔紅顏日 余少年時、先人對余以常談元白之故事。

鶴望如今白首辰 容鬢宛然俱入夢 漢都月下水煙濱 SOURCE: hcrs 118, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 295–97; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: As with the title of the previous poem, Bai is incorrectly referred to as dabao 大保; see the notes to hcrs 116. Yuan Zhen is called Chancellor Yuan 元相公, referring to an appointment he received in 822 as chancellor de facto of the second grade. Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen were contemporaries and close friends. Besides enjoying distinguished political careers they were also highly regarded poets, Bai in particular. Line four and poet’s note: Bai was honored posthumously by being named the god of a small, semi-circular six-star constellation within Ursa Major named Wenquxing 文曲星 (also called Wenxing 文星, “Stars of Literature,” and Wenchang 文昌), located to the east of the Big Dipper’s bowl. Ursa Major was an important constellation in

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Chinese cosmology, containing many stars named for positions of high rank in the imperial court. LINE SEVEN: We can probably assume that Moriyoshi had seen paintings of these two men. LINE EIGHT: The Han capital: Chang’an, China’s capital during the Tang. BIOGRAPHY: Takashina no Moriyoshi (Sekizen, d. ca. 1014) was the fifth son of the literatus Takashina no Naritada 高科成忠 (ca. 923–98), a Confucian lecturer to the crown prince. A noteworthy scholar of Chinese literature and history in his own right, Moriyoshi once served as tutor to Emperor Ichijō, whose consort Fujiwara no Sadako was Moriyoshi’s cousin. Notwithstanding this auspicious family connection, Moriyoshi had a rather ordinary career. After passing his taisaku exams in 997 he received his first appointment, as secretary of Iyo province. Subsequent posts included junior secretary in the Ministry of the Imperial Household, junior assistant director of the Board of Censors, and (in 1011) left minor controller. He reached the rank of junior fourth, lower, in 1014. Moriyoshi’s legacy was chiefly a literary one, his greatest achievement being the compilation of Honchō reisō, which includes five of his kanshi and two prefaces. Some of Moriyoshi’s poems allude to career-related difficulties, including the verse immediately below. Additional works can be found in Honchō monzui, Ruijū kudaishō, and other collections from the period. In 964 Moriyoshi helped Yoshishige no Yasutane establish the Kangaku-e, whose main objective was to work for “a harmonious relationship between [the members’] literary activity and Buddhist religious concepts and practices.” See Yung-hee Kim, trans., Songs to Make the Dust Dance: The Ryōjin hishō of Twelfth-Century Japan (1994), p. 42. The gathered literati heard lectures on the Lotus Sutra, practiced meditation on Amida Buddha, and composed verse in Chinese on topics from the sutra “in order to expiate the sin of engaging in literature” (Ury, “The Ōe Conversations,” pp. 368–69). See also Richard Bowring, The Religious Traditions of Japan 500–1600 (2005), p. 204. For a detailed timeline and account of Moriyoshi’s life and career, see Kawaguchi, Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 447–58.

Takashina no Moriyoshi. For Drinking Wine, Autumn is the Best Time of Year [Using “heart” as the rhyme word]

Wine drinkers by nature are the victims of their emotions, So we’re better off getting drunk alone and during the autumn season. At other times I’m always sober, the better for reciting verse. Recently I’ve been drinking often; the joy it brings is vast. When we vie in spring to outdrink each other our faces acquire a blush; In the land of the drunk at year’s end we are bound to feel depressed.

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Don’t talk to me about a cup of “the stuff that makes us forget our cares.” May His Lordship extend his kindness to me now that I’m down on my luck! 高階積善

勸酒不如秋 心字

酒客素雖被感侵 不如自勸醉秋陰 他時常酲應懷吟 近日頻傾是興深 論戶春風還赧面 授鄉臘月欲寒心 莫言一盞忘憂物 蓮府仁恩及陸沉 SOURCE: hcrs 127, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 314–15; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This poem is a kudaishi; the five words comprising the title reappear in the opening couplet. The kudai and the poem itself are unlike most earlier examples, moving in a lyrical direction away from the usual emphasis on natural phenomena and seasonal imagery, focusing instead on human activities and sentiments. The phrase quan jiu 勸酒, rendered here as “drinking wine,” literally means to press wine on someone. In line two we see zi quan 自勸, meaning to press wine upon oneself, a poetic nod to Tao Yuanming and Li Bai, both of whom were happy to drink alone. Lines five and six: Spring and winter are unsuitable times for getting drunk, in the poet’s view. In spring it was customary to hold drinking parties among the pink blossoms, but their color seemed to highlight the blush on people’s faces from drinking too much, which could be embarrassing. Winter was also inadvisable, because the gloomy weather and decaying scenery sent the drinker into a vin triste. Summer is not even mentioned because of the heat and humidity, which seem to have made holding drinking parties unpopular. Lun hu 論戶 in line five means to compete to see who can drink the most, keeping a tally. The similarly obscure expression shou xiang 授鄉 in line six means blissfully drunk, as if in another world. Both occur elsewhere in Heian kanshi and seem to have been colloquialisms. In explaining these items, the commentator cites the early Kamakura text Bunpōshō by Sugawara no Tamenaga as its authority. Lines seven and eight: This type of lyrical closure alluding to misfortune and expressing a desire to receive assistance becomes increasingly common as a refrain in kanshi during the latter half of the Heian age. These lines also contain the honmon allusion expected in kudaishi. “The stuff that makes us forget our cares” 忘憂物 is of course wine; Tao Yuanming uses this kenning in the seventh poem of his series “Yin jiu shi” 飲酒詩 (Poems on

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Drinking Wine). Moriyoshi’s message is that while he enjoys wine it is not his salvation: what he really depends upon is the support of his renfu 蓮府 (“lotus minister”), translated here as “His Lordship.” The term renfu derives from a passage in Nanshi 南史 (History of the South) about a high-ranking minister of the southern Qi named Wang Jian 王儉 (452–89) who loved lotuses and planted them in the pond of his garden. The “lotus minister” is almost certainly Fujiwara no Michinaga, who became sesshō in 1011. See the notes to hcrs 132 concerning Michinaga’s direct intervention in determining provincial assignments and other posts. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to the previous poem.

Fujiwara no Suketada. I Feel Better When Drunk Than When Sober [With “tipsy” as the rhyme word]

Drunkenness beats everything else, surely the sweetest state! Who’d compare their sober times to gradually getting tipsy? How can giving up drinking and then dwelling on the past Compare to having cup after cup, in earnest conversation? We’re aware that Han Gaozu was happy because he indulged himself often; We know that Qu Yuan of Chu was unhappy because he did not drink. While a hundred cares all disappear, lingering regrets remain: Now that I’m old and have lost my post, my tears are hard to bear. 藤原輔尹

醉時心勝醒時心 酣字

醉心已勝最應甘 誰以醒時比漸酣 與彼停盃思往事 豈如添戶契交談 漢高祖樂頻欣識 楚屈原憂未酌諳 百慮消中遺有恨 老來官散淚難堪 SOURCE: hcrs 128, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 316–17; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: Suketada has created an interesting visual effect at the ends of these lines, probably for added whimsy, by using a character at the end of line two that incorporates the last one in the first line, in a manner reminiscent of rigōshi 離合詩 acrostic verse—see note 224 in the Introduction. A similar instance occurs in the third couplet, where the final characters in each line bear a mutual resemblance.

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This poem is a kudaishi with an unusual seven-word title, all of whose words reappear in the opening couplet except for two repeats: toki 時 and kokoro 心. Two honmon occur in the third couplet. LINE FIVE: Han Gaozu (High Progenitor of the Han) is the title by which Liu Bang 劉邦 (256–195 bce), founder of the Han dynasty, was posthumously known. The Kawaguchi commentary suggests that Suketada is referring to a famous event that occurred twelve years into the dynasty: Gaozu returned to his home district, where many years earlier he had served as a minor official, and held a drinking party for his fellow villagers lasting more than ten days. LINE SIX: Qu Yuan, a poet and loyal official who served the state of Chu, suffered unjust criticism at court and was banished after offering his ruler advice on how to save Chu from being conquered and annexed by the aggressive state of Qin. Tradition credits him with authorship of certain compositions in the Chu ci, most notably the “Li sao” 離騷 (Encountering Sorrow), which details his wanderings and passionately mournful musings while in exile. The drinking reference harks back to Qu’s famous encounter with a fisherman in another Chu ci, where he laments that the entire world is “drunk” (i.e. corrupt and impure) while he alone is “sober.” BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Suketada (ca. 950–d. 1021?) was the son of Fujiwara no Okikata 興方, a descendant of the Kose no Maro branch of the Southern Fujiwara and at one time governor of Owari. Suketada became the foster son of Fujiwara no Kanetada 藤原懐忠 (935–1020). A promising student at the Academy, Suketada completed his monjōdō studies, later obtaining the shūsai qualification and serving from 984 as the Academy’s assistant director. At one time he was an administrator for the Kangakuin. Under Emperor Ichijō he held posts as right and left minor controller and later served as governor of Iga, Yamashiro, and Yamato provinces. Suketada also was head of the Bureau of Carpentry and at one time a steward in the households of Michinaga and Michikane. He reached the junior fourth rank, lower. Suketada’s dates, foster father or fathers, and career appointments are difficult to ascertain because there was another poet by the same name active around this time. See Kawaguchi, Honchō reisō kanchū, p. 401. Praised in Ōe no Masafusa’s Gōdanshō for his prowess in Sinitic literature, Suketada achieved a highly respected status as a poet, his name appearing in the records of various literary events held in the early eleventh century. His private anthology Suketada shū 輔尹集, containing seventy-one waka, is preserved in the Shōkōkan Bunko 彰考館文庫 collection in Mito. Seven waka are also anthologized elsewhere. The present collection has only two of Suketada’s kanshi, hcrs 28 and 128. COMMENTS: The sudden tonal shift in the last couplet from tipsy jauntiness to selfpity is unusual. In light of this unexpectedly maudlin finish the title begins to appear ironic.

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Fujiwara no Kintō. Here in seclusion I heard that on two occasions you, Provisional Middle Captain of the Left Imperial Bodyguards, took pleasure trips on the Uji River. I have attempted to relate some of my inner feelings, and as your subordinate I submit these to you in confidence. Enjoying themselves, the chamberlain and his stiff and proper guests. Forlorn and lonely, I can imagine how things were on those happy jaunts: On a painted boat in the moonlight, the rippling waters pure. To my shabby hut no one came; just the sound of dripping rain. Poetry, wine, and music all have no place in my life, Yet the forest, rocks, and rivers here would surely have met your tastes. Thinking of you does nothing to ease my sorrow at being rejected: Empty, those pledges we made to each other throughout the many years. 藤原公任 下風。

閑中聞左親衛員外將軍兩度遊宇治河、聊述中懷、偷呈

行樂仙朗端坐客 寂寥想像勝遊程 華舩有月波澄色 蓬戶無人雨滴聲 詩酒坐歌非我事 林叢水石稱君情 相思未慰棄予恨 空有多年合契名 SOURCE: hcrs 130, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 320–22; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The middle captain has been tentatively identified as Minamoto no Tsunefusa 源經房 (ca. 969–1023), fourth son of Minister of the Left Minamoto no Takaakira 源高明 (914–82). Tsunefusa was an excellent poet, with works included in Shūi wakashū. He was considered the adopted son of Fujiwara no Michinaga, his cousin. For many years he served as middle captain of the Left Imperial Bodyguards, later becoming consultant in 1005, among other posts. In 1021 Tsunefusa went to Kyushu to serve as provisional governor-general of Dazaifu, where he died two years later. Kintō refers to himself as the “subordinate” (kafū 下風) of the middle captain (who is identified as a chamberlain, senrō 仙朗, in the next line), but this may only be a sarcastic gesture of feigned humility. LINE ONE: “Stiff and proper” is literally “sitting upright.” Angry about being coldshouldered, Kintō seems to be criticizing not only the Captain but also his guests, implying that they are standing on ceremony to curry favor.

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Lines five and six: Kintō’s point is that even though he had given up poetry and other pleasures (which suggests that he may already have been living as a priest by this time—see his biography), the Middle Captain would still have enjoyed himself in the beautiful setting where Kintō lived, had he done him the courtesy of paying a visit. BIOGRAPHY: See hcrs 29, above.

Fujiwara no Tametoki. Another Poem Our languages may be different but our literary tastes are alike. In talent and fame you are surely the equal of Yang Xiong of old! Tears of homesickness you shed after waking from your autumn dreams; For a little while as you drink tonight may your traveler’s nostalgia be soothed. Away from your country for three years, at this lonely lodge in the moonlight; Returning now over countless miles, a single sail in the wind. Your infants will have all grown up, your mother and brothers now old. Once we’re apart in our separate lands will our hearts ever meet again? 藤原爲時

重寄

言語雖殊藻思同 才名其奈昔揚雄 更催鄉淚秋夢後 暫慰羈情晚醉中 去國三年孤館月 歸程萬里片帆風 嬰兒生長母兄老 兩地何時意緒通 SOURCE: hcrs 132, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 325–26; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This is the second of two poems written by Tametoki on the same occasion and with identical rhymes. The first (not translated) is “A Poem Presented to Qiang Shichang, a Visitor from the Great Song Realm, after He Was Given an Audience with Us” 覲謁之後以詩贈太宋客羌世昌. Qiang 羌 is likely a scribal error for Zhou 周; see the Kawaguchi commentary, p. 324. Kawaguchi relates that the “Waiguo zhuan” 外國傳 (Accounts of Foreign Lands) chapter of Song shi 宋史 (The History of the Song) indicates that around 995 a merchant sailor from Fujian province named Zhou Shichang 周世昌 was shipwrecked in Japanese waters off Wakasa. He and his party were sent to Echizen, where they remained for seven years. During this time Tametoki was serving as governor there, commencing his appointment in 996. The first of his two poems

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indicates that there were sixty people on board the Chinese ship, although Nihon kiryaku 日本紀略 for 995/9/6 puts the number at “more than seventy.” Zhou Shichang was finally repatriated in 1002, taking with him one Fuji[wara?] no Kiyoshi 藤木吉. The poems that had been exchanged between the Chinese and Japanese while Zhou was in Japan were presented to the Song court, where they were criticized as being overly ornate and shallow. See the commentary, pp. 324–25. LINE TWO: Yang Xiong (53 bce–ad 18) was a renowned Chinese philosopher and writer of fu. The extravagance of this compliment may partly explain why the Song court took exception to the exchanged poems. LINE FIVE: The notion of their being away from China for three years conflicts with the account in Song shi, where the figure is seven years. When this poem was written, Zhou Shichang and his party may have only been in Japan three years; attempts to repatriate them might have failed, delaying their return for several more years. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Tametoki (d. 1029?) was the father of Murasaki Shikibu, famed author of Tale of Genji. He studied with Sugawara no Fumitoki, the grandson of Michizane and a distinguished literatus highly praised by Ōe no Masafusa in Gōdanshō. Tametoki also served as tutor to Crown Prince Morosada 師貞親王, who later reigned as Emperor Kazan (984–86; d. 1008). Under Kazan, Tametoki was appointed senior secretary of the Ministry of Ceremonial (986), serving concurrently as a chamberlain at the sixth rank. After Kazan was forced off the throne, Tametoki entered a period of adversity, unable to secure a position for ten years. Kojidan 古事談 (Stories of Times Past, comp. by Minamoto no Akikane 源顕兼, ca. 1215) relates how in 996 Tametoki was appointed governor of Awaji, a distant post with unremarkable remunerative prospects, but he succeeded in having his assignment changed to Echizen, displacing the existing appointee, who apparently later died from the shock of this unhappy turn of events. Tametoki’s rescue was the result of intervention by Michinaga, who had learned that Emperor Ichijō, his son-in-law, was in distress (to the point of not eating or drinking) after reading a poem leaked to him through a lady in Tametoki’s service mentioning the “tears of blood” that the latter had shed over his Awaji appointment. Years later, in 1009, Tametoki was promoted to the senior fifth rank, lower, becoming left minor controller. He was appointed governor of Echigo in 1011. His son Nobunori 惟規 died that year while in Echigo with Tametoki, who left his post three years later without completing his term. In 1016, Tamenori took vows as a priest, living at Miidera 三井寺 until at least 1018. That same year, he composed a byōbu poem at a banquet held by Fujiwara no Yorimichi 藤原賴通 (992–1074), in what appears to be the last recorded event of his career. Tametoki belonged to Emperor Ichijō’s literary salon and often took part in poetry composition events. Ōe no Masafusa 大江匡房, writing in Zoku Honchō ōjō den 續本朝往生傳 (A Record of Persons of our Court Reborn in the Pure Land, Continued), calls Tametoki one of the greatest literati of his time (tenka no ichibutsu 天下一物). For

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details, see Heian jidaishi jiten, vol. 2, p. 2135. His appealing and delicate kanshi and waka appear in various collections, including Honchō reisō, Goshūishū, Ruijū kudaishō, and Shin Kokinshū.

Fujiwara no Arikuni. The former Governor of Mino has repeatedly gone back and forth to visit me during my illness. I feel enormously grateful and have written this poem to thank him. For ten days I’ve been lying here ill, cut off from human contact. Only you, O Governor of Mino, have worried about my state! My old eyes are murky and dim, as if night were all around; My withered face looks weather-beaten, as though experiencing autumn. Whenever I walk it’s like mountain climbing, every step a peril. My remaining days flow by like water; tears I quietly shed. In this world you will remain behind, so you’ll surely remember me: May you visit my desolate grave, hidden among dusky pines. 藤原有國

美州前刺史再三往復、訪以予病。不堪感懷、詩以答謝。

一旬臥病絕交遊 唯有美州致悶愁 老眼昏朦如遇夜 衰容颯灑似過秋 山隨寸步蹤猶嶮 水逐殘齡淚暗流 世上君留應憶我 荒墳宜見暮松幽 SOURCE: hcrs 134, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 333–35; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The former governor alluded to here may have been the literatus Minamoto no Tamenori 源爲憲 (ca. 940–1011), who vacated the Mino governorship around 1000; see the biographical notes attached to hcrs 135. BIOGRAPHY: The fourth son of Sukemichi 輔道, Fujiwara no Arikuni (943–1011) had a long and successful career in the bureaucracy. He studied under Sugawara no Fumitoki and completed his studies as a monjōshō. In 964 he helped establish the Kangaku-e literary circle; see the notes to hcrs 23. During his twenties he was an attendant of the crown prince (subsequently Emperor Reizei, r. 967–69), later entering the service of his maternal relative Fujiwara no Kaneie, who in 986 became regent. Arikuni served as governor of Iwami (978) and Echigo (984), among other provincial posts, then

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under Regent Kaneie became the right major controller and head of the Kageyushi in 989/11. Six months later he was put in charge of the Chamberlains’ Office, at the rank of junior third. Early in 991, after Regent Fujiwara no Michitaka 藤原道隆 (953–95) came to power upon the death of his father Kaneie, Arikuni and his sons were purged. Arikuni spent some eighteen months under house arrest, owing to his earlier support of Michikane for the regency and for his alleged involvement in the Hata no Aritoki 秦有時 murder conspiracy; see hcrs 154, below. He was restored to his former rank in 992 and regained the headship of the Kageyushi the following year. After the death of Michitaka in 995 and Fujiwara no Michinaga’s rise to power, Arikuni became Michinaga’s house steward and right-hand man. He was appointed senior assistant governor-general of Dazaifu (995), working at Michinaga’s behest to reinvigorate relations with China and improve the administration of the Saikaidō circuit (i.e., modern Kyushu). At this time, Governor-General Prince Atsumichi, head of Dazaifu, was away on another assignment, leaving Arikuni in virtual control over Kyushu. Arikuni welcomed into his service another recent exile, Fujiwara no Korechika 藤原伊周 (974–1010, the son of Arikuni’s former adversary Michitaka), who had been banished for his involvement in the incident where an arrow was shot at Retired Emperor Kazan in 996. Arikuni amassed a large personal fortune in less than scrupulous ways during the years that followed, consolidating his influence through massive contributions to important figures and institutions in the capital. On the side, he is said to have embezzled government funds earmarked for the purchase of goods from Song merchants, earning a reputation as something of a scoundrel—albeit one with a strong literary flair and well-honed instincts for political survival. In 996, while still in Dazaifu (and working closely with Michinaga), Arikuni was promoted to the senior third rank. In 1001, he was brought back to the capital, serving again as an official in Michinaga’s household. Shortly thereafter, Arikuni was promoted to the junior second rank and appointed consultant (sangi). Around 1003 he became head of the Kageyushi once more. In the present collection, Arikuni is referred to as “Kageyu[shi] Head and Consultant” (kageyu shōkō 勘解由相公). Arikuni also received overlapping provisional governorships (probably sinecures) of both Iyo and Harima, and a position in the Office of Palace Repairs (Shurishiki 修理職) in 1010. He also worked to revive the activities of the Kangaku-e. He died in 1011, having relinquished his posts earlier in the year. Arikuni was a frequent participant in poetry composition events held by leading court figures, including his patron Michinaga. Ten of his poems and one preface are included in Honchō reisō and a small scattering of kanshi are found in other collections, including the mid-Kamakura work Wakan kensakushū 和漢兼作集 (A Collection of Works in Chinese and Japanese) and Ruijū kudaishō. A two-maki anthology of Arikuni’s poetry, Kageyu shōkō shū 勘解由相公集, is non-extant.

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Minamoto no Tamenori. Recently, the Chamberlain and the Senior Assistant Director of the Board of Censors went and parked their carriage near the front of the prison. They made a comprehensive inspection of the inmates and gave them food to relieve their hunger. Curiosity-seekers expressed their admiration in verse. News of this having reached my ears, I am now adding a poem of my own. [Using the same rhyme words]

Poets have revealed your virtue in verse, which is how I know about you. In the wake of all your noble deeds, how could good fortune not follow? Today the emperor surely is feeling grateful to you both, For coming from the Censorate to show mercy to those sinners in prison. 源爲憲 頃者、侍中、御史中丞、到囚門前近駐華轂、普見囚徒與 食療飢。好事之輩以詩歎美。予傳以聞之、繼其末。 本韻 詩家著德知君子 積善餘風慶豈無 今日上天應感激 霜臺來愍夏臺辜 SOURCE: hcrs 135, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 335–36; quatrain (heptasyllabic). TITLE: These two benefactors have not been identified, nor have we been able to date this poem. It is also not certain whether “chamberlain” is meant to be singular or plural. The prison visit became the subject of multiple poems; it appears that showing charity toward prisoners was unusual enough to attract attention and praise. This poem thus raises questions about the general treatment of prisoners during these times. The commentator interprets the phrase hao shi zhi bei 好事之輩 as meaning persons moved by these good deeds; we have opted instead for the more plausible-seeming “curiosity-seekers,” i.e., nosy people. It can also denote eccentrics with rather odd tastes. “Hon’in” 本韻 in the title annotation indicates that the poet is matching rhymes exactly to those of another poem, in the same order. This convention was often observed in response poems. LINE FOUR: For “prison” Tamenori uses the term xiatai 夏臺 (“Xia Tower,” lit. “summer tower”), the name of a prison attached to the palace during the Xia dynasty. Cheng Tang, the lord who eventually overthrew the last Xia king and founded the Shang dynasty, was imprisoned there for a while. Tamenori has provided a whimsical contrast with shuangtai 霜臺 (the Censorate: literally “Frosty Tower”) at the beginning of the line.

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BIOGRAPHY: Minamoto no Tamenori (ca. 940–1011) was a student of Minamoto no Shitagō. He passed his taisaku exam and later helped found the Kangaku-e. His posts included chamberlain, secretary in the Ministry of Ceremonial, and the governorships of Tōtōmi (991), Mino (997), and finally Iga (1009), where he died in office. Tamenori is perhaps best known for his Buddhist primer Sanbōe kotoba 三寶繪詞 (Illustrated Scrolls of the Three Treasures, 984), presented to Princess Sonshi 尊子内親王. Further literary works include Kūyarui 空也誄 (972, Eulogy for Priest Kūya, 903–72) and Kuchizusami 口遊 (Amusements with Recitation), a compendium of factual information presented in an easily memorizable recitative style, compiled in 970 for the seven-year old son of Chancellor Fujiwara no Tamemitsu 藤原爲光. He also compiled Sezoku genbun 世俗諺文, a partially-extant collection of well-known four-character phrases and adages derived from Buddhist and Chinese anecdotes, fables, and other accounts, compiled in 1007, and Honchō shirin 本朝詞林 (A Forest of Words from Our Court), now lost. Tamenori has nine kanshi in the present anthology as well as works in Honchō monzui and Wakan rōeishū. Some of his verse is exceptional for its socio-political commentary and insights into contemporary affairs, particularly two poems in hcrs on government economic policies (see Butterflies, pp. 160–61 for translations). Waka attributed to Tamenori are contained in Shūishū and elsewhere. Tamenori’s own collection, Tamenori shū 爲憲集, does not survive.

Minamoto no Tamenori. Written on Behalf of a Man from the Island of Uruma, to Express his Gratitude for the Emperor’s Kindness He comes from afar, has alien customs; grateful for His Majesty’s grace. The man himself is unable to speak, so I speak on his behalf: “My little boat was soon destroyed, I nearly drowned at sea. My solitary vessel made an unforeseen turn, I barely escaped with my life. In my hometown my mother dwells, in the autumn winds shedding tears; At the travelers’ inn I was all alone, desolate as the dusk rains fell. Who would have thought that His Majesty would allow me to return? I point toward my old home, far away in the clouds.” 源爲憲

代迃陵島人感皇恩詩

遠來殊俗感皇恩 彼不能言我代言 一葦先摧身殆沒 孤蓬暗轉命纔存

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故鄉有母秋風淚 旅館無人暮雨魂 豈慮紫泥許歸去 望雲遙指舊家園 SOURCE: hcrs 141, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 350–53; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This poem was written in 1004. Uruma, also called Uryōtō 迃陵島 (K. Ulleungdo 鬱陵島), is a small volcanic island about seventy-five miles east of the Korean peninsula in the Sea of Japan. Europeans formerly called it Dagelet. Today it has about 10,000 residents, many of whom raise cuttlefish for a living. The island was annexed by Silla in 512 but did not become a permanent part of Korea until 930, when it was taken over by Goryeo. It was overrun by Jurchen pirates from northern China in the eleventh century and was often occupied by other pirates in the succeeding centuries. This led to an “empty island” policy, which was loosely enforced until the late nineteenth century, when Korea began attempting resettlement. LINE ONE: Shu su 殊俗: “[has] alien customs” or “[is] extremely rustic.” LINE TWO: “Unable to speak”: he knew little or no Japanese. LINE THREE: Little boat, yi wei 一葦, is more literally “a bundle of reeds,” an expression from Ode 61, “He guang” 河廣 (The River He Is Wide) in Shijing, which has the following lines: “Who says that the Ho is wide? / With [a bundle of] reeds I can cross it” 誰謂河廣。一葦杭之. See Legge, The She King, p. 104. LINE FOUR: Peng 蓬 means “tumbleweed,” an apt metaphor for a boat tossed about by wind and waves. However, it seems more likely to be an error or variant for peng 篷 “sail,” a metonym for boat. LINE SIX: The travelers’ inn: probably a hostel where aliens, including shipwrecked persons, were lodged pending repatriation. It appears that no other foreigners were living there at this time. The notion of such hostels being lonely places is also seen in hcrs 132. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to the previous poem. COMMENTS: Fujiwara no Kintō (see the notes to hcrs 29 for his biography) wrote the following tanka, with an introduction, addressed to the same sailor in his Kintōkō shū (see Honchō reisō kanchū, p. 352). This reads:

A person from the island of Uruma in Shiragi came over to Japan, and after it was discovered that he could not understand what was being said and was unable to reply, a poem was addressed to him, as follows: “Is it because / You are from Uruma, / Anxious and in the dark, / That you seems oblivious / To the sorrow we feel for you?” おぼつかな / うるまの島の / 人な れや / わがうらびるを / しらずがほなる.

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Fujiwara no Arikuni. I was dismissed from my post but have recently been restored to the third rank. On the Double Ninth, I was able to attend a banquet. Driven by my emotions, I could not refrain from versifying, even though I wanted to hold back. I have humbly set forth some thoughts in an attempt to convey my feelings to those who would understand. 1



5



10



15



20

I am someone who was once dismissed and lived in a lowly hut, Never expecting an imperial summons and a place in such cultured company. I lost my post in the Second Month, when the flowers were in bloom; I awaited the edict: the Double Ninth now, chrysanthemums in all their splendor. Beside the hedge I felt no desire for Tao’s reclusive drinking; The orchid bunches would surely have laughed at the garlanded minister of Chu. I quickly discarded my rustic garb, which was stained with melancholy tears, And then donned the court robes that adorn my aged body. Approaching death and soon to be useless bones in the Yellow Realm, I was brought back to life to tread once more the dust of the Purple Palace. Although that half-scorched paulownia “tail” could have ended up charred remains, This rotten piece of resin pine escaped being used for fuel. The crane from its cage fled into the clouds, flicking the mud from its wings; The fish in the rut was given water to moisten its dried out scales. The hair on Su Wu’s head was hoary when he finally returned to China; Zhang Yi brought his tongue with him when he entered the state of Qin. Destiny is a tumbleweed, blown about by the autumn winds; Prosperity like the mushrooms of dawn that spring up again in the dew. Removing my hatpin, I was all prepared to study to become a monk. But until I requite our sovereign’s kindness I shall never take off my sash.

藤原有國 除名之後、初復三品、重陽之日、得倍宴席。情感所 催、欲罷不能、  聊述鄙懷、呈諸知己。 我是柴荊貶謫人 豈圖徵召列文賓 除名二月花開日 待詔重陽菊綻辰 籬落不要陶隱醉 蘭叢應笑楚臣紉 忽拋野服染愁淚

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更着朝衣賁老身 遄死空爲黃壤骨 憖生再踏紫震塵 半焦桐尾雖殘燼 已朽松心免作薪 籠鶴放雲振泥翅 轍魚得水潤枯鱗 鬢班蘇武初歸漢 舌在張儀遂入秦 運任秋蓬風處轉 榮同朝菌露中新 抽簪將學空門法 未報皇恩未解紳 SOURCE: hcrs 154, in Honchō reisō kanchū, pp. 385–90; pailü (twenty lines, heptasyllabic). TITLE: The character 倍 is used here as a variant for 陪, literally “to accompany” and by extension, “to attend.” In 991, early in the regency of Fujiwara no Michitaka, Arikuni and his sons were purged on suspicion that Arikuni had been involved in the murder of Hata no Aritoki 秦有時, who served in the Office of the Palace Table. A likely contributing factor behind the punishment was Arikuni’s earlier support for the efforts of Michikane 道兼 (961–95), Michitaka’s younger brother, to become regent. Arikuni was rehabilitated the next year. See the notes to hcrs 134. LINE FOUR: Arikuni had been awaiting an imperial edict restoring his rank and position, which was eventually issued on 992/7/7. LINE FIVE: This is Tao Yuanming, who was fond of wine and had a special love for chrysanthemums, which in his verse are sometimes mentioned as growing in or near hedges. Tao retired early, having decided that he was temperamentally unsuited for public service, and spent his remaining twenty-two years living in the countryside. On the Double Ninth, refined gentlemen would go picnicking to view the chrysanthemums, write verse, drink wine, and pay homage to Tao Yuanming. A reference to him in any Double Ninth poem was almost obligatory. Here, however, Arikuni is taking pains to impress upon his audience that, unlike Tao, he felt no joy at all while out of office. Arikuni seems intent on disassociating himself from the Tao model, implying that the notion of leaving public service voluntarily to pursue a quiet life of pleasure was repugnant to him. LINE SIX: The “garlanded minister of Chu” is a reference to Qu Yuan (d. 278 bce)— see the notes to hcrs 128. In the poem “Li sao” (Encountering Sorrow), which describes the anguish and tribulations he experienced in exile, Qu is seen decorating himself

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with flowers and plants, to remind himself of his personal “fragrance,” i.e., moral purity. Arikuni derides Qu’s behavior, saying that the flowers would have laughed at him for being so foolish. Once again, he may be striving to distance himself from anyone associated with reclusion, even forced reclusion, to convince the other courtiers of his loyalty and to show gratitude for being restored to his former rank. In another reading of this line, the “orchid bunches” may refer to his fellow courtiers, who would have laughed to see what a sorry figure he cut while in disgrace: a lost soul living in poverty and obscurity like the “garlanded minister of Chu.” LINE NINE: The phrase chuan si 遄死, “approaching death,” originates from the last line of Ode 52, “Xiang Shu” 相鼠 (Look At The Rat) in Shijing. The line reads 胡不遄死, “Why doesn’t he just hurry up and die?” This refers to an unnamed person who, owing to his lack of manners and refinement, is deemed to be lower than a rat and without any reason to keep living. Confident of his audience’s familiarity with the locus classicus of this phrase, Arikuni has used it for the sake of further self-flagellation, implying that he was like the man in the ode: lacking in virtue and only fit for death. The “Yellow Realm” is also called Yellow Springs, the realm of the dead. LINE TEN: The graph 震 is a variant for 宸. This usage occurs multiple times in the present anthology. LINE ELEVEN: “Tail” is a reference to “Scorched Tail” 焦尾, the name of a qin that belonged to the great Han dynasty scholar and musician Cai Yong. Cai fashioned it from some scorched paulownia wood which he rescued from a fire, recognizing its high quality from the loud cracking sound it made as it burned. This name was often used to refer to any well-crafted qin. Perhaps to avoid seeming immodest, Arikuni stops short of directly comparing his rehabilitation to the rescue of this fine piece of wood, instead likening himself to a worthless piece of pine in the next line. Line fourteen: This alludes to an anecdote in Zhuangzi, in which Zhuangzi visits the marquis of Jian He to borrow grain. The marquis tells him to wait until the next delivery of tax grain arrives. To express his dissatisfaction Zhuangzi makes up a story, saying that while going to the palace he saw a fish lying in a rut in the road. The fish begged Zhuangzi to rescue him. Zhuangzi told it to wait until he came back from the court, at which the fish angrily retorted that by then it would be too late and he would end up in the dried-fish shop. This story aimed to illustrate the futility of assistance delayed. Here, however, Arikuni is attempting to draw a parallel between himself and the fish: facing metaphorical dessication and death, he was revived by the “water” of the court’s mercy. Line fifteen: On Su Wu, a diplomat in the service of the Han court, see kfs 91. He was held captive for nineteen years before being repatriated, returning to China with grey hair. Arikuni is perhaps implying that although like Su Wu he is getting on in years and has grey hair, he can still render service to the realm.

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Line sixteen: Zhang Yi 張儀 (d. 310 bce) belonged to a class of talented men, mostly from the lower aristocracy, who wandered China during the Warring States period offering their skills to any feudal lord who would employ them. He is mainly remembered for his distinguished career in the state of Qin, rising to become its minister of diplomatic affairs. Earlier, while serving in Chu, he was invited to a banquet held by a minister who during this event accused Zhang of stealing a valuable gem and gave him a beating. When he returned home, Zhang asked his wife to check to see if he still had his tongue. When its presence was confirmed, Zhang reportedly said that keeping his tongue was all that mattered. Arikuni’s message seems to be that, having overcome his past difficulties, he intends to earn a reputation for noble service rivaling that of Zhang Yi. LINE NINETEEN: This hatpin is the poet’s badge of office; taking it off is a reference to his earlier dismissal. LINE TWENTY: The sash is also part of the official regalia; removing it signifies retiring from office. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcrs 134.

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Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū 中右記部類紙 背漢詩集 (A Collection of Kanshi Written on the Reverse Side of the Classified Edition of the Chūyūki Diary, twelfth century) Ōe no Iekuni. Verses in heptasyllabic lines: On a winter’s day, everyone wrote poems on the topic-line “white snow blankets the pines in the courtyard” in the study of the ex-officio governor of Inaba. [Using rhyme words in the han 寒 category,

and with added preface]

(#1) Whirling flurries of white snow cause my heart to flutter: Throughout the courtyard filling the pines—such a sight to see. Next to the steps those noble branches; ever frostier as I gaze. Beside the eaves the virtuous trunks; their beauty will not wither. Ice has covered the pathside pools, the music of the flow is muted; The moon shines down on the bright sand, spreading its chilly light. Four seasons passing so rapidly—ah! Each giving way to the next. Mournful, I cannot bear to see the year draw to a close. 大江家國

七言 冬日於因州員外刺史書亭同賦白雪滿庭松詩 以寒

爲韻并序

紛紛白雪動心端 旁滿庭松幾足看 當砌靈標望尚冴 逼簷貞幹色難乾 氷封行潦琴聲咽 月照晴沙蓋影寒 四運忽兮將代謝 悵然不耐歳華闌 SOURCE: Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū (hereafter cbsk) 4–1 (i.e., set 4, poem 1); heptasyllabic octave, comp. and annot. by Nakamura Shōhachi and Ino Hiroko (2011), pp. 44–45. A second major source is Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū (poems unnumbered), in Heian shibun zanpen [Tenri toshokan zenpon sōsho 57], ed. by Noma Kōshin

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_012

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and others (1984), p. 243; this facsimile edition includes maki 5 and 9 only. We have also consulted Miki Akira and others, eds., Zushoryō sōkan: Heian Kamakura mikan shishū (1972), p. 51; this is the earliest printed edition. All poems are grouped in sets, most of which come with the date of the occasion when the poems were written. The individual poems in a given group share the same title and a majority of these groups are made up of kudaishi. Anthology: This work is known today by a long provisional title devised by Kawaguchi Hisao around 1953, after the Kujō-ke kyūzō-bon 九条家旧蔵本 manuscript of the classified diary Chūyūki burui (12 maki) was discovered in the Kujō family private archives: the title in question is Chūyūki burui shihai ōchō mumei kanshishū 中右記部類紙背王朝無名漢詩集 (An Unnamed Imperial Collection of Kanshi Written on the Reverse Side of the Classified Edition of the Chūyūki Diary); today, the phrase “unnamed imperial” in Kawaguchi’s title is normally omitted. As the title indicates, the surviving poetry in this originally nameless body of Sinitic poetry is recorded on certain sections of the reverse side of the diary text. The collection comprises some 455 poems by 241 poets (Kawaguchi has also used the figure 246), mostly written between 1004–1126. Heptasyllabic octaves account for 78% of the verse, pentasyllabic 6%. Of the poets represented, about 156 are known to us only from this collection (Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 3, p. 827; page 818 gives the number as 163). Poets belonging to the Fujiwara family number 127, more than half of the total, followed by Minamoto poets with 35 (ibid., p. 827). Kawaguchi speculates based on the structure and contents of extant portions that the collection might once have been as large as 100 maki, with more than 10,000 verses (see Heianchō kanshibun, pp. 260–61). The author of Chūyūki 中右記 was the high-ranking statesman Fujiwara no Munetada 藤原宗忠 (1062–1141). Apparently “Chū-” in the title stood for “Naka-” in the name of the thoroughfare Nakamikado, where Munetada lived; “-yū” was the first graph in his title udaijin 右大臣, minister of the right, and “ki” means chronicle or record. Taken together, the three words can be rendered “The Diary of the Nakamikado Minister of the Right.” The diary was originally some 200 maki long (of which a little more than half survives in different manuscripts) and covered events in Munetada’s life between 1087–1138. Compiling the classified edition began in 1117 and was completed in 1120/5. Munetada writes in an epilogue (dated 1120/6/17) that his team of editors first needed to transcribe the material and then reassemble it according to topic or theme. For the full text of Munetada’s notation marking the completion of the project, see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 3, p. 817. It appears that Munetada’s primary objective was to keep important family information from being forgotten and to make it more accessible to his son Muneyoshi 宗能, who could consult the work for details concerning palace events, religious rituals, and court ceremonies, thus reducing the likelihood of making errors or omissions while carrying out his duties. Munetada’s epilogue explains that while Muneyoshi was permitted to share the diary with his immediate

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associates in the course of their court service, it was not meant to be circulated publically. For details, see “Heian kizoku no kurō” 平安貴族の苦労 (The Labors of Heian Aristocrats) by Yoshioka Masayuki, published in Rekihaku 112 (May 2002), at https:// www.rekihaku.ac.jp/outline/publication/rekihaku/112/witness.html (Nov. 2017). The aforementioned Kujō-ke kyūzō-bon probably dates from around the beginning of the Kamakura (Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 3, pp. 818, 836), sometime after 1183. The poems themselves, written in several different hands, are found on the reverse side of maki 5, 7, 9, 10, 18, and 28 only; five other volumes have portions of the record of official appointments Kugyō bunin 公卿補任 written on the reverse, the oldest extant materials from that work. It appears that the poems predate the diary text on the other side and were likely recorded between 1126–83, probably in the earlier years of this time range (ibid., pp. 819, 836). Backing paper was applied over some of them to preserve the diary material on the other side (ibid., p. 816). The extant poems are organized under dated rubrics associated with 48 composition events; for three further occasions indexed in this work the poems are lost (Nakamura and Ino, pp. 1–4). Thirty-six sets of kudaishi, ranging in size from 1 to 25 poems, are found among these dated groups of poems, making this by far the largest Heian repository of complete kudaishi, about 380 in number (83.5% of the collection). This verse displays certain stylistic features that are characteristic of the final two Heian centuries of kudaishi practice, including the widespread use of fabricated kudai titles. Amongst the poems we see a narrow imagistic range, focusing on pines, snow, the moon, the wind, bamboo, flowers, and so forth; the topoi are drawn from the immediate poetic setting rather than the fanciful world of continental landscapes and scenes. The poems tend to be remarkably uniform and formulaic in their diction and rhetoric and can appear rather amateurish at times. In the opening couplets of the kudaishi, poets often clump together two, three, or four words of the kudai in their original order, in a somewhat mechanical fashion, and display comparatively little creativity in their use of allusive variation and wordcraft. For an analysis of these kudaishi, the ninth set of pine poems in particular, and the similarities in topoi and expression between these poems and ga no uta 賀歌, “poems of felicitations,” a genre of palace vernacular verse, see Denecke, “Kudaishi no tenkai,” pp. 72–81. For a detailed study of Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū, see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 3, pp. 815–44. As explained in the Heian shibun zanpen appendix, pp. 12–18, the Tenri University library now holds maki 5 and 9, while the Imperial Household Library has maki 10 and 18; maki 7, formerly owned by Miyamoto Naganori 宮本長則, is now in the National Museum of Japanese History (Yoshioka, ibid.). Several additional verses occur in an anomalous “maki 28,” present only in the Kajūji [Kanshūji]-ke bon 勸修寺家本 text, dated 1781 and owned by Kyoto University.

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TITLE: This poem is the first in a group of eleven octaves written by different poets on the same occasion, dated 1104/11/10. All share the same title and are kudaishi, which (as discussed in earlier sections) employ allusive variation upon a quasi-poem line. The titles usually contain two or three primary images that set the scene, the time of day, and the season. The ex-officio governor of Inaba alluded to here is the author of this poem, Iekuni himself, who held a kanshi composition event at his home on this particular day (cbsk, p. 44). For many of the poets, rank, kabane, and posts (sometimes multiple ones) are noted alongside their names; we have reserved most of this information for the biographies. Lines one and two: The five words of the kudai are distributed between these lines (two in line one, three in line two), thus establishing the topos, as is traditional. Lines three and four: These lines, the hadai couplet, are intended to provide detailed and static descriptive imagery related to the trees, enhancing the scene introduced in the title and in the opening couplet. Lines five and six: “Ice” alludes to the snowy scene in the kudai. “Music” is literally qin (J. koto) 琴, a stringed instrument often referenced when describing the sounds of nature: here, the melody of trickling water. In line six, the scene shifts to the sandy courtyard outside the governor’s study, viewed in the pure moonlight. Moonlight shining on sand (often “mistaken” for snow, or vice versa) again brings to mind the image of snow. Lines seven and eight: These lyrical lines, a typical closure for kudaishi and regulated octaves generally, evoke mono no aware, the bittersweet sense of pathos experienced when reflecting on the ephemeral nature of all living things and the inevitable passing of time. While there is no explicit honmon in this poem, the final couplet is evocative of the language of a Han dynasty prose-poem. BIOGRAPHY: Ōe no Iekuni (b. ca. 1050) was the son of Ōe no Sukekuni 大江佐國 (fl. mid-to late-eleventh century); see hcmds 68, by Sukekuni, below, for biographical notes. In 1075 Iekuni qualified as a gi-monjōshō candidate, entitling him to take the examination, and by 1078 he had graduated. Iekuni is best remembered for his annotated edition of Shi ji, dated 1073, Japan’s earliest extant copy of this text. He served in the Council of State between 1084–86, at the sixth rank, gaining a promotion in 1086. Five years later Iekuni received a secretarial post in the Office of the Empress’ Household, and in 1093 entered into the service of Princess Yasuko 媞子內親王 (Iku Hōmon’in 郁芳門院, 1076–96), Emperor Shirakawa’s eldest daughter. Around 1099, he was appointed vice-governor of Tosa and provisional assistant head of the Bureau of Computation, later assuming its top post. Iekuni also served as a senior recorder in the Council of State. The present anthology gives his positions as ex-officio secretary in the Bureau of Computation and ex-officio governor of Inaba.

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(#2) Fujiwara no Atsumoto White snow in whirling flurries, the year draws to a close: Filling the pine trees in the courtyard—chilly as I gaze. Branch tips entwined with willows by the wall, dotted now with “catkins.” Foliage brushing the ming plants near the steps, odd that the month’s not over. Wind in the grove of aged scholars, combing their pure white hair; Smoke rising from magic stoves, turning to silvery pellets. In my sixties, decrepit and fading; a shame that it’s hard to be lazy. Studying by night, holding a book, I watch the flakes of snow. 藤原敦基 白雪紛紛歳漸闌 滿庭松上望中寒 標交牆柳添花點 枝拂階蓂訝月残 風老士林梳素髪 煙生仙竃轉銀丸 六旬衰暮悵難嬾 夜學篇携六出看 SOURCE: cbsk (Nakamura and Ino, eds.) 4–2, p. 46; Heian shibun zanpen, p. 244; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 51; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: Two of the kudai words are in line one, three in line two. Lines three and four: Following the conventions of kudaishi verse, we find numerous allusive images relating to pines and the courtyard and several more to snow, including fluffy “catkins,” the whiteness of hair, “smoke” (describing windblown snow), and “silver pellets.” As noted earlier, this series was written on the Tenth Day of the Eleventh Month, 1104. Winter lasted until the end of the Twelfth Month by the lunar calendar, and Atsumoto is amazed that such severe weather could already be occurring. The ming 蓂 was a legendary plant said to have grown in the palace of Emperor Yao, producing a leaf each day until the full moon; thereafter, it lost a leaf every day until the month ended. Imagining the plants by the steps as ming, the poet feigns surprise at how many leaves they still have, which means that it is still early in the month and too soon for such wintery weather. Lines five and six: “Magic” stoves refers to ones used by Daoist adepts to concoct their alchemic potions. Lines seven and eight: In this final couplet Atsumoto offers a lyrical comment, as is traditional: the habits of a lifetime are hard to break. Even in old age (Atsumoto died two years after writing this poem), he never misses the opportunity to study. The - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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phrase liu chu 六出 is short for liu chu hua 六出花, literally “six-petalled flowers,” meaning snowflakes. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Atsumoto (1046–1106) was the son of Fujiwara no Akihira (ca. 989–1066), the compiler of Honchō monzui. After Akihira’s death, Atsumoto raised his younger brother Atsumitsu and a relative named Chikamitsu, two extremely prominent Honchō mudaishi poets. Upon completing his Academy studies and passing the taisaku exam, Atsumoto worked as a chamberlain for a period. Between 1079–84 he served as senior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs, before being appointed as professor of letters and provisional master of the Right Office of the Capital (1088). By 1090, he held the junior fourth rank, lower. Atsumoto also served in Emperor Shirakawa’s court and in the household of Regent Fujiwara no Morozane 藤原師實 (1042–1101), as steward. Like his father, Atsumoto became one of the most respected scholars and kanshi poets of the day, and young courtiers flocked to study under him. The Chūyūki text of the poem above gives his position as vice-governor of Kōzuke. His rank at the time of his death was senior fourth, lower. Atsumoto has further poems in Honchō zoku monzui, Chōya gunsai, and Honchō mudaishi. He also produced Chūka ruirin 柱下類林, a classified collection of edicts, as well as a major work of history titled Kokushi kōshō 國史後抄 (non-extant), which covers reigns from Emperor Uda to Horikawa.

(#3) Taira no Suketoshi What objects in the courtyard ahead do we cast our gaze upon? Snow filling the pine trees, our hearts deeply moved. Covering the sand, weighing down the fronds, an icy silvery gleam. Next to the steps, bushy and shady, displaying a frigid beauty. Upon the branches sunlight falls, half the flowers gone; Between the tips the day is dawning, moon still lingers in the sky. The ancient hair on this man of fifty: white just like the scene. I ponder my age, for now my years are coming to an end. 平祐俊 何物前庭寄眼看 雪盈松樹感心丹 掩沙低葉凌光冴 當砌茂陰帶色寒 枝上日臨花半盡 梢間天曙月猶殘 五旬老鬢白相似 顧齒此時欲歳闌 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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SOURCE: cbsk 4–3, p. 47; Heian shibun zanpen, p. 244; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 51; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines one and two: This opening couplet deviates from the ideal model for kudai word placement, situating one word in line one, three in line two, one of which is a synonymic substitution (man 滿: “fill” replaces ying 盈), and the last kudai word in the final line. Lines three and four: In typical fashion, the second couplet lays out an expanded portrait of the frosty courtyard with pine trees, all shining in the moonlight. This couplet and the next provide multiple allusive reworkings of the kudai images: there are four allusions to pines, two to the courtyard, and four to snow. Lines five and six: The “flowers” are snowflakes, melting in the sun’s first rays. BIOGRAPHY: The son of Moronori 師範 (governor of Iga, senior fifth rank, lower), Taira no Suketoshi (born ca. 1054) completed his Academy studies in 1075/8. He served in the ministries of Ceremonial and Popular Affairs. In a poem from a series written in 1080, translated below, Suketoshi indicates that his career had yet to flourish. Although in 1086 he was promoted to the junior fifth rank, lower, he never rose any higher. Poem notations tell us that he was out of office during the years 1091, 1096, 1099, and 1104. In 1094 Suketoshi was serving as provisional governor of Ōmi; around 1112, he was governor of Izu. From an annotation in Chūyūki we know that Suketoshi was still alive in 1120 but again out of office.

Fujiwara no Atsumoto. On a summer’s day, everyone wrote poems on the topicline “the wind among the pines makes it feel like autumn.” (#1) This summer morning, what is it that creates an autumn air? Bushy, luxuriant pine trees and the sighing, soughing wind. The needles whisper, bearing the chill of Master Song’s heart; The branches sway, like the first stirrings of Master Pan’s mind. We’re suddenly amazed by the tones of crisp flutes near the river Wu, Newly transmitting the music of autumn from high on the peaks of Qin. Here at this mugwort hut all day we amuse ourselves at leisure. We happened to come upon some friends—our joy knows no limit! 藤原敦基

夏日同賦松間風似秋

夏朝何事似秋空 鬱鬱松間索索風 葉戰宋生情自冷

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枝飄潘氏興初通 忽驚爽籟吳江上 新報商生秦嶺中 蓬戶日長閑放處 適逢華客感難窮 SOURCE: cbsk 5–1, pp. 56–57; Heian shibun zanpen, pp. 248–49; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 52; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Dated 1084/6/25, this poem belongs to a set of five kudaishi by different authors. The kudai images are pines and wind, each referred to three times in the middle couplets, and autumn (alluded to once), which collectively draw attention to the paradox of an autumnal atmosphere in summer. Lines one and two: All five kudai words are present in the opening couplet. Lines three and four: The poet Song Yu is traditionally associated with the misery of autumn, and Pan Yue, the joys of this season. Song’s name, although written with a different character, is homophonous with “pines” and thus provides yet another association with the trees. It was not unusual for the hadai couplet to contain the main honmon reference, as is seen here. Line five and six: This couplet continues the expansive evocation of autumn seen in the previous couplet, providing added elegance by inserting references to celebrated scenic sites in China. Lines seven and eight: As is typical of the final couplet, the poet closes with a lyrical comment, expressing his pleasure over a chance encounter with friends while on an outing away from home. BIOGRAPHY: See cbsk 4–2, above.

Taira no Suketoshi. On a winter’s day, everyone wrote poems on the topic-line “the pond is visible through the pines.” [Using rhyme words in the qing 情 category] (#7) Vast and spreading pond waters, my eyes at once amazed: Viewed through the noble pines, all the clearer as I gaze. Through the jade-green canopy I try to glimpse the isle; They block the wind, the spreading branches, as if to protect the water. Half-obscured, the moon in the pond, by mist dense and dark. Barely glimpsed, the ripples on the water, visible through the fronds. Though long in the rivers of Confucian learning, keeping up my studies, I wonder when this fish in the rut will encounter worldly fame?

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冬日同賦池水隔松見 情字

溶溶池水眼先驚 自隔貞松見尚清 從翠蓋間窺渚思 遮風枝隟愛流情 半藏潭月煙稠暮 纔望浪花葉透程 洙泗久雖携學業 轍魚何日遇浮榮 SOURCE: cbsk 7–7, p. 85; Heian shibun zanpen, p. 259; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 55; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This is the seventh in a group of nine kudaishi about a pond surrounded by pines, composed 1080/11/23. The set is one of seventeen written about pine trees, an auspicious image of loyalty, nobility, and endurance in both kanshi and waka. The event is recorded in Suisaki 水左記, the diary of Minamoto no Toshifusa, one of the poets in the ninth series of verses, below. According to Suisaki, Fujiwara no Atsumitsu served as the convener (dokushi 讀師) for the occasion, preparing the paper used by the poets, passing the completed poems to the reciter (kōshi 講師), and correcting his recitation as needed. The reciter was one Takashina no Tadatsugu 高階忠嗣, an advanced Academy student (cbsk, p. 85). Koremune no Takatoki (d. 1097) supplied the kudai. In the poem above all five kudai words are present in the first couplet. The two principal images are pond and pines, which are reiterated some four times in the middle couplets. LINE ONE: Suketoshi is perhaps surprised that the pond has not yet frozen over. Alternatively, the brightness of the water, visible despite being partially blocked by thick foliage and mist, may account for his amazement. LINE SEVEN: The phrase zhu si 洙泗 consists of the names of two rivers in Shandong province. Because Confucius taught in the area between them, their names have come to stand for Confucius and his doctrines. This line provides the first of two honmon classical references in the final couplet, where they are intermingled with jukkai sentiments. LINE EIGHT: This line contains the second honmon, an allusion to a parable in Zhuangzi: see the notes to hcrs 154, above. The poet is wryly observing that although long immersed in the rivers of Confucianism, he still feels like the fish in the Zhuangzi story: lying in a cart-rut, deprived of water and barely able to breathe. Suketoshi longed to advance in his official career, but it progressed slowly and stalled at various points. For “worldly fame” the line literally reads “floating fame,” fu rong 浮榮, in a usage seen throughout Heian kanshi where lack of career success is a theme. Floating connotes

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insubstantiality and evanescence and is closely associated with the Buddhist principle of all phenomena being empty. Courtiers with failing careers often sought consolation in their verse by declaring their indifference to fu rong. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to the cbsk 4–3, above.

(#8) Koremune no Hirochika How does this pond manage to evoke so much emotion in me? Gazing at it through the pine trees the water seems so clear. The branches hardly cover the ripples, the mist chilly and dark; The canopy does not hide the flow, even once the moon has set. From within the verdant vines I view layers of lush greenery; Peering through the misty fronds I look out at Lake Kunming. I wet my brush, choose some paper, and though I’ve written a poem, I’m ashamed that given my lack of talent I’m among so many geniuses. 惟宗廣親 池水何因足動情 隔松見處眼方清 枝難籠浪嵐寒暮 蓋不蔵流月落程 自緑蘿間望積翠　 穿煙葉隟對昆明 染毫採紙雖吟詠 只恥疏才接衆英 SOURCE: cbsk 7–8, p. 86; Heian shibun zanpen, pp. 259–60; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 55; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: All five kudai words reappear in the first couplet. The images of the pond and the pines are reworked in the middle couplets, with three related to water and five to pine trees. LINE SIX: Kunming was a manmade lake in Chang’an, created by the Han emperor Wu Di (r. 140–86 bce) and modelled upon Lake Dian in Yunnan province. Wu Di’s lake was used for practicing naval warfare. LINE EIGHT: Disparaging oneself as unworthy to be in the company of others more talented (or more highly ranked) was a conventional form of closure in Heian kanshi. BIOGRAPHY: Koremune no Hirochika (dates unknown) is identified in the anthology only as a student, studying ca. 1080–83 (Nakamura and Ino, p. 550). Another poem by him is included below.

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Minamoto no Toshifusa. Verses in heptasyllabic lines: During a royal excursion south of the capital in early summer, everyone wrote poems on the topic-line “pine trees near the pond.” [Using rhyme words in the qing 情 category] (#2) Visiting now this splendid spot, graced by His august presence: The pine trees standing beside the pond are newly displaying their virtue. Water fowl roosting in the mist, not waiting for night to fall; Fish hiding in the depths hear rain, unaware that the weather is fine. Wind from the banks pierces the greenery that has lasted a thousand years; Moonlight shining on the pond mingles with lush fronds in the myriads. All those officials in the retinue—why casting sidelong glances? His Majesty has spoken, so they can’t delay getting down to work on their poems! 源俊房

七言 早夏行幸城南同賦松樹臨池水 以情爲韻

今尋勝地幸臨成 松樹臨池新表貞 浴鳥宿煙無待暮 潜鱗聞雨不知晴 岸風自入千年翠 潭月便兼萬葉榮 扈從群官何側目 綸言難避動詩情 SOURCE: cbsk 9–2, p. 93; Heian shibun zanpen, p. 262; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 56; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This series of twenty-three poems is dated 1090/4/19; the verses are kudaishi, composed at a larger than usual formal event held at Retired Emperor Shirakawa’s Tobain Detached Palace 鳥羽院 (鳥羽離宮) in Fushimi, built in 1087. The organizer was Fujiwara no Moromichi 藤原師通 (1062–99). The character normally written 韻 (rhyme) in the title annotation has been replaced in the Heian shibun zanpen manuscript by a short vertical line. The first four words of the kudai occur in line two; the fifth (water) has been omitted. Four allusions to each of the two kudai images are found in the middle couplets. LINE TWO: “Virtue” is a conventional term for the verdure of pines.

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Lines three and four: Apparently the mist and shade caused the birds to roost early, thinking it was already dusk. Similarly, the wind in the pines sounds so like rain that the fish are deceived and have fled to the depths of the pond. Even by the standards of Heian court verse this couplet is a remarkable example of contrived elegance. LINE SIX: The phrase wan ye rong 萬葉榮, rendered here as “lush fronds in the myriads,” can also be interpreted as “the splendor of a myriad generations,” since ye 葉 also means “generations” and rong 榮, “splendor, glory.” This piece of wordplay symbolically links the courtiers to the pine trees, the new growth being emblematic of their vitality and steadfastness. Lines seven and eight: Both Retired Emperor Shirakawa (1053–1129, r. 1072–86) and his son Emperor Horikawa, who was only eleven at the time, were present on this stately occasion. This oblique reference to nervousness is an interesting reminder of the reluctance courtiers sometimes felt over being compelled to perform ex tempore at a poetic event, all the more so with not one but two emperors present. BIOGRAPHY: Minamoto no Toshifusa (1035–1121) was the eldest son of Minister of the Right Morofusa 師房 (1008–77) and the nephew of Michinaga. Later known as the Horikawa Minister of the Left, Toshifusa was descended from Emperor Murakami through his son Prince Tomohira. At age twelve, Toshifusa became the foster son of Regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi, and during his lifetime served five emperors, from Go-Reizei to Toba. The posts he held during his early years include chamberlain, provisional middle captain in the Imperial Bodyguards, provisional vice-governor of Ōmi, and consultant (1057). See Nakamura and Ino, p. 567. Toshifusa began court life with the rank of junior fifth, upper, and by 1053, at age nineteen, he had already reached the junior second rank. But in the Ninth Month of 1057 Toshifusa was censured by Go-Reizei and compelled to undertake a three-year home-based penance. This punishment was for conducting a relationship with Princess Kenshi (1032–1103, a daughter of Emperor Sujaku), who had served as high priestess at Kamo Shrine between 1036–45 and who in fact later married Toshifusa. After his release, Toshifusa was made provisional middle counselor (1061), at the senior second rank, and he returned to a normal career path, holding multiple, sometimes overlapping, appointments, including major captain in the Left Imperial Bodyguards, superintendent of the Imperial Police, and master of the Office of the Dowager Empress’ Household. Eventually he rose to the two highest offices in the bureaucracy: minister of the right in 1082, then minister of the left in 1083. Toshifusa experienced further political trouble during the reign of Emperor Horikawa (r. 1086–1107), this relating to the imperial succession: he had supported Prince Sukehito (d. 1119), the third son of Go-Sanjō (r. 1068–72) instead of Horikawa’s own son Prince Munehito, which brought him into conflict with the latter’s supporters.

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When Munehito’s succession was made official in 1103, some four years prior to his ascension as Emperor Toba, Toshifusa’s fortunes declined once more. In 1113 he was exiled to Izu for a year, with his son, Priest Jinkan 仁寛, following the discovery of a plot to assassinate Toba. Toshifusa somehow managed to retain his title as minister of the left, with the extraordinarily high junior first rank (awarded 1094), although effectively wielding no power. The poem above, composed in 1090, identifies Toshifusa as holding the senior second rank and serving as minister of the left. Toshifusa was also a distinguished scholar, widely respected for his knowledge of court protocol, ceremonies, and precedents. His diary Suisaki, whose extant portions cover periods between 1062–1108, is an important resource for this era. In 1121, at the age of 87, Toshifusa resigned as minister of the left and took Buddhist vows, dying later the same year.

(#4) Minamoto no Tsunenobu At this charming site since long ago these pines have naturally grown. There they stand beside the pond, inspiring such emotion! The sight of dew from a thousand years ago dripping onto the boat; The sound of wind brushing through the “Five Great Lords” on the banks. Dust-whisks, the bushy branches, both dark and pale on the shore; Dragon scales, bobbing and floating, in the deep and limpid waves. Now, during this royal excursion whose splendor is rarely matched, Fitting it is that these magnificent boughs should all display their virtue! 源經信 勝地由來松旅生 自臨池水幾多情 一千年露滴舷色 五大夫風拂岸聲　 塵尾枝繁堤暗淡 龍鱗操泛浪泓澄　 今逢稀代震遊盛 宜矣靈標共表貞 SOURCE: cbsk 9–4, p. 95; Heian shibun zanpen, p. 263; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 57; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Four kudai words are present in the first couplet, the missing word being “tree” 樹. The principal images of pines and water from the kudai are reflected allusively four times each in the middle couplets.

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LINE ONE: The phrase 旅生 means wild: growing naturally as opposed to being planted. LINE FOUR: In 220 bce, while praying to Heaven at Taishan 泰山 (Mount Tai) in modern Shandong, the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty encountered a sudden downpour and sought shelter under some large pines. He found the trees so magnificent he assigned them the official title of Wu Dafu Song 五大夫松, “The Five Great Lord Pines.” LINE SIX: Tsunenobu is describing the reflection of pine branches in the water. LINE SEVEN: The phrase 震遊 appears to be an error for 宸遊, meaning “royal excursion.” LINE EIGHT: Boughs that “display their virtue” are meant to symbolize the courtiers in the emperor’s entourage. BIOGRAPHY: Minamoto no Tsunenobu (1016–97) was the sixth son of Michikata 源道方, who once headed the Ministry of Popular Affairs, and the father of the innovative waka poet Minamoto no Shunrai 源俊賴 (1055?–1129?). Tsunenobu served six emperors, from Go-Ichijō to Horikawa. He entered service in 1030, around age fifteen, with the junior fifth rank, lower, receiving a post as provisional governor of Mikawa the following year. In 1038 he was appointed junior assistant head of the Ministry of Justice, and then minor counselor in the Council of State the following year. Tsunenobu was in charge of the Left Bureau of Horses from 1045 to at least 1049. In 1057 he became vice governor of Harima, then in 1062, right middle controller. He was appointed head of the Chamberlains’ Office in 1065, serving concurrently as right major controller. In 1067, Tsunenobu was appointed as consultant (sangi), holding the senior fourth rank, lower. His subsequent appointments included head of the ministries of the Treasury (1070) and Popular Affairs (1081), master of the Office of the Empress’ Household, and acting major counselor (1083). In 1091, he was made major counselor, becoming provisional governor-general of Dazaifu three years later and remaining in Kyushu until his death. He reached the senior second rank, in 1077. A man of broad erudition known for his multiple artistic talents, Tsunenobu excelled in calligraphy and verse. He was also an accomplished musician, skilled at playing the fue 笛, wagon 和琴, and biwa. Tsunenobu founded the Katsura-ryū 桂流 biwa tradition and was known as the “Katsura Dainagon” 桂大納言 (Katsura Major Counselor). History regards him as a waka innovator who persevered despite conservative resistance. As Brower and Miner note, his outstanding descriptive verse “… gave [it] a status as a formal style that could not be denied” (Japanese Court Poetry, p. 185). Composed in a style replete with a faded sabi 寂 aesthetic, many of his waka presage the subdued but tonally rich poetic tastes of the Shin Kokinshū age, still a century away. Tsunenobu was a frequent participant in poetry contests, one of his main rivals being Fujiwara no Michitoshi 藤原通俊. His skills in adjudicating such contests were

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considered second to none. Tsunenobu has left us roughly 300 waka, the bulk of them preserved in Dainagon Tsunenobu shū 大納言經信集. Besides his kanshi in Chūyūki, his verse is found in Honchō monzui and Honchō mudaishi; the latter has twenty of his poems. Other surviving works include Biwafu 琵琶譜 and Sochiki 帥記 (The Provisional Governor-General’s Diary), partially extant. For an extensive treatment of Tsunenobu and his poetry see Smits, The Pursuit of Loneliness, ch. 5.

(#9) Fujiwara no Yukiie In the Sentō Palace there is a pond with water so very clear. Next to it some pine trees grow, their appearance sturdy and chaste. For a thousand autumns the pure ripples hidden by the massed branches; For ten thousand years from lofty banks a canopy drooping down. Moon in the water bobbing languidly where dense branch tips trail; A breeze from the shore comes sweeping through where the greenery hangs low. Cranes roost in the splendid trees, ducks play in the waterweed. Here at this charming scenic spot there is so much to enjoy! 藤原行家 仙洞有池水一清 臨流松樹表堅貞 千秋波潔攢枝掩 萬歳岸高偃蓋傾 潭月遲浮梢密處 沙風先拂葉低程 鶴棲靈幹鳧遊藻 勝地猶多歡樂情 SOURCE: cbsk 9–9, p. 100; Heian shibun zanpen, p. 266; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 57; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: All kudai words occur in the first couplet. The principal images of pines and water are reprised allusively four times each in the middle couplets. LINE ONE: Sentō Palace: here an apparent reference to the Tobain Detached Palace; see the commentary, p. 100. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Yukiie (1029–1106) was the second son of Fujiwara no Ietsune 藤原家經 (d. 1058), a professor of letters. Yukiie completed his monjō tokugōshō studies in his early thirties and went on to hold a series of governorships, in Tosa, Awa, Mimasaka, and Sanuki, before becoming a professor himself in 1079. He was a frequent participant in soirées held by literatus (and later kanpaku, from 1094) Fujiwara - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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no Moromichi 藤原師通 (1062–99) at his residence. Yukiie also served in the Board of Censors. He is identified in the present text as being out of office but holding the junior fourth rank, upper, to which he was promoted in 1049. Since the present series was written in 1090, he seems to have remained at this rank for forty years. In 1100/11 Yukiie took Buddhist vows. Other works by him survive in Honchō zoku monzui, Chōya gunsai, and elsewhere; two of his waka are found in Kin’yōshū. See Nakamura and Ino, pp. 550–51 for additional details.

Tachibana no Munesue. On an autumn night, everyone wrote poems on the topic-line “drinking and viewing the bright moon.” [Using “autumn” as the rhyme word]

(#4) A bluish hue the bright moon, our feelings hard to restrain. Pouring wine, facing the brilliance, doing as we please. Keeping the score, just viewing the moon as it bobs about in the water; In the land of the drunk we gaze afar at the moonlit mountain tops. Tipsy, wondering if the peaks have snow, as the moon sinks to the west at dawn; Drinking, amazed to see frost on the pavilion so early in the autumn. In this mugwort hut a poetry soirée—here is what I hope: That we swear our first oath to celebrate for the next ten thousand years! 橘宗季

秋夜同賦酌酒對明月詩一首 以秋爲韻

蒼蒼明月感難休 酌酒對光任自由 論戶唯看浮水面 入鄉遙望照山頭 醉疑嶺雪傾西曉 飲訝寒霜亭早[秋] 蓬府詩筵今所祝 此時初契萬年遊 SOURCE: cbsk 23–4, p. 165; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, vol. 7, p. 65; octave (heptasyllabic). Note that maki 7, where this poem is situated, is not part of the Tenri Toshokan manuscript (in Heian shibun zanpen) referenced in previous poems translated from this collection.

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TITLE: This series, bearing the date 1083/9/?, consists of ten poems. The gathering was convened by Fujiwara no Moromichi 藤原師通. All five kudai words appear in the first couplet. The principal images of wine drinking and the moon are reflected allusively four times each in the middle couplets. LINE ONE: The phrase nan xiu 難休, “hard to restrain,” also occurs in poems seven and nine of this set. Besides similarities in diction between poems in this set, thematic resonances are also evident: for example, all three of the translated poems from this group conclude with the wish that the friends will hold parties together forever. LINE THREE: “Keeping the score” (lun hu 論戶) means taking note of how much wine each person has drunk; also, to press wine on someone or to compete to see who can drink the most. This expression, likely contemporary slang, is seldom seen outside Heian kanshi but occurs in nine poems within cbsk. Ru xiang 入鄉 in the next line is similarly associated with social drinking. For more on special terms associated with drinking see hcrs 127 and cbsk 23–7, below. Lines five and six: The “snow” in line five is just moonlight, as is the “frost” in the next line. Line six is reminiscent of Li Bai’s famous quatrain Ye si 夜思 (Nighttime Thoughts), in which the poet imagines the moonlight on his bedroom floor to be frost. The word “autumn” is missing from the text, but because this is the rhyme word for the series, occurring at the end of line six in all the other poems, we assume that it would have been here as well. Lines seven and eight: “Mugwort hut” is a conventional term for a simple countryside dwelling and carries overtones of reclusion and rusticity. The lyrical pose adopted in this series is that for the evening these friends have turned their backs on court life and temporarily become bucolic bons vivants, pledging to keep socializing with each other forever. BIOGRAPHY: Tachibana no Munesue (fl. ca. 1080–95) was the son of Naritsuna 成綱. He completed his monjōdō studies in 1070 and that same year became secretary of Echigo. In 1077 he was appointed assistant captain in the Left Middle Palace Guards; at this time he was also junior assistant head of the Ministry of Justice. Munesue is identified in the text as the former vice-governor of Kazusa, an appointment he received in 1080. By 1095 Munesue was serving as governor of Iwami, holding the fifth rank (Nakamura and Ino, pp. 571–72).

(#6) Koremune no Nakachika Clear skies, bright moon, all else in our view indistinct. Pouring wine, facing the light, feeling so much at ease. As we tip our jade cups the moon shifts to the west; As we empty the cassia flasks its light remains here with us.

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Though deeply soused, we’ll drink until the clouds depart at dawn; Unless we’re drunk we won’t go home till snow chills the autumn air. We’re friends who just happened to meet—our drinking and chanting now done. Let’s hope that hereafter we can keep making merry for ten thousand years! 惟宗仲親 天晴明月望中幽 酌酒對來幾自由 随玉盞傾光西轉 待桂樽盡影已留 屬酣又飲雲収曉 不醉無歸雪冷秋 幕下適交觴詠末 從斯長期萬年遊 SOURCE: cbsk 23–6, p. 167; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 66; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: All five kudai words are present in the first couplet. The principal images of wine drinking and the moon, from the kudai, are reworked four times in the middle couplets. BIOGRAPHY: Little is known about Koremune no Nakachika, except that he studied at the Academy ca. 1080–83, based on annotations in the anthology. At this gathering he was with three others of the same surname, who were likely his relatives: Hirochika 廣親, Arichika 有親, and Motochika 基親, each of whom has a poem in this series.

(#7) Koremune no Hirochika Sometimes when we face the moon our joy is hard to restrain: Pouring out the green wine and casting our gaze afar. The parrot cups keep flying about as the moonlight yields to dawn; The orchid flasks are not yet empty, shadows now turn autumnal. At Yu’s tower the snow was cold, but they grew increasingly drunk; At Yan’s banquets the frost was pure, yet they simply continued to drink. All night long we’ve been writing verse; what do I wish for now? That we pledge to keep on making merry for ten thousand years!

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惟宗廣親 有時對月興難休 酌緑酒來也送眸 鸚盞屬飛光轉曉 蘭樽未盡影流秋 庾樓雪冷彌添醉 燕席霜清只折籌 一夜染毫何所祝 遥期萬歳契歡遊 SOURCE: cbsk 23–7, p. 168; Miki, Heian Kamakura mikan shishū, p. 66; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: All but one of the kudai words are present in the first couplet, the missing graph being “bright” 明. Line three: Parrot cup: a drinking vessel made from a chambered nautilus shell (ōmugai 鸚鵡貝), which resembled a parrot’s curved beak. The juxtaposition of “flying about” and “parrot cups” is almost certainly an intentional piece of wordplay. Li Bai has a reference to parrot cups in his poem “Xiangyang Ge” 襄陽歌 (Song of Xiangyang). LINE FOUR: The graph 蹲 (to squat) in the original text appears to be an error for 樽, meaning flask or jar; we have emended the text accordingly. “Orchid flasks” refers to decorations on the container; these may be imaginary. “Shadows” here could instead be rendered as “light.” It is in a parallel position to light 光 in the preceding line. LINE FIVE: Yu’s tower 庾樓: a building reputedly constructed by Yu Liang 庾亮 (289– 340), a high official and military leader who served the Jin court. Situated in Jiujiang 九江 county in modern Jiangxi province, the tower had magnificent views, looking out at the Shuangjian peaks 雙劍峯 of Mount Lu and the Yangzi river to the north. Hirochika perhaps was inspired by the Bai Juyi poem “Yu lou xiao wang” 庾樓曉望 (Gazing Out from Yu’s Tower at Dawn). This line and the next each contain the requisite historical allusion. LINE SIX: “Yan” may be Prince Dan of Yan 燕丹子 (third century bce), the line possibly alluding to his lavish entertainment of Jing Ke 荊軻 prior to the latter’s departure on his famous mission to assassinate the King of Qin. This couplet strives to provide a note of bravado by citing precedents for drinking parties that lasted all night long. The expression zhe chou 折籌, literally “to snap [bamboo] tallies,” a colloquial term for keeping track of wine consumption, and by extension, wine drinking in general, occurs in twenty-four of the poems in this collection. It is seldom, if ever, seen in early kanshi. Nakamura and Ino suggest in their commentaries that zhe chou originally referred to mapping out a poem in its early stages of composition to check for correct

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tonal patterning, using slips of bamboo to represent the individual words. We note in passing that the second graph bears a close visual similarity to shou in zhe shou 折壽, which means “to shorten one’s life span.” Perhaps a pun referring to wine drinking is intended here. BIOGRAPHY: See cbsk 7–8.

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Hosshōji-dono gyoshū 法性寺殿御集 (A Collection of Poems by the Lord of Hosshōji, 1145), Verse by Fujiwara no Tadamichi Fujiwara no Tadamichi. Fallen Blossoms in Abundance, Floating on the Water [Using “spring” as the rhyme word]

Forest blossoms—many have fallen, lying heaped on the sandy banks. Floating on the water, these delicate blooms—marvel upon marvel! In the gorges of Ba the crimson rouge flows endlessly along; On the rivers of Shu the dazzling brilliance, rinsed and now fresher still. The tracks of dabbling ducks are buried by a thousand layers of snow; A fisherman’s skiff rows its way through the many flakes of spring. What time of year do wise folk head off on their pleasure jaunts? When scented spring growth fills the scene is when they plan to go. 藤原忠通

浮水落花多 春

林花多落積沙濱 浮水輕葩神也神 巴峽紅粧流不盡 蜀江錦彩濯彌新 浴鳧跡破千重雪 漁脡棹穿數片春 智者興遊何日月 芳菲風景顧歸辰 SOURCE: Hosshōji-dono gyoshū (hdg) 7, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6 (Naigai Shoseki, 1931), p. 401; octave (heptasyllabic). Anthology: Tadamichi’s private kanshi anthology Hosshōji-dono gyoshū (also known as Hosshōji kanpaku gyoshū 法性寺關白御集) has come down to us intact as a onemaki text with 102 heptasyllabic verses (almost all octaves), many of them about the poet’s enjoyment and observation of nature. The text has a colophon dated 1145/12. Kudaishi poems (although not identified as such in the text) occupy the first half of the collection (poems 1–54) and are arranged by season. Many of these are informal verses written in solitude, a reminder that kudaishi were not invariably composed in public settings. The non-kudaishi poems are grouped by topic, ranging across human affairs, animals, screen painting descriptions, poetic exchanges, the Chinese classics, books, country retreats, and mountain temples. The earliest extant text of this work is dated © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004387218_013

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1183 and served as the base text for all subsequent surviving manuscripts. In compiling this work Tadamichi was assisted by Fujiwara no Sanemitsu 藤原實光 (1069–1147), a friend and fellow poet. Lines one and two: All five words in the title have been reproduced here, but not in their original order. Lines three and four: Ba and Shu are ancient names for regions in modern Sichuan province. The area was renowned for its swift rivers and deep gorges. LINE FIVE: “Snow” refers to the white blossoms washed or blown onto the shores of the river. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Tadamichi (1097–1164), eldest son of regent Fujiwara no Tadazane 藤原忠實 (1078–1162), was a highly influential and powerful statesman who served four emperors during his lifetime, one of whom, Emperor Sutoku, married his eldest daughter. He had eleven sons by seven wives. Tadamichi later became known as Hosshōji Kanpaku (Regent of Hosshōji) and Hosshōji Denka 法性寺殿下 (Lord of Hosshōji)—see below on the significance of this temple. Tadamichi was the elder halfbrother of Fujiwara no Yorinaga (d. 1156), author of the diary Taiki 台記. In 1107, he underwent his coming of age ceremony and soon assumed office as a chamberlain at the senior fifth rank, lower. The following year, he advanced to middle captain in the Right Imperial Bodyguards, with the junior fourth rank, lower. By 1115, when he was around eighteen, he had risen to the senior second rank and had taken up his first significant position of responsibility, as palace minister (naidaijin 内大臣). Tadamichi continued his ascent, amidst multi-faceted political intrigues and tumult, surviving two bitter armed insurrections in the capital area, in 1156 and 1160. He held the highest offices in the land until 1158, when he fell from power: regent (kanpaku) from 1121, then Minister of the Left (1122), followed by sesshō (1123), then chancellor (in 1128) while still sesshō, by which time he held the junior first rank. For more than three decades Tadamichi remained at the pinnacle of power, holding various combinations of the highest four posts in officialdom, until gradually shedding his offices from around 1150. During the Hōgen Uprising (1156) Tadamichi and his forces fought against his own father Tadazane and younger brother Yorinaga, Tadamichi’s side emerging victorious. The genesis of the conflict was an imperial succession dispute; Tadamichi had supported the side of reigning Emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127–92), whose accession was challenged by Retired Emperor Sutoku’s faction; rival Fujiwara family supporters lined up on each side, backed by military commanders drawn from the Taira and Minamoto clans. Go-Shirakawa abdicated and became the cloistered emperor in 1158, wielding power until his death. In 1158 Tadamichi relinquished his last post, as kanpaku, amidst the political and military chaos of the times. By 1162 he had taken up residence in Hosshōji 法性寺 (not to be confused with Hosshōji 法勝寺), a Pure Land temple in the Higashiyama area of Kyoto established in 925. He took Buddhist vows, adopting the name Enkan 圓觀.

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One of the towering literary figures of the Heian age, Tadamichi continued his illustrious scholarly and literary activities singlemindedly during the Hosshōji years. He was the leading poetic patron of his age, not only sponsoring, or engaging directly in, the compilation of major Sinitic literary works but also giving protection and encouragement to many poets, including Fujiwara no Chikamitsu and Fujiwara no Atsumitsu (see below). He commissioned both Shinsen rōeishū, compiled by Fujiwara no Mototoshi (d. 1142), and Atsumitsu’s Zoku Honchō shūku. His most important literary project, apart from the production of the present volume of his own works, was supervising the compilation of Honchō mudaishi, the largest of the Heian kanshi anthologies. Tadamichi is believed to have delegated much of the editorial work to literati from the Shiki-ke branch of the Fujiwara, most notably Chikamitsu. Beyond the present collection, an additional ninety-one of Tadamichi’s poems are preserved in Honchō mudaishi. These include some of the best accounts of his thoughts as he entered his twilight years, living in seclusion as a lay monk. A respected waka poet as well, Tadamichi has fifty-eight poems in the twelfth-century collection Kin’yōshū. Also extant is Tadamichi shū 田多民治集, a collection of 232 waka assembled toward the end of Tadamichi’s lifetime. A diary, Gyokurin 玉林 (Forest of Gems), has largely been lost. Tadamichi was also a renowned calligrapher, possessing a vigorous style that appealed to emerging warrior tastes.

In the Moonlight I Am Able to Escape the Summer Heat [Using “dawn” as the rhyme

word]

In the moonlight I have always been able to escape the summer heat. As I gaze at the moon I feel regret when dawn is almost here. Whenever I encounter the moon’s first beams, autumn comes to mind. But certainly once its light disappears it feels like summer again. Through Ji’s curtains on fine days no heat was able to come in; Behind Ruan’s drapes night after night the air was always cool. Beside the window the white light disperses the summer heat: Who knows when the King of Yan’s pearl will show its luster again? 月前堪避暑 明 從本月前堪避暑 對之相惜欲天明 每迎新影牽秋思 定及落輝復夏情 嵇帳當晴無熱到

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阮帷逐夜有凉生 臨窻皓色消炎景 不識燕王珠再瑩 SOURCE: hdg 18, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 403; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: All the title words of this kudaishi are reproduced in the first line, with no changes in word order. LINE FIVE: This is Ji (known also as Xi) Kang 嵇康 (223–62), one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. For more on this coterie see fss 32, above. LINE SIX: Ruan Ji, another of the Seven Sages. The line may be referring to Ruan’s practice of shutting himself in his room, sometimes for months on end, with the blinds drawn. LINE EIGHT: The story of this pearl is told in Zhanguo ce 戰國策 (Intrigues of the Warring States) 31. A hostage in Yan named Zhang Chou 張醜 tried to flee the state because the king wanted a pearl that he was believed to possess. When stopped at the border, Zhang told the officer detaining him that if he were sent back he would tell the king that the officer had taken the pearl and swallowed it; the king would then cut him open to get it. Intimidated by this prospect, the officer set Zhang Chou free. Another possible reading for this line is: “I wonder if the King of Yan’s pearl [i.e., the moon] was even brighter still?”

Dark the Grove, Hard to See the Moon A moonlit night—but why is this enough to break my heart? In the grove in my courtyard it is dark, for the moon is blocked from view. By pushing aside the bushy branches I could let the beams shine through; If I leaned against the withered trunks, could they possibly block the light? From the dark branches of the warm trees any snow would melt away. But the summer tips of the green pagoda trees are far from autumn’s frost. Submerged in the pond the pine canopy trembles in the wind. Upon the water I see golden waves, then all at once they’re hidden. 林暗難望月 月夜何因足斷腸 庭林暗處礙瞻望 爭除繁葉得通影 若倚枯株豈妨光 溫樹陰條消霽雪

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綠槐夏杪隔秋霜 淹池松蓋隨風動 水上金波見只藏 SOURCE: hdg 20, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 403; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: In this kudaishi, four of the five kudai graphs are present in the opening couplet, although not in their original order. Lines three and four: This couplet focuses on resolving an immediate problem: the poet’s difficulty in maintaining a line of sight with the moon. It displays a high degree of attention to detail and exercise of the practical imagination, which carries over into the next couplet. This single-mindedness is also seen in the two cricket poems immediately below. Lines five and six: Tadamichi imagines that if it were snow that was blocking his view of the moon, the “warmth” of the moonlight upon the trees would have melted it. But it is summer, the trees are bushy, and he has no choice but to move the branches out of his way if he wishes to see the moon. LINE SEVEN: The poet is referring to the reflection of the pines in the water.

Nighttime, the Sound of Insects Chirping [Using “mind” as the rhyme word] The sound of insects fills my ears, emotions hard to suppress. At night I grow melancholy, my mind begins to race. I lie and listen in my lonely bed—the noise seems very near. I rise and stand by the darkened walls—their chirping still intense. Although when the new moon appears the noise always begins, When at last the dawn arrives it is sure to come to an end. Now that the crickets have fallen silent my heart feels torn apart. I move away and sit somewhere else, then sadly seek them out. 入夜有蟲聲 心 蟲聲滿耳感難禁 入夜愁人動寸心 臥聽孤床鳴自近 起依暗壁織猶深 先當新月雖添響 終到明朝定罷音 蟋蟀韻塞腸已斷 箇中移席苦相尋

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SOURCE: hdg 41, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 405; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Four of the five kudai words are present in the opening couplet. LINE FOUR: Chirping: literally “weaving.” The chirping of crickets was said to sound like a spinning wheel, thus these insects were also known as zhibu niang 織布娘 (weaving maidens) and cu zhi 促織 (weaving-urgers). COMMENTS: In late autumn poems the crickets’ mournful cries become a memento mori, since the sound gradually weakened and then disappeared as the weather grew colder. Rather than being irritated by their constant noise he seems soothed by it, as if their survival seems to guarantee his own. The intense focus on the crickets and feeling of spiritual unity between observer and object is reminiscent of Tadamichi’s contemporary, the itinerant poet-priest Saigyō 西行法師 (1118–90), and his intimately descriptive (and obliquely symbolic) poems on the small creatures that he befriended in his solitude, including crickets: “The crickets: / With the quelling cold of night, / Autumn hastens on, / And gradually they seem to falter, / The voices traveling away.” (Shin Kokinshū 472, trans. Brower and Miner, p. 306).

The Noise of Crickets Fills the Steps and the Garden [Using “sound” as the rhyme

word]

Senses aroused by the noise of crickets, fascination hard to suppress: Throughout the garden and on the steps their chirping-chirping sound. In the quiet of night they keep on crying in the sandy garden below. At sunset, mournful grumbling in the shade of the ornate rails. They suddenly stop, I run over to check; the autumnal chant resumes. Maybe it is their natural cycle that halts their murmur at dawn. Here throughout the night I stand, listening with ears inclined. Beside my bed and by the walls I seek them once again. 蛬響滿階庭 音 被催蛬響興難禁 遍滿階庭唧唧音 夜靜頻鳴砂砌下 日斜苦怨玉欄陰 暫罷趨拜添秋韻 恐爲昇降妨曉吟 此處終宵傾耳立 床邊壁底亦相尋

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SOURCE: hdg 42, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 405; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: All the title words of this kudaishi are reproduced in the first couplet, with no changes in word order. Comment: As with the previous poem Tadamichi intently, almost obsessively, follows the ebb and flow in the crickets’ chirping, hoping to keep their companionship.

In the Snow: The Musings of an Old Man [Using “feelings” as the rhyme word] Here among whirling flakes of snow, such an amazing scene! An old man enjoying the sights, thoughts welling up in his mind. Grasping his walking stick, path in deep snow, fully a foot by dawn; Cart hung up, no more footprints in the courtyard covered in snow. Those Four Hoaryheads of the Han era—their joy amongst the flowers; The refugees from the Tianbao court—their emotions in the moonlight. When the traveler had just arrived in Xiangshan that night, He noticed crane-down fluttering about, lightly on the wind. 雪裏老人思 情 繽紛雪裏眼方驚 翫此老人感思成 携杖路深盈尺曉 懸車跡斷積庭程 漢朝四皓花前興 天寶遺民月下情 行客香山初至夜 更看鶴氅逐風輕 SOURCE: hdg 51, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 406; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: All five characters in the title are reproduced in the first couplet, their original word order intact. LINE FOUR: “Cart hung up” alludes to reaching seventy, traditionally the age when officials retired. The phrase is often associated with the scholar and minister Xue Guangde 薛廣德 (first century bce), who after retiring took a cart presented to him by the emperor and hung it on the wall as a symbol of his continued loyalty and devotion. For Xue’s biography, see Han shu 71. LINE FIVE: The Four Hoaryheads were old recluses. See the notes to fss 47.

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LINE SIX: The An Lushan 安祿山 Rebellion of the mid-eighth century ended the Tianbao reign period (742–56) and sent the Tang emperor and his court fleeing from Chang’an to Sichuan. Tadamichi is imagining the refugees’ nostalgia for the snowy landscapes of the north. Lines seven and eight: Crane-down: specks of snow. These lines may be alluding to a story about the second Zen patriarch, Hui Ke 慧可 (known also as Dazu Hui Ke 大祖慧可, Great Ancestor Hui Ke, 487–593), who entered monastic life at the Dragon Gate Temple on Mount Xiang (Xiangshan) near Luoyang, where he studied with a Zen master. He later went to Shaolin and visited Bodhidharma, the twenty-eighth patriarch, begging to be accepted as a disciple. After being refused, Hui Ke reputedly stood all night in waist-deep snow. After a second refusal, he cut off his arm and presented it to the patriarch to demonstrate his sincerity. Tadamichi is perhaps referring to this event, confusing the exact location of Bodhidharma’s retreat.

The Wheels Turn and the Time Is Finally Here [Using “age” as the rhyme word] Old age is here—and in the mirror strange to see the changes! The wheels of time just keep on turning and never for a moment cease. Unbearable how my straggly hair has turned a frosty white; I wish I could get used to how the pines every year stay green. I choke back tears for a life whose empty twilight has now begun; When a man has reached his fiftieth year, he enters the age of decline. Whenever I hold a poetry banquet I feel so stricken with grief. The past is fading away, I observe, as I look around the room.

[At banquets in former times brilliant poets were present in throngs. The years came and went, and now hardly any of them are left—just two or three. The others have all disappeared. When I look back on the past I can still see them in my mind’s eye, and I recall everything with an unbearable yearning. Hence these lines.]

運轉天時至 齡 老至鏡中變恠形 天時運轉遂無停 不堪艾髮經霜白 欲慣松標逐歲青 我咽光陰空暮淚 人生五十是衰齡

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每開詩席一悲感 舊事凋零隔視廳 往日宴席。詩仙濟濟。年去年來。或無所殘。統兩三。 其餘盡分離。思彼往事。如在眼前。不堪懇懷。故有此句。

SOURCE: hdg 54, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 406; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The third character is written as 左, an apparent error for 天, which we have emended. All kudai characters reappear in the first couplet. Poet’s Note to LINE EIGHT: Coming at the end of Tadamichi’s kudai section, at the conclusion of the final poem, this note reads almost like a requiem for kanshi and the days when communal versification was abundantly practiced and great poets were plentiful. Tadamichi himself was responsible for overseeing the next and final Heian kanshi collection, the largest one surviving from this age, salvaging not just works by his peers but also the best verse he could find from the previous century.

On a day off work I went out to enjoy the late autumn scenery. The novelty of the seasonal attractions inspired me: deeply moved, my emotions showing on my face, I recorded a few of my thoughts and now present the following poem to Right Middle Controller Minamoto. All things, when their time has come, decay and soon are gone. The garden flowers and forest leaves are buried by the frost. Dusk, and I ascend the tower, strong winds in my face; Night, and I lean upon the railings, moonlight on the steps. My mundane affairs are endless, endless, entangled in worldly cares. Time is dashing, dashing away, bringing my life to a close. Surely it wasn’t just Pan Yue long ago who had autumn inspirations. Seeing all these tangible things, who would not feel moved? 予當一日休暇。翫三秋風景。時興之新催。慨然面有感。聊書中 懷。以贈尚書源右中丞。 萬物應時衰去早 庭花林葉被霜埋 夕行臺上嵐盈面 夜馮欄干月在階 塵事茫茫拘世累 風光忽忽送生涯 何唯秋興昔潘岳 觸境誰人不感懷 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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SOURCE: hdg 64, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 406; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Minamoto’s identity is uncertain, but one likely candidate is Minamoto no Morotoshi 源師俊 (1080–1141). The son of Morofusa 師房, minister of the left, Morotoshi held various governorships as well as appointments in two central ministries. By 1124 he was serving as right middle controller, the post mentioned in the title. Morotoshi has fifteen poems preserved in two major tanka anthologies; only two of his kanshi survive. A further possible identification is the waka poet and official Minamoto no Masakane, the eighth son of Minamoto no Akifusa 源顕房. He reached the junior third rank and was a participant in the poetry circles of Retired Emperor Horikawa and Tadamichi. His private waka collection Chūnagon Masakane-kyō shū 中納言雅兼卿集 contains eighty-three verses; nine more are in Kin’yōshū. LINE SEVEN: “Autumn inspirations” is a reference to Pan Yue’s elegiac “Qiu xing fu” 秋興賦 (Rhapsody on Autumn Inspirations) preserved in Wen xuan. Tadamichi’s mournful reflections on autumnal decay in the natural world, mirroring his own physical decline, echo portions of Pan Yue’s rhapsody. LINE EIGHT: Chu jing 觸境 (J. sokkyō, Skt. sprastavya), “tangible things,” was one of the Six Objects of Perception (rokkyō 六境) in Buddhism.

To My Literary Friends Indifferent toward my public duties, often dragging my feet. The dust of the world besieges me, never any surcease. Although on the whole I find society a nuisance to endure, On second thought, if I gave it all up, wherever would I go? 寄諸文友 等閑世上自遲頻 俗塵相侵無畢時 大底人間雖耐猒 倩思捨此欲何之 SOURCE: hdg 71, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 408; quatrain (heptasyllabic). COMMENTS: Towards the end of his life, Tadamichi resolved the question posed in line four by relinquishing his posts and going to live as a monk in Hosshōji.

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I heard that on account of illness the senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial has taken Buddhist vows. I am overwhelmed by sadness. What follows is a rough account of how I feel. The senior assistant minister has long been very ill. Returning to the Truth, he has started seeking the mercy of Śakyāmuni. His method for prolonging life: the teachings of The Cinnabar Classic. Nourishment for his future lives: the White Buddha’s words. Once that withered old man of eighty has taken leave of me, With whom should I talk about the pleasure that mists and clouds provide? I’ll never forget how in days of yore we socialized together, And the countless poetry banquets we attended, in seasons cold and warm. 聞李部大卿依病出家。悲感之餘。粗呈所懷。 李部大卿扶病久 歸真始仰釋尊恩 延齡方術丹經說 來世資糧白佛言 八十衰翁辭我去 烟霞餘味共誰論 莫忘他日舊遊處 詩席幾廻寒與溫 SOURCE: hdg 75, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 408; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The character 粗 is a correction for 祖 in the Gunsho ruijū text. The senior assistant minister mentioned in the title was very likely Fujiwara no Atsumitsu, who died in 1144, around age 82. Atsumitsu was one of the most important poets, prose stylists, and Confucian scholars of his age, with sixty-five of his compositions preserved in Honchō mudaishi; see hcmds 25, below, for his biography. LINE TWO: Śakyāmuni 釋尊 was the historical Buddha, who lived during the sixth century bce. LINE THREE: The Cinnabar Classic (Dan jing 丹經) was a mystical Daoist text associated with Liu An 劉安 (179–122 bce), a prince, alchemist, and scholar who served as an advisor to Emperor Wu. Liu is also credited with authorship of Huainan zi 淮南子 (The Philosophers of Huainan). LINE FOUR: The White Buddha is Vairocana (Mahāvairocana, Dainichi Nyorai 大日如来), the “Great Sun Buddha” of Mahāyana and tantric Buddhism. Vairocana, one of the Buddhas born in human form to propagate the Law, is seen as the embodiment of the principle of emptiness.

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LINE SIX: “Mists and clouds” is a metonym for the beauty of natural scenery. Here, it may mean elegant literature.

An Impromptu Poem Written on a Spring Night Nights are short, and naturally they are over far too soon. During spring after sleeping alone, waking up is hard. Willows planted long ago by the wall, cloaked in murky mist; Plum trees newly blooming in the garden I inspect by candlelight. Wilderness birds keep flying about as day gives way to night; Palace orioles chatter on as the moonlight fades away. Slowly, slowly, the warm sun in the west sinks out of sight; Where snow lies piled before the window I sadly await the cold. 春夜即事 夜短自然漏早闌 春天孤夢覺猶難 舊栽墻柳帶烟暗 新綻庭梅秉燭看 野鳥頻遊晴色暮 宮鶯百囀月輝殘 遲遲暖日西沈後 集雪窻前苦待寒 SOURCE: hdg 92, in Shinkō Gunsho ruijū 126, vol. 6, p. 410; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines five and six: The restlessness of the birds in the wilds seems to mirror the poet’s unsettled state of mind. The chattering of “palace orioles” may be a satirical reference to the nocturnal carousing of courtiers.

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Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩 (Poems from Our Court Without Allusive Titles, 1162–64), Compiled by Fujiwara no Tadamichi and Others Fujiwara no Atsumitsu. The Moon Slow to Appear Late at night, crisp the air; endlessly pacing about. The moon slow to reveal itself; frustration overflows. By clouds obscured: I often gaze in the direction its light would move. The peaks are high: no choice but to wait for the moon to start its ascent. During the banquet, as dawn drew near, no moonlight floating in my cup. Through my study window all night long it cast no light on my books. Here’s how things look: I’m eighty years old, dull and decrepit; Enlightened times and yet I’m ill-favored, living out my days. 藤原敦光

賦遲出月

漏闌氣爽久躊躇 遲出月輪恨有餘 雲掩屢期光轉處 嶺高強待影昇初 寶筵向曉無浮盞 學牖終宵未照書 可似八旬愚老質 明時恩隔送居諸 SOURCE: Honchō mudaishi (hcmds) 25, in Honma Yōichi, annot., Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1 of 3 [Shintensha chūshaku sōsho 2] (1992), pp. 65–67; octave (heptasyllabic). Anthology: Honchō mudaishi is the largest and latest extant anthology of Heian kanshi. It contains 772 poems in ten maki, composed during the eleventh and twelfth centuries; some of the earliest pieces were written around 1040–50. All extant manuscripts date from the Edo period and fall into two textual traditions: the threemaki text (bearing the short title Mudaishi) and the ten-maki version, which has the full title. The latter apparently comprises the surviving books of an earlier twelve-maki text mentioned in the thirteenth-century bibliographic compilation Honchō shojaku mokuroku; for further details, see Kawaguchi, Heianchō Nihon, vol. 3, pp. 905–906. The ten-maki version has a dozen more poems than the three-maki one and tends to

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correct textual errors found in the latter, suggesting that the shorter version represents an older tradition. The collection was compiled with the oversight of Fujiwara no Tadamichi (see the notes to hdg 7), but it is speculated that much of the editorial work was completed by Fujiwara no Chikamitsu; see ibid., pp. 908–909. Thirty poets are represented, most of them belonging to the Shiki-ke 式家 branch of the Fujiwara. These include the following leading literati of the mid- to late-Heian age: Fujiwara no Chikamitsu (101 poems), Fujiwara no Tadamichi (91), Nakahara no Hirotoshi (69), Fujiwara no Atsumitsu (65), Fujiwara no Shigeakira (57), and Priest Renzen (56). Many of the poems are octaves (and typically heptasyllabic), but we also find a large number of longer verses, some running several dozen lines; there are almost no quatrains. On its face, the term mudaishi 無題詩 appears to mean “poems without titles,” but in fact it simply denotes Sinitic verse whose titles are not based on a line borrowed from a poem in Chinese or fabricated on the spot. This anthology is the only Heian verse collection where the term mudaishi occurs and no subsequent poems specifically bearing this rubric are known. The very creation of an anthology of verse whose defining feature is the absence of a kudai line in verse titles may represent a conscious reaction against the perceived artificiality and lack of spontaneity inherent in writing a poem around a line of existing verse, at the expense, perhaps, of fully exercising one’s own imagination. Apart from the lack of an allusive title (the words from which are reproduced and exposited upon in the poem), “mudaishi” exhibit no other marked generic characteristics beyond what one would expect to find in regulated verse in general. The verse in this work often conveys an air of informality, manifesting a rhetorical plainness and a reduced reliance upon Chinese textual allusions. The imagery tends to be conventional, the diction unadorned, often verging on the formulaic. In the templevisiting poems in particular, sincerity and conviction take precedence over originality. As Konishi writes, kanshi poets in the eleventh century had already “moved toward ever more homogeneous expression”; in the twelfth century these poets “adopted little in the way of new poetic styles from China” (Konishi, A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 3, pp. 3–4). But while recycling many of the subjects and styles already known, such as writing about the seasons, poets also enjoyed composing on humble or earthy topics—rats, strawberries, and a woman peddling charcoal, for example. They demonstrate as well a penchant for the subtle, austere description of natural beauty, closely observed; herein one senses a particular appreciation for a darker, ethereal faded beauty that is sometimes associated with late Tang poetry and Japanese waka of the same period (see ibid., pp. 6–8). Honchō mudaishi spans more than a century of practice, and in the works of the later poets in particular one senses that the debt owed to China’s literary past has diminished, with much interest being directed instead to depicting personal topoi such as solitary travel and rural reclusion—and the world outside Heian-kyō. The following is

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an inventory of the thematic organization of the ten-maki text, which we have used: maki (1), imperial excursions, formal palace banquets, and poems composed at gatherings for the Age Veneration Society; (2) celestial phenomena, the seasons, plants, natural features, animals, human affairs, miscellaneous objects, and byōbu screen poems; (3) flowers, the moon, and the Tanabata Star Festival; (4) spring and summer; (5) autumn, winter, and miscellaneous irregular verse; (6) pavilions, viewing platforms, and country retreats; (7) mountain homes, country homes, rustic lodges, former homes, mountain villages, countryside and river settings, and inns; (8) mountain temples; (9) mountain temples (part two); (10) mountain temples (part three), miscellaneous temples, zen temples, and mountain grottos. The three-maki text shows rather different organization from the above: for details, see Butterflies, p. 193. For a comprehensive treatment of this collection see Kawaguchi, ibid., pp. 902–15. LINE TWO: This line marks the beginning of an extended metaphor prefigured in the title, in which the light of the moon appears to symbolize imperial preferment and career progress. The trope of the sun’s (or moon’s) rays being blocked by clouds had long been employed by continental poets to symbolize loss of the sovereign’s favor. Lines five and six: The lack of moonlight in Atsumitsu’s cup may also signify metaphorically that he did not improve his political fortunes by attending the banquet earlier that night. Similarly, his studies have not availed him of the advancement he expected. LINE SEVEN: Though he had a long and moderately successful career, Atsumitsu encountered various disappointments along the way, which constitute a leitmotif in his verse: to the end of his days he never ceased to lament about career stagnation and setbacks. Tonight’s lack of moonlight is just one more of life’s frustrations, emblematic of the failure he feels he has endured. LINE EIGHT: The commentator dates this poem to around 1142, when the poet was indeed about eighty years old. Atsumitsu is apparently bemoaning the lack of adequate patronage, as hinted in the title. He no doubt also felt that his lack of success was especially inexcusable considering that these were in his view prosperous (“enlightened”) times, when anybody should have been able to make a name for himself. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Atsumitsu (1063–1144), a scholar of traditional Sinitic studies, was one of the most prominent and learned literati of his generation. Kawaguchi regards his poetic prowess as surpassing even that of the prodigious Masafusa, his erudition close to comparable (Heianchō no kanbungaku, pp. 256–57). Atsumitsu’s father was Akihira 明衡, compiler of Honchō monzui. When Atsumitsu was four his father died, and he became the foster son of his own elder brother Atsumoto, a prominent academy scholar. Atsumitsu passed his taisaku examination in 1094, and one of his first appointments was as acting assistant director in the Bureau of Books and Drawings (1096). By 1098, he had gained a position in the Ministry of Ceremonial

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as a senior secretary, receiving a promotion to the junior fifth rank, lower, the following year. In 1104 he was serving as senior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs. Atsumitsu became a professor in 1107 and rose to the junior fourth rank, lower, in 1113, by which time he was head of the Academy. His next promotion in rank did not occur until 1120, and his final one (to senior fourth, lower) was not for another eleven years: this inability to gain timely rank promotions was a perpetual thorn in his side, judging from his poetry. In 1122, at the age of sixty, Atsumitsu took a new post as senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, with a provisional appointment as governor of Tanba, likely a sinecure. Four years later, he was serving as master of the Right Office of the Capital (1126). He retained his position in the Ministry until the year he died (without ever rising to the headship), shortly before which he had withdrawn to a monastery. It has been said that Atsumitsu’s death effectively marked the end of an era for Heian kanshi, although this honor might just as well be accorded to Fujiwara no Chikamitsu (Atsumitsu’s foster brother), who lived fourteen years longer and had a hand in compiling this anthology (see the notes to hcmds 105). See Nakamura and Ino, pp. 581–82 for additional details. More than eighty of Atsumitsu’s kanshi and other literary pieces survive in such works as Honchō zoku monzui and Chōya gunsai, with a further sixty-five verses in Honchō mudaishi. One of his best-known essays is an opinion paper submitted to Emperor Sutoku in 1135 offering strategies for dealing with social problems, including famines, epidemics, and crime. Atsumitsu often took part in poetry contests and was greatly respected by his peers, his writing skills also much in demand for the drafting of important letters. Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Yorinaga wrote in his diary Taiki at the time of Atsumitsu’s death that “although he was not a great genius (鳴才), he was the most talented writer of his age,” expressing doubts that Confucian studies could remain alive without him (Kawaguchi, ibid., p. 257). A devout adherent of Pure Land Buddhism, Atsumitsu wrote several essays on this subject. He also received a commission from Fujiwara no Tadamichi to compile Zoku Honchō shūku for presentation to Retired Emperor Shirakawa. Several of Atsumitsu’s waka can be found in Kin’yōshū.

Fujiwara no Atsumitsu. Poem on Roses 1



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Rose bushes in full bloom at the bottom of the steps: Quietly admiring the various hues, we stand and wander about. Azaleas try to match them in beauty—their jealousy surely in vain. Wild pinks take second place—how envious they must feel. Stamens adorned by pink pearls, heavily laden with dew; A scent akin to purple musk incense, borne along by the breeze.

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You’d almost think a Daoist adept had refined immortality’s elixir, Or wrongly imagine a seamstress had fashioned garments of embroidered brocade. Mount Sui’s spring peach blossoms feel ashamed that they scatter so soon; Tao’s hedge with its autumn chrysanthemums regret that they bloom so late. Viewing the flowers, drunk as we please on countless cups of wine: Are any of the guests likely to say “I’ll soon be heading home”?

藤原敦光

賦薔薇

一種薔薇階底栽 閑饒異彩立徘徊 山榴争艷空應妬 石竹謝粧幾作猜 蘂綴紅珠含露重 香薰紫麝帶風來 還迷仙道金丹錬 更誤女工錦繡裁 綏嶺春桃慙早散 陶籬秋菊恨遲開 遊花縱醉酒無算 賓客豈言吾早廻 SOURCE: hcmds 49, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 112–14; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). TITLE: This is the second of three sequential poems on the topic of roses. Only the first has been supplied with a title, suggesting that it was meant to apply to all three. LINE FIVE: The “pearls” are the dewdrops, pink because of the petals beneath them. LINE NINE: Mount Sui, known for its abundant beautiful peach trees, was in the southwest part of Emei 峨嵋 county, Sichuan. LINE TEN: Tao is Tao Yuanming. See the notes to hcrs 154 on Tao and chrysanthemum hedges. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to the previous poem. COMMENTS: This poem belongs to the eibutsu subgenre, previously discussed in the Introduction. It was popular in both the Chinese and Japanese verse traditions. The moon, blossoms, snow, and sometimes birds and insects were common topics; manmade topoi included objets d’art, such as fans, inkstones, and musical instruments. Most of the anthologies contain eibutsu, but in those that arrange their verse topically the poems are never labeled as such, instead positioned amongst “miscellaneous” or “unclassified” poems. As Shuen-fu Lin observes, “These are not objective

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descriptions of objects but lyrical expressions of the poet’s feelings organized around small objects such as flowers, insects, or plants” (The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, p. 263). A kanshi about a snap-beetle (see Butterflies, p. 120) is a case in point, being more about how the insect’s behavior mirrors (and differs from) that of the poet rather than a description of the creature for its own sake.

Priest Renzen. Poem on Roses Roses belong to the summer months, they bloom below the steps. Emotions tumble forth in tangles as up and down we walk. Some are white, others pink, so many different hues. You can talk about mums and orchids, but their beauty is no match. Stylish carriages pursuing that elegance race around the city; Purple musk heightens their scent, drifting from windows at night. Since long ago, when the poet Letian composed his magnificent verse, This flower’s nobility has been embraced by the people of our land. 釋蓮禪

賦薔薇

薔薇屬夏開階底 感緒紛紜昇又降 或白或紅粧不一 謂蘭謂菊色難雙 錦車趁艷馳朝市 紫麝助薰出晚窗 昔日樂天吟麗句 此花豪貴被人邦 SOURCE: hcmds 50, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 114–16; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE SEVEN: Letian 樂天 was the style name of Bai Juyi, whose oeuvre includes poems on roses. BIOGRAPHY: Priest Renzen (Shaku Renzen), an important late Heian kanshi poet known for his engaging informal verse, has been identified as Fujiwara no Sukemoto 藤原資基 (1083?–1149?). An eighth-generation descendant of Fujiwara no Saneyori 藤原實賴 (900–70), Renzen was the second son of Michisuke 通輔 (1060–95), an official and holder of the senior fifth rank, lower, who died when Renzen was in his early adolescence. He was also known as Chikuzen Nyūdō 筑前入道 (The Lay Priest of Chikuzen), because of three visits he made to the province of Chikuzen during his

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lifetime. The first seems to have occurred when his foster father Fujiwara no Motozane 藤原基實 (1045–1108) was appointed governor of Chikuzen in 1105; Renzen evidently accompanied him to this post. See the commentary, p. 488. His elder brother Kin’aki 公章 was himself appointed governor of Chikuzen years later in 1127, and Renzen’s second journey there may have been to pay him a visit. Renzen was on particularly close terms with Fujiwara no Chikamitsu, exchanging numerous rhyme-matching poems with him. He had at least three sons, one of whom, Akizane 章實, became an important priest at Enryakuji. Renzen reached the junior fifth rank, lower, but nothing is known about his court appointments. Having been attracted to Buddhism since his early years, Renzen appears to have taken his vows in the Pure Land sect around 1135, although Kojima Noriyuki situates this event earlier, somewhere within the period 1116–26 (see Kojima, Ōchō kanshisen, appendix, p. 8). Around 1139 Renzen authored Sange ōjōki 三外往生記, a commentary (possibly unfinished) providing notes and corrigenda for three earlier Heian accounts of rebirth in the Pure Land, these written by Yoshishige no Yasutane, Ōe no Masafusa, and Miyoshi no Tameyasu 三善爲康 (1049–1139). Perhaps the last known mention of Renzen is a record of his attendance under the name Lay Priest Sukemoto at a poetry contest held in the residence of Fujiwara no Ienari 藤原家成 (1107–54) in 1149. Close to five dozen poems attributed to Renzen are preserved in Honchō mudaishi; translations of seventeen appear in Butterflies.

Ōe no Sukekuni. Written After Hearing that a Merchant from China Had Presented a Parrot as a Gift Wings from west of the Long mountains have entered the depths of the palace. Beautifully colored and lovely to behold, tamed by His virtuous words. Capable of clever speech—an orator, this bird! Green garb and red beak, unlike all the rest. How moving to think that it came by ship, crossing the seas from afar. I wonder if while standing in its cage it thinks about Deng Grove? A merchant came over to our land and presented us with this parrot. Here in the palace you should yield to Fate, stop moaning on and on. 大江佐國

聞大宋商人獻鸚鵡

隴西翅入漢宮深 采采麗容馴德音 巧語能言同辯士 綠衣紅觜異衆禽

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可憐舶上經遼海 誰識籠中思鄧林 商客獻來鸚鵡鳥 禁闈委命勿長吟 SOURCE: hcmds 68, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 173–75; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: “China” is literally “The Great Song,” referring to the Song dynasty (960–1279). LINE ONE: The Long 隴 mountains: a range located in China’s Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. This region was famous for its parrots. LINE TWO: “Tamed by” might instead mean “accustomed to” (the emperor’s virtuous words). LINE SIX: “Deng Grove” 鄧林 harks back to a passage in “Yingwu fu” 鸚鵡賦 (Rhapsody on the Parrot) by Mi Heng 禰衡 (second century), which reads: “Following the bars of its cage, it looks up, then down; / Peering out the door, it paces back and forth, / And imagines the high peaks of Kunlun, / Longs for the spreading luxuriance of Deng Grove” (Knechtges, trans., in Wen xuan, vol. 3, p. 57). BIOGRAPHY: Ōe no Sukekuni (fl. mid- to late-eleventh century) was likely the son— some sources say brother—of Michitada 通直, who once served as director of the Academy and senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial. Sukekuni was the grandson of the scholar Ōe no Asatsuna (886–957). His long career is sporadically documented in the records for the years 1034–86, with service under four emperors. In 1043/9, having completed his monjōdō studies, Sukekuni took the hōryaku exam, hoping to obtain the shūsai credential (Nakamura and Ino, p. 553). But despite his prowess as a Sinitic prose scholar his attempt was unsuccessful, owing to a prosodic error he made during a composition evaluation, as recounted in Gō(ke) shidai 江(家)次第, a work on rites and ceremonies compiled by Ōe no Masafusa. See Heian jidaishi jiten, vol. 1, p. 343. By 1048 Sukekuni was serving as senior secretary in the Council of State, but for many years thereafter he held no office. Around 1070 he became director of the Housekeeping Office, a position which he retained for a long time, at the rank of junior fifth, upper. Other appointments include vice-governor of Echizen. Sukekuni fell upon hard times in his final years; in one of his Honchō zoku monzui kanshi he writes that he was now old and still far away from achieving glory. Like most literati-officials destined to remain in the middle aristocracy, Sukekuni never rose any higher than the junior fifth, upper, but his literary achievements were considerable. He served as a Sinitic studies teacher to Fujiwara no Michitoshi 藤原通俊 (1047–99) and assisted him with the compilation of the waka anthology Goshūishū. An entry in Chūyūki for 1094/9/6 records that Michitoshi held Sukekuni in high esteem as a teacher. Sukekuni also produced an annotated text of the Man’yōshū and wrote a biography of the Tendai monk Priest Genshin 源信 (942–1017) titled Genshin sōzu den

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源信僧都傳, sometime after 1061. He was skilled at composing eibutsu, the present poem being one example. Honchō mudaishi has 28 of his kanshi; 6 additional works are preserved in Chōya gunsai, Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū, Shinsen rōeishū, and a further 6 in Honchō zoku monzui. A legend about him in Hosshinshū 發心集 (early thirteenth century) relates that because he so loved flowers he was reborn as a butterfly. COMMENTS: This poem, the last couplet in particular, may have been a veiled injunction to a discontented courtier (or perhaps even to himself) to stop maundering and resign himself to his situation.

Nakahara no Hirotoshi. A Poem on the Cuckoo 1



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Every year in the plum rain season how often does this happen? The cuckoo sends forth its call in the stillness of the night. Repeating its name in the Fifth Month amidst the soaking rains; I’m aware of you at the third watch when you wake me from my dreams. If we listen closely, the sound often comes from the lone bamboo by the steps; If you search for the sound, it is coming from deep in the distant pineclad hills. Honking in the clouds, chilly geese arrive here late in autumn; Choking on the fog, mountain warblers return in early spring. Their call evokes unbearable thoughts in the woman as she weaves. Once heard, the sound will surely ruin the lovely lady’s makeup. I now ignore the official drums that beat two times each day. Don’t laugh at me if the hair on my temples daily grows more grey.

中原廣俊

賦郭公

每屬梅霖年幾環 郭公傳哢夜方閑 呼名五月雨霑裡 知汝三更夢覺間 傾耳頻廻孤竹砌 尋聲深入遠松山 叫雲寒雁秋遲至 咽霧山鶯春早還 相語不堪紅女思 一聞定解紛娃顏 既忘衙鼓二廻過 莫笑鬢華逐日斑 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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SOURCE: hcmds 70, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 177–79; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). TITLE: The cuckoo (kakkō or hototogisu, Cuculus poliocephalus) is associated with the arrival of summer and is a kigo 季語 (seasonal word) for that season. Its call can be heard both day and night, particularly in mountainous regions. Tradition held that the cuckoo would cry for so long it eventually started spitting blood. To the Chinese, its call sounded like the words buru gui qu 不如歸去, “better to go home,” hence the bird was linked with homesickness. The cuckoo is also portrayed as a messenger from the underworld and is sometimes associated with the bittersweet pangs of love. The word used here for cuckoo, kakkō 郭公 (Ch. guogong), is an onomatope, imitating the cuckoo’s call. LINE ONE: “Plum rains” refers to the monsoon, which lasted from around mid-June to the middle of July. LINE FOUR: The third watch: the two-hour period between 11 pm and 1 am. LINE SEVEN: The migrating geese are a harbinger of winter and the cause of the lady’s distress seen in line nine. Upon hearing the geese, she is reminded that she must hurry up and (in an ancient poetic trope) finish the winter garment she is preparing for her husband away on military service at the frontier. LINE EIGHT: This line derives from a couplet by Yuan Zhen found in Wakan rōeishū 65: 咽霧山鶯啼尚少、穿沙蘆笋葉纔分. Rimer and Chaves, p. 43, translate it as follows: “Choking on the fog, mountain warblers still make little music; / piercing the sand, the shoots of reeds barely put forth leaves.” “Choking on the fog” likely means that the cries of the birds are muffled by the fog. The birds in line eight reappear in line ten: bush warblers herald the arrival of spring, a season associated with romance. Thinking about love and marriage causes the young lady to weep; this harks back to the last two lines of the second stanza of Ode 154, “Qi yue” 七月 (The Seventh Month), in Shijing. LINE ELEVEN: There were two sets of morning drumbeats, each with twelve beats, to announce the dawn and the opening of the city gates. They were also a signal for officials to rise and get ready for work. Having perhaps retired, or being out of work (see below), Hirotoshi pays no heed to this ritual. LINE TWELVE: Hirotoshi’s entreaty not to mock him for showing signs of old age is a relatively common closure in Heian kanshi, although seldom used by Chinese poets. BIOGRAPHY: Nakahara no Hirotoshi (1062–1131?) was a leading poet in his day, as evidenced by the inclusion of some sixty-nine of his poems in Honchō mudaishi. His official career, by contrast, was far less remarkable. After completing his Academy studies in history and literature, Hirotoshi served as junior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs and the Council of State, from around 1098 to 1102. The following year he was appointed vice-governor of Higo at the junior fifth rank, lower. In his sole poem included in Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū, dated 1111, he attached a note ruefully observing that he has been out of office for nine years; see Nakamura and Ino, p. 226. At about the same time, he reflects bitterly on the misfortunes of his life - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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in hcmds 457: “I feel such shame, looking back on this life of trouble and frustration: / Already more than fifty years old and known as a worthless failure” (Butterflies, pp. 205–206). Hirotoshi’s situation improved around 1112, when he was appointed governor of Shimotsuke, and later, Hyūga. He never rose above the junior fifth, lower. As a prolific writer of kanshi, Hirotoshi associated with various Shiki-ke Fujiwara family poets, including Shigeakira (who became his son-in-law), Atsumitsu, and Chikamitsu. He served as the principal reciter at a meeting of the Kangaku-e held in 1111, at which time, as noted above, he had no post. In 1131, the Age Veneration Society invited Hirotoshi to compose verses and serve again as reciter and mentor at a poetry composition event sponsored by Fujiwara no Munetada, held at his Shirakawa residence. On the activities of literary societies in the Nara-Heian age, see Gotō Akio, “Bunjin no ‘kai’ ya kōryū: kodai, chūsei no ‘kai’ to kōryū,” pp. 329–38, in Wiebke Denecke, Kōno Kimiko, and others, eds., Nihon “bun”gakushi [New History of Japanese “Letterature”], vol. 2 (2017).

Fujiwara no Shigeakira. The Puppeteers 1 “Kugutsu” is what these folks are called; from what place do they hail?



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Moving around from inn to inn, with not a moment for thought. On the fringes of town they make their lodgings, without a fixed abode. Traveling about, selling sexual favors, longing for bedroom intimacy. Cherries, peaches in the showers of spring—their allure they surely covet; Orchids, cymbidiums in the breezes of autumn—their beauty they try to match. In the deep grasses of green meadows creating settlements of their own; Near Mount Kagami where the moonlight is chilly is where they make their homes. By entertaining folks with their songs they manage to make a living; Favored ladies for a single night, beguiling their customers’ hearts. What will they do in their tumbledown shacks once they have grown old? After their lovely looks have gone, sorrow will be their lot.

藤原茂明

傀儡子

名稱傀儡有何方 逆旅寄身思未遑 郊外移居無定處 羈中衒色慕專房 櫻桃春雨應貪艷

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蘭蕙秋風欲比粧 綠野草深成邑里 鏡山月冷卜家鄉 倡歌數曲充生計 徵嬖一宵蕩客腸 其奈穹廬年暮後 容華變去令心傷 SOURCE: hcmds 81, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 201–203; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). LINE EIGHT: Mount Kagami 鏡山 is in the Gamo district of Shiga prefecture. As the site of a kugutsu settlement it is verifiable from Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s Kudenshū 口傳集 (Collection of Oral Traditions), contained within his Ryōjin hishō 梁塵秘抄 (Secret Collection of Dust on the Beams, 1179), maki 10, and other primary sources. See the commentary, p. 203. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Shigeakira (1093?–1160?) was a son of the scholar Atsumoto and grandson of Akihira, compiler of Honchō monzui. In 1122 he completed his Academy studies in Chinese history and letters, attaining monjō tokugōshō status, then two years later passed the taisaku examination. During his boyhood Shigeakira held an appointment as chamberlain (1104), then later served as governor of Shimōsa (around 1127, based on Chūyūki). Subsequent posts, received around 1140, include junior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial and professor at the Academy. He reached the junior fourth rank, upper. From 1151, Shigeakira served Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Yorinaga (d. 1156), tutoring his son Moronaga 師長 in Chinese history. Shigeakira has fifty-seven verses in Honchō mudaishi, making him one of the most prominent poets. A precocious child, he co-wrote a poem titled “Snow Fills the Garden of Pines” with the ex-officio governor of Inaba (unidentified) in the winter of 1104, when he was around eleven; this appears in Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū, maki 5. A portion of an annotated manuscript of Bai Juyi poems compiled by Shigeakira in 1107 and titled Hakushi monjū 白氏文集 is extant; this text is known as the Kanda-bon. For details on his annotations and commentaries, see Guest, pp. 138–39. In 1154 Shigeakira wrote the preface to a collection of kanshi composed at a versification event on the theme “Year after Year the Pines Maintain Their Integrity.” His last known work, dated 1160, is an obituary for Lady Bifukumon’in; Shigeakira is identified there as “Lay Priest Shigeakira,” indicating that he had taken Buddhist vows by this time. COMMENTS: The kugutsu (“puppeteers”) were itinerant entertainers, dancing and performing songs with accompaniment, as well as doing juggling, magic tricks, and puppetry. Some of the women engaged in prostitution, the men in hunting. They were of diverse origins, probably migrants from the continent. Their artistic performances appear to have ceased by the mid-thirteenth century. See Gerald Groemer,

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Street Performers and Society in Urban Japan, 1600–1900: The Beggar’s Gift (2016), p. 107. The kugutsu were skilled in the performance and transmission of modish imayō 今様 songs, popular at court during the latter half of the Heian age. Emperor Go-Shirakawa loved popular entertainment, patronizing imayō and even selecting as one of his teachers an accomplished woman of kugutsu origins named Otomae (1086?–1169). Ōe no Masafusa (1041–1111) wrote an account of the kugutsu in his Kairaishiki 傀儡子記 (Kugutsu no ki, A Record of the Kugutsu, ca. 1087); for a translation of this short piece see Jane Marie Law, Puppets of Nostalgia: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of the Japanese “Awaji Ningyō” Tradition (2015), p. 97. There are seven kugutsu-themed kanshi, each by a different poet, in Honchō mudaishi. Three are translated in Butterflies; for another translation of all seven see Writing Margins: The Textual Construction of Gender in Heian and Kamakura Japan by Terry Kawashima (2001).

Fujiwara no Michinori. A Poem About a Fisherman, Written While Traveling in the Kayō Area Among misty waves far away there lives a fisherman; Loudly singing boatmen’s songs, enough to break your heart. He thinks of nothing but casting his fishing line into the waves at dawn, Unaware that the hair on his temples has changed to autumn frost. In his final years he’ll make his living from cattails and wild rice, Leaving behind a plan for his descendants in the windy ocean village. Perhaps as wise as Minister Lü—who would ever know? Why should such anglers only be found by the banks of the River Wei? 藤原通憲

遊河陽賦漁夫

煙波深裡有漁夫 高唱棹歌足斷腸 唯憶一竿投曉浪 不知兩鬢變秋霜 餘年生計菰蒲利 後日孫謀風水鄉 呂太公賢誰得識 釣人何必渭滨陽 SOURCE: hcmds 84, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 209–10; octave (heptasyllabic).

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TITLE: Kayō (Kaya, Ch. Heyang) was an area north of the Yodogawa river southwest of Kyoto in the region of modern Yamazaki. This was the site of the Yamazaki Imperial Villa and a favorite place for outings and poetry banquets, especially during the spring and autumn hawking seasons. Several dozen verses set at this iconic location survive among the early-ninth century kanshi collections (Denecke, “The Power of Syntopism,” p. 42); see note 69 in the Introduction for additional details. On the significance of the Chinese-inspired Kayō placename, its Pan Yue associations, and its importance in native poetic lore, see ibid., pp. 40–57 and Sakaki, pp. 28–29. LINE SIX: The notion of leaving plans for one’s descendants (sun mou 孫謀) is derived from the last stanza of Ode 244, “Wen Wang you sheng” 文王有聲 (The Reputation Left by King Wen): “By the river Feng there is white millet; / King Wu surely was wise in his selection of officers. / He left plans for his descendants, / And provided comfort and support for his son. / King Wu was a great ruler!” 豐水有芑、武王豈不仕、詒厥孫謀、 以燕翼子、 武王烝哉. LINE SEVEN: Minister Lü (Lü Taigong 呂太公, twelfth century bce) was a high official who went into hiding to escape the tyranny of the last Shang ruler. King Wen, founder of the Zhou dynasty, discovered Lü (who was by then about eighty years old) fishing on the banks of the Wei and brought him back to serve as his chief minister. LINE EIGHT: This literally reads northern (yang 陽) banks of the River Wei; the word yang has been used partly for the sake of the rhyme scheme. The message here is that men of Lü’s caliber can be found anywhere. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Michinori (Shinzei 信西, 1106–59) was the son of Fujiwara no Sanekane 藤原實兼 (1085–1112). After his father’s death, he became the foster son of Takashina no Tsunetoshi 高階經敏, governor of Nagato. Michinori served five emperors, from Toba (r. 1107–23) to Nijō (r. 1158–65), and he was an ally of Taira no Kiyomori 平清盛. He became minor counselor in 1143 and later governor of Hyūga. Leaving office, he took Buddhist vows in 1144, adopting the name Enkū 円空 and later Shinzei. After entering the priesthood he remained a close advisor to Retired Emperor Toba and provided counsel to Tadamichi’s younger brother Fujiwara no Yorinaga, minister of the left, who eventually became a fierce adversary. Michinori (by now known as Shinzei) later joined the inner circle of Emperor Go-Shirakawa (r. 1155–58), partially through the influence of his wife Fujiwara no Asako 藤原朝子, who had served as Go-Shirakawa’s wet nurse. Shinzei supported Go-Shirakawa, aligning himself with Fujiwara no Tadamichi, Minamoto no Yoshitomo 源義朝 (1123–60), and Bifukumon’in 美福門院 (1117–60), Emperor Toba’s consort, in the Hōgen Uprising of 1156. He helped Yoshitomo defeat Yorinaga and other supporters of ex-Emperor Sutoku, who had planned to install Prince Shikihito (Sutoku’s son) on the throne. Shinzei became the paramount political power at court and a trusted advisor of Go-Shirakawa, but his ascendancy was not to last. A faction led by Fujiwara no Nobuyori 藤原信賴 (d. 1160) and Yoshitomo opposed Shinzei and sought to gain

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control over the throne. An intense struggle for power ensued, culminating in the Heiji Uprising 平治の乱 of 1159, in which Shinzei was killed by Yoshitomo and Nobuyori, who were later defeated by the forces of Taira no Kiyomori 平清盛 (1118–81). A scholar of wide renown, Shinzei possessed expertise in numerous realms, including astronomy, Buddhist studies, the Chinese classics, and mathematics. Besides being an accomplished poet, he was also a skilled musician, mastering the biwa and several other instruments. Many of his writings remain extant, including the unfinished national history Honchō seiki 本朝世紀 (ca. 1159), the bibliographic source Shinzei Nyūdō zōsho mokuroku, and an annotated text of Nihon shoki 日本書紀 (Record of Japan). Eighteen of Shinzei’s kanshi are preserved in Honchō mudaishi. His waka were also highly esteemed, and he was a frequent participant in court poetry contests. COMMENTS: This poem is not necessarily about an actual fisherman Michinori encountered while in Kayō. The old rustic fisherman is a stock figure in kanshi, appropriated from the Chinese tradition. Poems on this topos form a subgenre that has its own specific conventions, which include wondering if the fisherman might be a reclusive sage-official like Lü Taigong, a hidden jewel awaiting rediscovery.

Sugawara no Ariyoshi. At my mountain home the snow lies deep. The path is already cut off, no one comes to visit, and I live quietly by myself. Before the brazier I warm some good strong wine and gaze out at the peaks ahead, reciting old poems. Now that the year is coming to an end, my thoughts turn to the poignancy of growing old. One season yields to another—always on my mind. Here throughout the winter I manage to keep myself alive. Who could find his way on the path this snow-laden morning? Thoughts of old age; hard to find comfort now as I wait for spring. Alone, pouring into my jade cup some wine from Qingtian; Languidly chanting by the incense burner verse by Master Bai. A pure intimacy with the valley clouds: this I have long enjoyed. Below the mountain temple I lead a life that is calm and relaxed. 菅原在良 山家雪深。徑路已絕。無尋來客。獨以閑居。對深鑪而 煖醇酒。望前峯而詠古詩。既及歲陰之窮。轉有老情之切。 廻環四序每相思 箇裡冬天足自持 客路誰通逋雪曉 老情難慰待春時

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獨斟玉盞靑田酒 閑詠香鑪白氏詩 已與澗雲交淡舊 山門之下得棲遲 SOURCE: hcmds 101, in Honchō zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 247–49; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE FIVE: “Wine from Qingtian” is a fanciful reference to a strong wine made by the Wusun 烏孫, an ethnic group believed to be the ancestors of the modern Uysyn. They were a nomadic people who lived in modern Gansu province, in China’s northwest. BIOGRAPHY: Sugawara no Ariyoshi (1041?–1121?) was the fourth son of Sadayoshi 定義, who once served as professor and director of the Academy. Ariyoshi completed his monjō tokugōshō studies in 1071 and was appointed secretary of Tanba, at the senior sixth rank, upper. In 1074 he passed his taisaku examination in history and literature and took an appointment as provisional governor of Hizen. At the end of 1077, holding the rank of junior fifth, lower, he became junior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, in a promotion deemed by Minamoto no Toshifusa, in his diary Suisaki, as an “unprecendented” leap from provincial to central administration; this was apparently awarded in recognition of Ariyoshi’s uncommon abilities. In 1090, after three years as secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs, he received an appointment as vice-governor of Awa, retaining his two ministerial posts. Later positions include professor of letters (ca. 1096), governor of Settsu (ca. 1104), personal tutor to Emperor Toba (1111), and senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial (1111). Ariyoshi remained in this post for the rest of his life, exercising administrative control of the Academy as well. In 1111 he was also promoted to the junior fourth rank, upper. Ariyoshi was a master prose stylist, drafting important documents ranging from civil service exams to imperial edicts; more than forty pieces are preserved in Honchō zoku monzui and other texts. His kanshi appear in Honchō mudaishi and several of his waka are found in the imperial anthologies. Ariyoshi no Ason shū 在良朝臣集, a private collection of thirty-three of his waka, also survives. Considered one of the finest literati his time, Ariyoshi was honored more than two centuries later with a posthumous promotion to the junior third rank and the title Kitano Sanmi-dono北野三位 殿, in 1330.

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Fujiwara no Atsumoto. There is a farmhouse, and the host and his guests are chatting in a carefree fashion. The reed blinds are rolled up, and people are looking out on a path leading through the countryside. Some have gone into the mulberry fields to view a mountain village. Beyond a gate is an attractive patchwork of plowed fields. Below the steps is a winding, gurgling stream. Peasants are working in the fields transplanting rice seedlings. Old rustics are helping out by bringing casks of sake and straining it—a joyous scene! The sun is gradually sinking. Since choosing this site for my cottage I have enjoyed the distant views. The terrain is low and marshy here by the woods at the edge of town. Clear mountains stretching endlessly: the scene before my window. Evening, the sound of the stream grows louder as I listen on my pillow. Gathering dew in the mulberry grove; dawn, damp their sleeves. Harvesting wind on the barley ridges; tidings of autumn arrive. This time of year the rural folk are working in the fields. In the southern plots they drunkenly sing as the sun sets in the west. 藤原敦基 有田家。主客會談恣以逍遥。巻蘆簾以對野徑。赴桑園 以望山村。當門前而田疇綺錯。遶砌下而流水潺潺。農夫營耕田採 苗之事。野老致提榼漉酒之勤。歡樂遇境。日漸及昏。 從卜吾廬好眺臨 地形卑濕一郊林 晴山不盡當窗色 晩水轉添落枕音 採露桑園霑曉袖 穫風麦壠報秋心 此時農夫事田業 南畝醉歌西日沈 SOURCE: hcmds 104, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 255–56; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This poem is in a section of verse describing scenes in paintings, and the poet cleverly paints himself into the picture. LINE FIVE: The “dew” refers to dew-soaked mulberry leaves, used for feeding silkworms. LINE SIX: The strong breezes blowing through the barley are a reminder that autumn is approaching. BIOGRAPHY: See the biographical notes to cbsk 4–2, above.

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Fujiwara no Chikamitsu. All the blossoms are in full bloom. Crowds of people are scrambling to go and see them. Beneath a long bridge light carriages are parked. The flowers are all in full bloom—people gaze and cannot leave. So very many sightseers there, each with the same end in mind. At dawn before the forest winds blow they all arrive in throngs; At dusk still there with the valley birds, no thought of going home. The flutes and singing create such excitement the clouds stop and gather; Far down a path lined with peach and plum trees snow sprinkles their clothes. Bearing the scent, they ride in light carriages on the road below the bridge. No one would say that here at this place “the dust of the world is scant.” 藤原周光

百花盛開。衆人競至。長橋之下有輕軒。

百花開盡望依依 幾許遊人心動機 朝先林風相伴至 幕留溪鳥尚忘歸 笙歌興引雲成蓋 桃李蹊深雪灑衣 香騎軽軒橋下路 莫言斯處俗塵稀 SOURCE: hcmds 105, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 256–58; octave (heptasyllabic). Title note: This is another item in a section of poems describing screen paintings. LINE FIVE: The notion of the clouds stopping to listen to the music derives from Liezi. See the notes to fss 34. LINE EIGHT: Using familiar verbiage normally associated with poems about remote and silent temples, the poet is satirically observing how these hordes of noisy sightseers are despoiling the otherwise charming environment. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Chikamitsu (ca. 1079–ca. 1165) was the foster son of Fujiwara no Atsumoto, a professor at the Academy. His birth father was probably one Fujiwara no Yorinaga 藤原賴長 (dates unknown, not to be confused with Tadamichi’s famous brother by the same name). Chikamitsu studied at the Academy until 1124, by which time he was likely in his forties. He received appointments in the Left Gate Guards and the Imperial Police, reaching the junior fifth rank, lower, in 1142. For many years thereafter, Chikamitsu was apparently without a post, but in 1159 he returned to court service and was promoted to the junior fifth, upper. By this time he was around eighty

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years old. Honchō mudaishi contains more than a hundred of his poems, the highest number of any poet; this fact lends support to the theory that he was the principal compiler—see the notes to hcmds 25. One of the last great poets of the Heian age, Chikamitsu was a close friend of Priest Renzen (see the biography accompanying hcmds 50, above), and the two exchanged many rhyme-matching poems.

Fujiwara no Michinori. By a pond there is a pavilion, and in the pavilion some people reading. There is a narrow path flanked by pines, and beneath the pines there are cranes. A priest has arrived on a boat; he has a goose with him. Nearby is a small bridge, and white lotuses are in bloom on the pond. At the water’s edge, purple wisteria and green willows are growing. In the foreground, there is a front yard where beds have been set out. [Screen painting] Beside the pond a high pavilion, and in the pavilion some guests. In the cool breeze, with their mats unrolled; it feels like an autumn day. Lotuses on the pond: a mooring boat with a goose on board arrives; Down a path through pine trees: some men near cranes are napping. Night after night, the beds are lined up by the water’s edge in the moonlight; Hour after hour, with their books as pillows, lying by the misty ripples. Purple wisteria hangs over the water, willows hide the steps. Some priests are idly passing the time beside a solitary tree. 藤原通憲 池上有台。台上有人讀書。小徑有松。松下有鶴。道士 船中載鵝至。   其傍有小橋。又池上白蓮開敷。水邊有紫藤翠柳。又 前庭立小牀矣。 屏風 池上高台台上客 涼風展簟似秋天 蓮塘船艤載鵝至 松徑人稀與鶴眠 夜夜並牀臨岸月 時時枕帙臥波煙 紫藤掩水柳蔵砌 道士空遊獨木邊 SOURCE: hcmds 110, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 266–67; octave (heptasyllabic). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 84.

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Fujiwara no Atsumitsu. Enjoying the Moon 1 5

Enjoying the moonlight all night long, clear as I gaze to the west. Writing verse at a splendid banquet in the presence of noble lords. On the twelve streets crossing the capital it’s as if dawn has arrived; Beyond the city for a thousand miles the brightness of day prevails. Gazing upward at the royal palace the light seems all the more pure; I simply love how upon the pavilions the moon shines even more brightly. To the Penghu Autumn Banquet my access was wrongly denied;



Once highly regarded by persons of discretion, I now feel completely nonplussed.



10



[I served as a professor performing readings at the Yudono “first bathing” following the birth of the emperor, so I ought to have been permitted to enter the imperial quarters at the time of His Majesty’s accession. Despite my earlier service, this situation has wrongfully continued for eight years, and I am still not allowed into the imperial quarters. Thus I have written this line.]

[Since long ago, those who served as senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial have generally been promoted to consultant (sangi) in under ten years. There are plenty of precedents for this. I privately hope that my situation will soon be remedied. Thus this line.]

Pine and bamboo have borne the frost loyally throughout three reigns; Temple hair and eyebrows dotted with snow—the legacy of seven decades. The time for “hanging up my cart” approaches, and soon I’ll go into reclusion. Even if granted His Majesty’s favor, how long would it last?

藤原敦光

翫月

翫月終霄西望凊 瓊筵含筆接群英 洛城十二衢中曉 秦甸一千里外晴 高仰軒宮光更潔 唯歡台室影彌明 蓬壺秋宴路空隔 聖主御誕生浴殿讀書博士。御踐祚之初必聽昇殿。 敦光雖致其勤徒送八年。未聽仙殿。故獻此句。

藻鏡昔譽眼自驚 古來爲式部大輔之者。不過十年多昇八座。 已有舊跡。偷仰新化。故獻此句。

松竹凌霜三代節

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鬚眉添雪七殉情 懸車期近身將隱 縱戴聖恩是幾程 SOURCE: hcmds 159, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 359–62; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). LINE THREE: The “twelve streets” brings to mind early descriptions of Chang’an, upon which the city of Heian was modeled. Lines five and six: The presence of the matched words geng 更 and mi 彌, both meaning “even more,” appears significant, perhaps intended as a tribute to the virtue of the emperor. Though the city is bathed in dazzling moonlight, the light is even purer and brighter still where the imperial palace is situated. LINE SEVEN: Penghu 蓬壺 (The Pot of Peng) is a reference to Penglai 蓬萊 (J. Hōrai), a mythical island said to be the dwelling place of immortals. Here it denotes the imperial palace, part of which has been inaccessible to Atsumitsu, just as Penglai was impossible for seekers to reach. The poem at this point changes course, as if suddenly hijacked by another voice, and Atsumitsu embarks on a litany of the slights he has endured over the years. Poet’s note to LINE SEVEN: The reason why Atsumitsu has been denied access to the imperial quarters for eight years is perhaps because he had failed to be appointed as a tenjōbito 殿上人 (attendant nobility or “privy courtiers,” to use Steininger’s term). This was a special category of aristocrats who were granted admission to the Courtiers’ Hall (tenjō no ma 殿上間) of the Seiryōden, where the emperor resided and where higher nobility were frequently present. Tenjōbito were selected from among the middle level of the three-tiered nobility, holders of the fourth or fifth rank; they also included kurōdo (chamberlains) with the sixth rank. Being a graduate of the Academy itself was no guarantee of entry; Atsumitsu notes that this privilege had been withheld despite his having served as a scholar-reader of the Classic of Filial Piety at the “first bathing” (yudono hajime 湯殿始め) ceremony, conducted in 1119 after the birth of Prince Akihito (the future Emperor Sutoku). Two other readers at this event, Fujiwara no Sanemitsu and Nakahara no Morotō 中原師遠, had both become tenjōbito in the meantime. He further laments that despite his services at the bathing ceremonies he was not invited to attend Sutoku’s accession ceremony, held four years after the latter’s birth. See the Honma commentary, vol. 1, pp. 360–61. Ceremonial bathing rituals were conducted for all male children soon after their birth. In the case of the nobility, two bathing ceremonies were held on seven predetermined auspicious days, beginning on the third day after the baby was born. Prayers were chanted for the protection of the infant, and two or three professors recited selections from the Chinese classics to the sound of archers plucking their bowstrings to drive off evil spirits (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, vol. 1, pp. 368–69).

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Poet’s note to LINE EIGHT: Atsumitsu observes that in accordance with precedent he should already have been appointed as a sangi (consultant); eight courtiers held this position at any given time, all with the fourth rank or higher. When this poem was written, Atsumitsu was around sixty-nine years old and serving as director of the Academy, with the junior fourth rank, lower (Honma commentary, p. 360). Evidently he felt certain that his rank and seniority entitled him to promotion to sangi; why he was passed over remains a mystery. Atsumitsu’s explanations here and elsewhere for his various career-related disappointments seldom shed much light on the genesis of his problem. LINE NINE: Pine and bamboo are traditional symbols of loyalty and endurance; Atsumitsu is using them to refer to himself and to the devoted service he has rendered. From his passing the taisaku examination in 1094 down to 1130, when this poem was composed, Atsumitsu had served Emperors Horikawa, Toba, and Sutoku. LINE ELEVEN: “Hanging up my cart”: retiring from service. See hdg 51. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 25.

Priest Renzen. Enjoying the Moon at My Mountain Home High upon Mount Amida, here at my secluded dwelling The moon is at its absolute best, even brighter than bright. A dazzling pure cassia orb, late autumn splendor; A desolate, chilly bamboo hut, the night stretching on and on. Southward-bound frontier geese, high above, calling out in the snow. Gazing to the west a mountain priest, alone, enjoying clear skies. Sleeves soaked, never drying: the tears of contemplation. All my life I’ve secretly waited for the purple cloud to arrive. 釋蓮禪

山家翫月

阿彌陀嶺幽棲地 月屬佳期明也明 皎潔桂輪秋老色 荒涼竹舍夜長情 南飛塞雁高嘶雪 西望山僧獨喜晴 滿袖不乾觀念涙 一生偷待紫雲迎

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SOURCE: hcmds 169, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 380–81; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE ONE: This hill, now called Amidagamine 阿彌陀ヶ峯, is in the Higashiyama area of Kyoto and is one of the so-called “thirty-six hills of Higashiyama,” east of what is today Higashiōji-dōri. Once visible from Kiyomizudera, it is the site of the Toyotomi Hideyoshi mausoleum. LINE THREE: In Chinese mythology a cassia tree grew on the moon. LINE FIVE: The snow could just be moonlight. LINE SIX: The priest is Renzen himself, gazing westward in anticipation of the Amitābha (Amida) Buddha’s arrival. LINE EIGHT: In deathbed scenes depicted in Buddhist art and literature, when the moment of death is at hand the dying person sometimes sees a purple cloud bearing the Amitābha Buddha, who descends and leads him to the Pure Land, known also as the Western Paradise, seen as a refuge from unending karmic transmigration. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50.

Fujiwara no Tadamichi. Written Impromptu in Early Spring The beauty of spring is suddenly here, my emotions know no bounds. Gossamer tangled and whirling about—I gaze at it high in the sky. I reckon the days and somehow sense the arrival of the season; I open the calendar—how amazing!—time for the warmth of spring. By nature I am lazier by far than the willows on the banks. But who has a heart like the fragrant plum trees growing on the hills? Wetting my brush I write this poem, and now have this to say: All I am is a young man of mediocre talent! 藤原忠通

早春即事

春色忽來感叵疆 遊糸缭亂望蒼蒼 算年暗識迎韶景 披歷先驚屬載陽 己性竊爭堤柳懶 誰心相類嶺梅芳 含毫摛藻今爲噵 材幹是疏少齒郎

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SOURCE: hcmds 198, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 436–38; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE SIX: Plum blossoms traditionally were admired for their fortitude and vitality because they bloomed during the snow of late winter when most plants were still dormant. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hdg 7. COMMENTS: Tadamichi was the supreme political figure in his time, becoming clan head (uji no chōja 氏の長者) and regent when he was only twenty-four. Soon thereafter, in 1123, he attained the rank of junior first. Considering that he already held the rank of senior third by the age of fourteen, and at eighteen was appointed palace minister, the humble sentiments in the last line seem to be mere pro forma modesty.

Fujiwara no Shigeakira. Written Impromptu on a Spring Day [With set rhymes] 1



5



10



Blossoms there are, and birds as well: plenty to enjoy! This time of year my imagination naturally starts to race. In the world of dust I pass my years—no comfort for my gloom. Off in the clouds I cast my gaze, aspirations ever rising. Year after year we study hard, exhausted in the cold snow’s light; Day after day amusing ourselves, drinking unstrained wine. When the ice melts, the lurking fish take pleasure in the springtime waters; When the dew lies deep, the sacred crane at night calls out from the marsh. I’d like to try the life of a hermit among the willows by Tao’s gate; Seek afar the immortals’ elixir among the peach trees on Mount Sui’s peaks. My literary companions and I have quite by chance crossed paths. Chanting, reciting, unable to stop, with moistened brushes poised.

藤原茂明

春日即事 勒

有花有鳥足相叨 此處自然令意勞 塵土送齡愁未慰 雲霄寄眼望彌高 年年苦學疲寒雪 日日歡遊酌酒醪 冰解潛魚春樂水 露深靈鶴夜鳴皐

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試尋隱道陶門柳 遠訪仙方綏嶺桃 文友不期旁會合 諷吟無耐各含毫 SOURCE: hcmds 202, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 445–47; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). LINE FIVE: Shigeakira seems to be alluding to Sun Kang 孫康 (fourth century), a poor but diligent scholar who studied by moonlight reflected from the fallen snow because he could not afford a lamp. (The word “light” has been added to the translation for clarity.) Alternatively, he is perhaps just referring to the miseries of studying in winter, when it is cold and snowy. LINE SIX: The phrase jiu lao 酒醪 has a variety of meanings, ranging from the literal “wine dregs” to cloudy unstrained wine, and sometimes wine in general. It connotes rusticity and noble penury. LINE EIGHT: Cranes were said to cry out at night when dew began to appear in the Eighth Month. These cries may represent the despair Shigeakira and his companions had felt during the winter. The line is based upon the first stanza of Ode 184, “He ming” 鶴鳴 (The Crane Cries), which reads: “The crane cries in the ninth pool of the marsh, / And her voice is heard in the [distant] wilds. / The fish lies in the deep, / And now is by the islet” 鶴鳴于九皐。聲聞于野。 魚潛在淵。 或在于渚 (Legge, The She King, pp. 296–97). LINE NINE: Tao is the poet Tao Yuanming; see the notes to dsks 213. LINE TEN: Mount Sui: see hcmds 49, above. BIOGRAPHY: See hcmds 81, above.

Sannomiya (Prince Sukehito). Written Impromptu on a Spring Night A bamboo door, a brushwood gate, and spring’s bewitching charm. Late at night and I happen to spy the slanting beams of the moon. Awakened by a hidden sound: the garden’s winding stream. My robes suffused with a marvelous scent: fallen blooms on the steps. A nearby flute, its faint piping drifts in from a neighbor to the north; Village wine, its aroma wafting in from a house to the east. [I mention this because one of my neighbors to the east is a winemaker.]

If my eastern neighbor were to offer me his village wine so fine, Here on my mat it would surely heighten my mood to versify!

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三宮 (輔仁親王)

393

春夜即事

竹戸柴門春色媚 夜深只見月光斜 夢驚暗韻廻庭水 衣染奇香落砌花 隣笛幽聲傳北里 村醪滋味驗東家 東隣有酒家、故云。

東家若贈村醪美 席上定教詩興加 SOURCE: hcmds 216, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 478–80; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines six and seven: “Village wine” (cun lao 村醪 ) is more literally “village cloudy wine.” For more on the word lao, see the notes to hcmds 202, above. BIOGRAPHY: Prince Sukehito (1073–1119), also known as Sannomiya, “The Third Prince,” was the third son of Emperor Go-Sanjō (d. 1073) and Minamoto no Motoko 源基子. Go-Sanjō had proclaimed that the throne would pass to his eldest son Sadahito 定仁 (later Emperor Shirakawa), then to his second son Sanehito 實仁. When Sanehito died, in 1085, Sannomiya expected to be next in line, but Shirakawa’s son took the throne instead, as Emperor Horikawa (r. 1086–1107). When Sukehito was around fourteen, seeing no prospect for his own succession, he took up residence at a retreat in the precincts of Ninnaji 仁和寺, absorbing himself in poetic activity and playing the pipes (shō 笙), as if having left the world behind. Around this time he acquired the sobriquet of Third Prince, gathering a coterie around him known as The Hundred Lords of the Third Prince, among them Fujiwara no Atsumitsu (see hcmds 25, above). In 1113 a loyal supporter of Sannomiya named Priest Jinkan 仁寛, assisted by a group of followers, plotted the assassination of Toba (r. 1107–23), who had succeeded Horikawa. Sannomiya was accused of involvement in the conspiracy and spent two years under virtual house arrest. While in confinement, he continued to devote himself to literary activities, writing kanshi and waka. Becoming increasingly despondent, Sannomiya took vows in 1119 and died just days later. Besides his verse in the present anthology, Sannomiya has poems in Shinsen rōeishū, Kin’yōshū, and Senzaishū. His son was the distinguished poet Minamoto no Arihito 源有仁 (1103–47). For further information on Sannomiya’s life and literary activities, see Smits, “Reading the New Ballads,” pp. 178–81.

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Fujiwara no Munemitsu. Speaking My Mind on a Spring Night 1



Now as I lean against my desk, why am I feeling sad? A spring night, late at night, and very few visitors come. As I lie on my pillow all I can hear is the sound of drizzling rain;

[It was raining at the time, hence this line.]



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When I open my books, often it’s by the light of a fading lamp. For years I’ve taken delight in The Way, in the ranks of dormitory students. Sooner or later I’ll make my mark and proceed to the Emperor’s court. The lingering cold of winter remains, so I stay beside the fire; I look outside and it’s not yet dawn, but I need to get myself dressed. A pine tree growing at the bottom of a valley cannot be of use; A bird that is kept inside a cage is unable to fly around. Friends, in earlier times we used to sleep in a bamboo pen. Later, treated like worn out maid-servants, shut in a ramshackle shed. On the road to officialdom, I lament, I still have far to go. I’m slowly realizing past mistakes I made in my earlier life. I leave you with the following thoughts, all my fellow revelers: Let’s drink and chant to our heart’s content and not go home emptyhanded!

藤原宗光

春宵言志

一馮几案心何苦 春夜夜深客至稀 儭枕唯聞殘雨韻 于時雨降、故云。

披書頻挑暗燈輝 多年樂道齒黌舍 早晚抽身趨紫微 爲有餘寒猶向火 更臨未旦欲求衣 松生澗底無攸用 鳥在籠中不得飛 先與親朋眠竹檻 遂命羸婢掩荊扉 官途猶歎前程遠 人世漸知往事非 寄語斯時遊放士 觴吟興盡莫空歸

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SOURCE: hcmds 224, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 493–96; pailü (sixteen lines, heptasyllabic). LINE ONE: The graph 馮 is a variant for 憑, “to lean against.” LINE FIVE: “Tak[ing] delight in The Way” refers to diligent study of the Confucian classics. Lines nine and ten: Munemitsu is lamenting the fact that his talents are not fully employed. Line fifteen: The first character in the Honma text is 官, which appears to be a misprint for 寄 (given correctly in the annotations); we have emended the text accordingly. See commentary, pp. 493, 495. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Munemitsu (1070–1143) was the son of Arinobu 有信 (d. 1099) and the brother of Sanemitsu. In 1097/12 he took the hōryaku exam and by 1104 was senior secretary (daijō 大丞) in the Ministry of Ceremonial. At this time he was also an attendant to the Retired Emperor. Munemitsu served as vice-governor of Echigo (1098) and secretary of Awa (1121). Records for the Imperial Police dated 1133 list him as acting assistant captain of the Left Gate Guards, with the rank of senior fifth, lower. According to Sonpi bunmyaku, his posts included right major controller, senior secretary in the Ministry of Central Affairs, senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, and director of the Academy. Munemitsu participated in a waka event held at the Tobain Detached Palace in 1104. He reached the rank of junior fourth, upper. Honchō mudaishi preserves four of his poems. COMMENTS: Poems expressing dissatisfaction with life as an Academy student are rare, ones that describe dormitory living conditions even more so. Particularly poignant is the phrase kong gui 空歸, “go home empty-handed,” in the last line; Munemitsu is reminding his companions that however discouraged they may feel about Academy life they need to stay the course.

Fujiwara no Atsumitsu. Relating My Thoughts at the End of the Third Month [With set rhymes] 1



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The Third Month has come to an end, bright throughout the day. I cherish the spring but it will not stay, feelings of longing persist. By deep grasses a shimmering mirage, dancing about in the light. Blossoms fallen, the forest warblers head homeward to retire. On the scholarly path how could I bear to falter in my pace? In my public career I’m so ill-favored, given endless tasks. That old purple-wisteria poem conveys the way I feel;

[Bai Letian wrote a poem about the last day of the Third Month, which has the line, “Under the purple wisteria blossoms, dusk gradually arrives.” Hence this line.]

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Pink apricot blossoms’ faded beauty is anathema to my eyes. For a little while, to forget my cares I pour some cassia wine. Now that the season is changing I should take out my plaintain robes; The grey-hair age now draws near, but I’m sunk in the rivers of study. I’m tired of holding a great man’s hopes as I gaze towards the palace. I am not at all like the lurking fish that swim against the current; Rather, I resemble a retreating heron flying against the wind. Though the race against time has always been more valuable than the disk of jade, I quietly recite some literary pieces, as I lean on my bamboo door.

藤原敦光

三月盡日述懷 勒

三月盡時一日暉 惜春不駐思依依 草深野馬迎晴亂 花落林鶯告老歸 文路何堪迷寸步 官徒獨隔從 去聲 繁機 紫藤昔詠心中是 白樂天三月盡日詩。紫藤花下漸黃昏之句。

故云。

紅杏晚粧眼下非 暫爲忘憂斟桂酒 只須隨節製蕉衣 二毛齡近沉洙水 仙骨望疲仰禁闈 未類潛魚凌浪泝 還同退鶃嚮風飛 競陰本自重於璧 閑誦藻篇倚竹扇 SOURCE: hcmds 240, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 531–34; pailü (sixteen lines, heptasyllabic). TITLE: Spring lasted from the beginning of the First Month until the end of the Third Month. LINE FOUR: Referring to the departure of the warblers, the poet uses the expression gao lao 告老, which means to request permission to retire on account of old age. Atsumitsu may have wished to leave public life behind, but as line eleven indicates

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he was only around thirty (the “grey hair” age) at the time; he had not yet finished his studies and his career had barely begun. As it turned out, Atsumitsu was unable to retire until he had entered his eighties. LINE SIX: Following the word cong 從 the poet adds a note indicating that this word should be read in the “departing” tone, qu sheng 去聲. Poet’s note to LINE SEVEN: The poem Atsumitsu refers to is a Bai Letian (Bai Juyi) quatrain titled “Sanyue sanshi ri ti Ci’en si” 三月三十日題慈恩寺 (Inscribed at Ci’en Monastery on the Thirtieth Day of the Third Month). It reads: “The spring beauty at Ci’en came to an end this morning. / All day long I wandered about and now lean on the temple gate. / It saddens me that spring is departing and I cannot make it stay. / Under the purple wisteria blossoms dusk gradually arrives” 慈恩春色今朝盡、盡日徘 徊倚寺門。惆悵春歸留不得、紫藤花下漸黄昏. The Ci’en monastery was in Chang’an; within its precincts stood the Da Yan Ta 大雁塔 (Great Wild Goose Pagoda), built in 652. It was the custom during Tang times for successful examination candidates to climb to the top of this pagoda and inscribe poems on its walls. Bai Juyi passed the presented scholar examination in 800, and he probably wrote this poem after his success. Perhaps Atsumitsu felt a certain degree of wistful envy, longing for similar good fortune. LINE TEN: Plantain robes were worn in summer, as they were made of light fiber. LINE ELEVEN: The phrase “grey hair age” (er mao ling 二毛齡), literally “the age of hair of two colors,” i.e. black and grey, is largely associated with the third-century poet Pan Yue. At the beginning of his preface to “Qiu xing fu” 秋興賦 (Rhapsody on Autumn Inspirations), Pan mentions having seen his first grey hairs when he was thirty-two. The “rivers of study” is literally “the waters of the Zhu.” This river, along with the river Si 泗, with which it is often paired, is in Shandong. Because Confucius taught in the general vicinity of these two rivers, their names have come to stand for Confucian learning. Lines thirteen and fourteen: The graph xiang 嚮 is a variant for 向. Whereas the metaphorical “lurking fish” are students successfully “battling the current” in their studies, heading upstream in the quest for eventual success, the heron, Atsumitsu himself, is retreating, forced back by the winds of adversity. Lines fifteen and sixteen: The jade disk reference calls to mind the famous one associated with Bian He, perhaps the most highly-prized treasure in China’s history; see the notes to kks 187, above. Line fifteen makes it clear that Atsumitsu realizes time should not be wasted—and line five contains a similar sentiment—but this is exactly what he is now doing: chanting verse for pleasure and taking things easy, perhaps resigned to a life of slow career progress. The earlier references to changing into casual clothes and drinking wine would seem to support this interpretation. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 25.

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Fujiwara no Atsumitsu. Written Impromptu on a Summer Day Although I’ve long been aware of the custom of hanging up one’s cart, It’s hard to remove the hatpin and tassels of service to our sagely lord. Snowy temples, body frail, yet still taking pleasure in The Way; My delight in nature has gradually declined, but I’ve not stopped writing verse. The old cow licks its calf at the edge of the city in the dew; The immortal crane leads its chicks in flight through the grotto clouds.

[My middle son Nagamitsu has been appointed as a chamberlain, and my youngest son Narimitsu has been given a stipend at the Academy. I am tremendously grateful. Thus, I offer these two lines.]

Privileged I am to be in attendance at this matchless poetry banquet. My only troubling thought is that the sun is sinking in the west. 藤原敦光

夏日即事

懸車禮曲早雖聞 難脫簪纓事聖君 雪鬢衰來猶樂道 風情減去未拋文 老牛舐犢郊端露 仙鶴將鶵洞裡雲 中子長光補 侍中職。少子成光給學問 料。 不堪情感。故獻此句。

幸侍萬年詩酒席 唯愁西日影方曛 SOURCE: hcmds 264, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 586–88; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This poem was written in 1137, when the poet was seventy-five. LINE ONE: “Hanging up one’s cart” (xuan che 懸車) refers to turning seventy, the age at which officials traditionally retired. For further details, see the notes to hdg 51. LINE TWO: Hatpin and tassels: the insignia of office. Removing them signifies retirement. LINE THREE: The Way refers in this instance to traditional scholarly learning, not to Daoism. Lines five and six: The allusions to the old cow licking its calf and the crane leading its young refer to parental affection and care. See also hcmds 455, written some fifteen years earlier, where Atsumitsu uses the same figures, lamenting that although he is sixty he cannot retire, because his sons are not yet properly established. Nagamitsu

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永光 (長光, 1103–75?) was Atsumitsu’s second son, Narimitsu 成光 (1111–80) his fourth.

Nagamitsu’s posts included chamberlain, governor of Mutsu, head of the Bureau of Palace Storehouses, and professor in the Academy. He reached the senior fourth rank, lower, and retired to Mount Kōya in 1175, taking vows as a priest. Narimitsu passed his taisaku exam and went on to serve as governor of Buzen, master of the Right Office of the Capital, and senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial. His highest rank was senior fourth, lower (ibid., p. 587). The stipend was awarded to Narimitsu in response to a petition dated 1137/6/25, this document preserved in Honchō zoku monzui, vol. 6 (see the commentary, p. 588). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 25.

Fujiwara no Atsumitsu. Written Impromptu on a Summer Day 1



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To this beautiful spot in summer we’ve come; the view goes on forever. The timeless scenery here at this place for years has stayed the same. Yellow plums, now ripe beside the silk-curtained window; Dark swallows, leading their young, within the painted tower. Brushes and ink stones—our attention on words, creating poetic gems; Pipes and strings—music in harmony with the wind among the pines. I comb the frosty hair on my temples; in my failure and despair now white. Lotuses cover the water in the pond; forlorn and alone, showing pink. In the “garden of scholars” I’ve been ashamed by the gulf between flowering and fading; In the “land of the drunk” I have come to realize that slander and praise mean nothing. My sole joy in life is that gracious favor reaches my remote retreat. I’m often in attendance at lavish banquets, though I dwell in a humble lane.

藤原敦光

夏日即事

勝地夏來望不窮 萬年景氣逐年同 黄梅熟子紗窗下 玄燕引雛畫閣中 翰墨詞凝擒藻露 管絃曲和入松風 梳霜鬢髮蹉跎白 覆水芙蓉寂寞紅 文苑獨慙榮悴異

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醉鄉自識毀譽空 唯歡恩愛及衡泌 屢侍花筵陋巷躬 SOURCE: hcmds 265, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 1, pp. 588–91; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). LINE FOUR: The dark swallows leading their young may be a reference to courtiers who have brought along their sons to introduce them into court society. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 25. COMMENTS: Being invited to social events held by the nobility seems to have been a bittersweet honor for Atsumitsu, who, judging from the last line, viewed himself as a sort of poor relation. Once he had entered “the land of the drunk” he was able to detach himself somewhat from the keen sense of resentment and preoccupation with his own feelings of failure that occupied his thoughts to the end of his days.

Fujiwara no Tadamichi. Three Autumn Poems (#3) East I head from the gates of the capital for about ten miles or so To a house with eaves of sedge, a mugwort roof, and a bamboo gate. If not this place, then where else in the world would I go? Thus, in the Land of Nothing-At-All I’ve made this site my home. The Floating World as perilous and rocky as the waters of the Three Gorges. Like the end-of-year scenery, these two eyebrows of frost. This mania for verse is an ailment sure to afflict me the rest of my life; I’ve no use at all for skilled physicians, for they do not have a cure. 藤原忠道

秋三首

東去都門十里強 茅簷蓬宇竹扉房 若其非此求何處 所以無何卜此郷 浮世崎嶇三峡水 暮年風物兩眉霜 詩魔應是終身病 不用良醫不識方

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SOURCE: hcmds 274, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 19–21; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE FOUR: “The Land of Nothing-At-All,” originally 無何有之鄉 but abridged here, is derived from the “Xiaoyao you” chapter in Zhuangzi and refers to an imaginary place devoid of all things. This allusion lends an air of Daoist mysticism to Tadamichi’s hermitage, creating a linkage with the time-honored tradition of eremitism. LINE FIVE: “Floating World”: a Buddhist-inspired term for the ever-changing human world. The Three Gorges are situated in a region along the Yangzi River, near the border between Sichuan and Hubei. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hdg 7.

Fujiwara no Akihira. A Quiet Conversation on an Autumn Night [With set rhymes] 1



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Autumn reflections on a bleak and lonely night. Quietly talking, myriad thoughts welling up. A wind from afar buffets my hut of thatch; Lingering raindrops drip from my eaves of sedge. Unblessed by destiny, plagued by misfortune and trouble; Bumbling along, growing older by the day. The sound of the pine trees reaches my tumbledown house; The scent of orchids invades the gappy blinds. Drab and spiritless dark clouds cover the sky; Pale and misty moon, a sliver of light. A plain koto just lying there by the window. Yellow volumes merely filling boxes. Stone needles, hard my illness to cure; Robe collar, easily soaked with tears. As I’ve said before to you, my like-minded guest, “Before we die let’s see each other often.”

藤原明衡

秋夜閑談 勒

秋思悄然夜 閑談萬感兼 遠嵐摧草戸 殘溜滴茅簷 蹇剝命猶薄 蹉跎老自添

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松聲來壞宇 蘭氣襲疏簾 慘澹雲膚暗 朣朧月影纖 素琴纔置牖 黃卷只盈匳 砭藥痾難療 衣襟淚易霑 嘗言同志客 未死數相瞻 SOURCE: hcmds 293, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 62–64; pailü (sixteen lines, pentasyllabic). LINE THIRTEEN: Stone needles were used in acupuncture. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Akihira (989–1066) was the son of Fujiwara no Atsunobu 藤原敦信, a respected scholar who once served as tutor to the regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi. Akihira became a student at the Academy as early as 1004 (chronologies differ) but made slow progress. He received a stipend in 1014 and began his graduate studies, finally taking the taisaku examination in 1032 at around the age of forty-four. His first post, beginning in 1032, was in the Left Gate Guards, concurrent with one in the Imperial Police. Two years later, he was appointed lieutenant in the Right Gate Guards. By 1048, he had become governor of Izumo. His other offices included junior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial (ca. 1054–56), professor of letters (1062), classics tutor in the Crown Prince’s Quarters (1063), and finally, director of the Academy (ca. 1066), by which time he held the junior fourth rank, lower. Akihira’s career no doubt was hindered by his involvement in two exam scandals, one in 1034 and another some eight years later. Both incidents were viewed as attempts by him to protest against examination practices. Nevertheless, Akihira is well remembered today for his scholarly activities and his excellence as a kanshi and waka poet. Most notably, he was the compiler of Honchō monzui (ca. 1060), a large anthology of kanshi and kanbun providing exemplary models of poetic and prose genres (see the Introduction). Other works include a narrative of popular mores, Shin sarugaku ki 新猿樂記 (A New Account of Sarugaku [Monkey Music], ca. 1060), and Meigō ōrai 明衡往來 (The Letters of Meigō [Akihira], 1066), a rich source of information on court life that became an influential guidebook for later letter-writers. Akihira also compiled Honchō shūku 本朝秀句 (A Collection of Exemplary Couplets from Our Court), non-extant. Many works by him are found in Honchō zoku monzui (32 pieces), Chōya gunsai (3 pieces), Honchō mudaishi (47 kanshi), and Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū (12 kanshi). He also wrote numerous poetry prefaces, preserved in Shijoshū 詩序集 (ca. 1132–35).

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Fujiwara no Akihira. Written Impromptu in Late Autumn [With set rhymes] 1



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Sere and dreary the autumn landscape, yet still a sight to behold. Scenery drab and desolate, no matter where you look. Reeds, snowy-white and chilly, forlorn beneath the banks; Orchids, purple in tattered shreds, there beside the hedge. My thoughts stray to the Gorges of Ba, where gibbons continually howl. I cast my glance toward Hengshan, with its line of geese in flight. Cares forgotten, heart pure and empty, subsisting just on ice; Hoary hair, now thinning and faded; combing the frost on my head. In the dark forest, falling leaves; strong winds reaching my bed. By ancient mounds the fading chrysanthemums, scented in the moonlight. If you esteem the Uncrowned King and the Literary Way, You’ll surely be moved by the heart that loves to versify in old age.

藤原明衡

暮秋即事 勒

闌珊秋景足相望 風物蕭疏幾滿場 蘆荻雪寒孤岸下 蕙蘭紫碎女墻傍 遣懷巴峽猿三叫 送眼衡山雁一行 丹棘清虛胸飲凍 蒼華衰變首梳霜 暮林葉落嵐聲縟 古壝菊殘月影芳 若貴素王文學道 爲憐老後嚐詩腸 SOURCE: hcmds 302, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 81–83; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). LINE FIVE: Ba was an ancient polity centered around modern Chongqing 重慶 in Si-­ chuan. The trope of hearing gibbons howling from distant mountains occurs often in Sinitic verse, one example seen in Du Fu’s “Deng gao” 登高 (Climbing High): the sound seemed to echo the sadness and disorientation of the homesick traveler. LINE SIX: Hengshan 衡山 is the name of a mountain range in Hunan and one of the Five Sacred Mountains of Daoism. It is 150 kilometers long and said to have seventy-two peaks. The sight of wild geese in flight was traditionally associated with the loneliness of separation and a reminder that winter was approaching.

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LINE SEVEN: Subsisting just on ice is emblematic of living in extreme but noble poverty. LINE ELEVEN: The “Uncrowned (literally ‘plain’) King” 素王 is a reference to Confucius. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 293.

Priest Renzen. A Casual Poem Written in Early Winter Tumbledown and cold this cottage with its three ancient paths. For pleasure I amble slowly about in the rays of the setting sun. Chrysanthemum beauty, golden remnants growing close at hand; The sound of the leaves, a crisp brocade, scattered in wondrous patterns. Since early morning the brazier cold, without a fire burning; Autumn gone, the robes I wear feel thinner than the clouds. My brushwood gate I never open for no one comes to visit. From this time on, with whom shall I share the secrets of my heart? 釋蓮禪

初冬偶詠

荒涼一屋古三逕 行樂微微日漸曛 菊色金殘當歩武 葉聲錦脆散奇文 曉來爐氣寒無火 秋後衲衣薄自雲 柴戸不開人不訪 從斯心事與誰云 SOURCE: hcmds 321, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 126–27; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE ONE: On “three paths,” see kkbs 182. LINE TWO: The phrase 行樂, rendered here as “for pleasure,” may be an error for 行藥, which means walking around after taking medicine in order to hasten its effects. See commentary, pp. 126–27 and fss 45, where the same interpretation is also possible. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes hcmds 50.

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Fujiwara no Sanenori. Written Impromptu on a Winter Day Addicted to versifying: inner impulses taking shape in words. I force myself to visit this garden with its scenery so fine. I’m like a child, which I often lament, for it makes me ill-behaved. In the “bamboo strip” realm nothing achieved; I’m tired of paring bamboo. Getting old, slowly combing the snow upon my head; Rash and hasty, viewing only the stars you’d see through a bamboo tube. At social events I certainly am the most boorish of guests. It’s odd in one’s declining years to be mixing with folk in their prime. 藤原實範

冬日即事

詩癖内催言外形 憖來水石勝遊庭 棘心多歎摧方赤 竹簡無功倦殺青 老去漸梳頭上雪 性怱纔見管中星 傍交獨作厚顔客 可怪暮年接壮齡 SOURCE: hcmds 328, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 138–40; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE THREE: The phrase ji xin 棘心 (literally “jujube-hearted” and rendered here as “like a child”) is derived from a passage in Ode 32, “Kai Feng” 凱風 (Warm Gusts) in Shijing: “The warm gusts from the south / Blow on the heart of the jujube tree. / The jujube heart is young and tender. / Our mother endured such toil and suffering” 凱風自南、吹彼棘心。棘心夭夭、母氏劬勞. “Heart of the jujube tree” denotes a mind that is immature and insufficiently appreciative of its mother’s nurturing, represented here as warm gusts of wind. LINE FOUR: “Bamboo strip realm” refers to the world of literature. Sha qing 殺青 is the process of paring down the bamboo to remove the green, then heating it to drive out the moisture, making the material less susceptible to mold and insect damage. The phrase also connotes refining and polishing one’s writings. Sanenori evidently could no longer be bothered fussing over his compositions, or maybe he had given up writing altogether. LINE SIX: Sanenori’s star metaphor refers to his own acknowledged narrowmindedness and ignorance. This is reminiscent of Zhuangzi’s parable about the frog that lived at the bottom of a well and imagined that what he saw was the entire world.

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BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Sanenori (d. ca. 1062) belonged to the Kose no Maro 巨勢麿 family branch of the Nanke (Southern) Fujiwara. The son of Yoshimichi 能通, sometime governor of Tajima, Sanenori studied history and literature under Fujiwara no Yoshitada 藤原義忠. He was the first in a long line of high-level Academy scholars that included two of his sons. In 1026 Sanenori passed his taisaku exam, becoming a chamberlain around 1027 and receiving an appointment in the Ministry of Ceremonial the following year. Other positions included senior assistant head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. See Honma, Ruijū kudaishō, p. 954. After reaching the junior fifth rank, lower, Sanenori lost his Ministry of Ceremonial post, apparently because of involvement in a scandal in 1034/11: he and Fujiwara no Akihira were accused of having acted improperly in administering examinations. Sanenori eventually recovered from this setback and served for a period around 1040 as assistant captain of the Left Middle Palace Guards, followed by an appointment as governor of Bingo around 1047. Sanenori’s fortunes began to improve when he was appointed professor of letters in 1053, later being named director of the Academy in 1062. That same year, he resigned from service owing to illness and is thought to have passed away soon thereafter. He had by then reached the junior fourth rank, upper. Sanenori’s kanshi are preserved in Honchō mudaishi (15 verses), Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū (2 verses), and Honchō zoku monzui (9 prose pieces).

Fujiwara no Tadamichi. Speaking My Mind on a Winter Night [With set rhymes] All my life wintery scenes have left me deeply moved. The full moon shines, brightly brightly, visible now it is night. White mist cloaks the hills, red maple leaves all gone; Indigo ripples splash the banks, green moss cold. Dark the sound of the misty wind; desolate longing for home. Faint the ringing of bells and chimes; shreds of the traveler’s dreams. Composing poems, no thoughts of sleep, the tipsy versifying guests Still pursue their merrymaking as the night wears slowly on. 藤原忠通

冬夜言志 勒

自元冬景憐旁至 明月明明入夜看 白霧籠山紅葉盡 蒼波洗岸青苔寒 煙嵐韻暗鄉心冷 鐘磬聲幽旅夢殘

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吟詠不眠詩酒客 猶催遊宴漏徐闌 SOURCE: hcmds 333, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 148–49; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE TWO: The word ming 明, rendered here as “full” and then “brightly,” occurs three times. It is difficult to say whether this repetition is a calculated rhetorical flourish or the result of inexperience (see the next note). LINE EIGHT: Honma Yōichi speculates that this poem and the one by Fujiwara no Shigeakira immediately following were composed on the same occasion, in 1107, because the rhymes are identical. Since Shigeakira identifies his own age as fifteen in the last line of his poem, Tadamichi would have only been around ten at the time, making this perhaps his earliest extant verse. See the Honma commentary, vol. 2, pp. 149, 151. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hdg 7.

Fujiwara no Shigeakira. Speaking My Mind on a Winter Night A winter’s night, lonely and desolate, and falling asleep is hard. Garden grove a splendid sight, a wonder to behold. The courtyard before me a moonlit scene, cold as I gaze. Beyond the clouds the cries of wild geese, chilly from my pillow. Quiet rain patters on the window, sky not yet light; Solitary lamp against the wall, dawn and it flickers still. A pity having to study so hard, worn out beside firefly light. But now I am in my fifteenth year and autumn is already gone. 藤原茂明

冬夜言志

冬夜蕭蕭夢結難 林園勝趣足相看 庭前月色當望冷 雲外雁聲落枕寒 暗雨打窗天未曙 孤燈背壁曉猶殘 爲憐苦學疲螢幌 十五年廻秋已闌

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SOURCE: hcmds 334, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 150–51; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE SEVEN: The firefly reference concerns a poor but dedicated fourth-century scholar named Che Yin 車胤, who found a way to continue his studies at night without a lamp by gathering a bag of fireflies and using them for light. LINE EIGHT: An even earlier poem co-authored by Shigeakira survives in Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū, maki 5, said to have been written when he was around eleven. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 81.

Ōe no Masafusa. A Casual Poem Written on a Winter Night 1



5



10





15



Slowly, slowly time drags by; in winter dawn comes late. In dress and diet I cosset myself, taking care of this aged body. At times I dispatch the kitchen boy to bring me a herbal brew; At night I ask my wife to go and warm the bedding up. A mandarin quilt, one layer thick; I can sleep when it’s frosty out; A parrot cup, three drinks, and it’s springtime after snow! When Xuanshi poured himself some wine the chilliness seemed to vanish; When “Jade Mountain” collapsed it was as if warm winds had arrived. South of the mountains, his old enthusiasm: where had it gone? North of the river, at that summer party: how many rounds did they drink? The misty winds from the land of verse never follow me about; In the realm of the drunk the sun and moon care not upon whom they shine. Although this withered face of mine wears a reddish hue, Now in old age, I’m ashamed to admit that my taste for food remains. My morning attendance at the palace sessions will gradually decrease. Perhaps I desire a country estate and to serve Yao as an official.

大江匡房

冬夜偶吟

遲遲鐘漏冬難曙 衣食養生扶老身 時遣廚兒羞藥銚 夜教閨婦煖華茵 鴛衾一襲霜中夢 鸚盞三杯雪後春 玄石酌如寒氣盡 玉山傾似暖風新

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山陰昔興歸何處 河朔夏遊是幾巡 詩境煙嵐無從我 醉鄉日月不分人 衰顏縱有借紅色 暮齒猶慙動味塵 天闕朝参應漸少 恐貪茅土作堯臣 SOURCE: hcmds 335, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 150–51; pailü (sixteen lines, heptasyllabic). LINE FOUR: Wife: more literally boudoir wife, paralleling kitchen boy in the previous line. LINE FIVE: Mandarin ducks, symbolizing marital harmony, were embroidered on quilts shared by married couples. LINE SIX: For an explanation of “parrot cup,” see the notes to cbsk 23–7, above. LINE SEVEN: This is Liu Xuanshi 劉玄石, a legendary figure said to have once drunk an especially potent wine that made him comatose; the wineshop proprietor had failed to tell him to drink only a small amount. Believing he was dead, Liu’s family had him buried. A thousand days later the proprietor exhumed Liu, who regained consciousness after his coffin was opened. LINE EIGHT: “Jade Mountain” refers to the poet Ji (or Xi) Kang, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (see the notes to fss 32). Xi had a reputation for being as dignified as a lone pine when sober, but like a “jade mountain ready to collapse” when drunk. By “warm winds” the poet is referring again to the warmth felt after drinking. “Collapsed” (qing 傾) also means “to pour”; thus the line could also be interpreted as saying, “When ‘Jade Mountain’ poured (his wine)…” When qing is ascribed this second meaning, verbal parallelism with the synonymous zhuo 酌 (to pour) in line seven is created. LINE NINE: This is a reference to a tale about a man named Wang Ziyou 王子猷 (d. 388). One snowy moonlit night after drinking, Wang set out in his boat to visit a friend. After reaching the man’s door he turned around and went home, his desire to see his friend having suddenly evaporated. LINE TEN: “North of the river” 河朔 is occasionally seen in kanshi where wine is featured. This alludes to an extended party held by an aristocrat named Liu Song 劉松 (third century) on the northern banks of the Yellow River during the dog days of summer. For further details, see hcrs 29, above. Lines eleven and twelve: Masafusa may be saying that even though he has been deserted by his poetic muse, wine can always be relied upon to bring him pleasure.

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Line sixteen: Emperor Yao was one of the semi-mythical Sage Emperors, purportedly reigning during the twenty-fourth and twenty-third centuries bce. BIOGRAPHY: Ōe no Masafusa (1041–1111) was the great-grandson of Akazome Emon 赤染衛門, a distinguished female poet, and Masahira (d. 1012), an influential Confucian scholar and literatus and the former tutor to Emperor Ichijō. His father was Narihira 成衡, who once headed the Academy and served as senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial. Masafusa reputedly praised his father for the way he treasured and preserved the family library, creating an environment that enabled him to flourish as a scholar. For more on Narihira, in Masafusa’s own words cited in Gōdanshō, see Shibayama, pp. 227–29. Masafusa rose to become a commanding figure in the world of Chinese letters, ranking alongside Fujiwara no Akihira and Fujiwara no Tadamichi as one of the three leading scholars of the age. He was considered a true prodigy early on, having set his mind on pursuing scholarship by age fifteen, according to his autobiographical account Bonen no ki 暮年記 (Record of My Twilight Years, ca. 1099); see ibid., p. 149. Masafusa passed his Academy examinations at sixteen and his taisaku exam just two years later, a testimony to his unusual scholarly prowess. He served as tutor and advisor to five emperors. Masafusa’s appointments included secretary of Tanba province (1057, possibly his first post), senior assistant in the Ministry of Ceremonial (ca. 1081), left major controller (1090), consultant (1090), provisional middle counselor (1094), and acting governor-general of the Government Headquarters in Kyushu (ca. 1097). Although his final years were marred by ill health, he acted as head of the Treasury in 1111 for a short period. Masafusa also served as a bettō 別当 (superintendent) for Ex-Emperor Shirakawa’s household office and was married to the daughter of Emperor Horikawa’s wet nurse, bringing him a high level of access and trust among the nobility. He reached the senior second rank in 1102. Masafusa was like many courtiers at this time, composing waka and kanshi with equal facility. His extant Sinitic corpus includes pieces in almost every major genre, from works on rites and ceremonies and Buddhist prayers (ganmon 願文) to biographies (den 伝) and amusing treatises (ki 記) on “curious” aspects of contemporary life, including ones on saints and immortals, the supernatural, and groups on the fringes of society, such as the puppeteers in his aforementioned essay Kugutsu no ki. Masafusa also wrote commentaries on Wakan rōeishū and The Tale of Genji as well. Among his best known works is Gōdanshō 江談抄, a collection of his conversations on sundry topics including literature, which has helped keep his memory alive. He was also the author of Gōke shidai, previously mentioned, and Gōki 江記 (Ōe’s Diary), which, although believed to have been burned by Masafusa himself near the end of his life, remains partially extant through secondary sources, documenting the affairs of his family and political developments. Numerous kanshi (including prose-poems) attributed to Masafusa are found in Honchō zoku monzui, Nihon shiki, Honchō mudaishi, and elsewhere. A significant quantity of his waka have survived in his Gō no sochi shū 江帥集 (Governor-General Ōe’s Literary Collection) and in two Edo compilations, - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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Masafusa shū 匡房集 and Masafusa kyō kashū 匡房卿家集; still other works (with dup­ lication) are contained in Nihon shiki, Goshūishū, Kin’yōshū, Senzaishū, and Shikashū. An obituary for Masafusa found in Chūyūki, dated 1111/11, praises him as “a beacon of light in the literary world” 文之燈燭也 and “truly the brightest mirror in world” 誠是天下明鏡也, while criticizing him for having eccentric and devious ways and for lacking a sense of responsibility toward his duties. Marian Ury observes that Masafusa was something of a “polymath” and was “adept at Daoist lore,” adding that he also had “[a] reputation as a greedy and dishonest governor” that was likely not apocryphal. See Ury, “Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life,” p. 388. For an illustration of Masafusa’s occasional bizarreness and intellectual eclecticism, see hcmds 359, below. Further information on the life of this important figure and his large literary legacy can be found in Kawaguchi Hisao, Ōe no Masafusa (1968) and Iso Mizue, Ōe no Masafusa: sekigaku no bunjin kanryō (2010). Scholarship in English includes Saeko Shibayama’s dissertation, “Ōe no Masafusa and the Convergence of the ‘Ways’,” a comprehensive account of Masasfusa’s life and works; Marian Ury, “Ōe no Masafusa and the Practice of Heian Autobiography,” ed. Robert Borgen, in Monumenta Nipponica 51.2 (Summer 1996); and Robert Borgen, “Ōe no Masafusa and the Spirit of Michizane,” in Monumenta Nipponica 50.3 (Autumn 1995).

Nakahara no Hirotoshi. Written Impromptu Near the End of the Year Two or three of my poetry friends I somehow chanced to meet. This time of year is hard to bear, the depths of winter approach. The scenery: how many times bathed by the chilly waters of the moon? Frost and wind: how many years have they touched the ancient valley pines? Now that we’re drunk, it’s as though our spirits have felt the warmth of spring; Once we’re old, our brows and the hair on our temples will be covered in snow. Our spirits soar—no sleep for us tonight beside the lamp. What do we care that when dawn arrives the palace bells will ring! 中原廣俊

歲暮即事

兩三詩友自然逢 斯處不堪欲暮冬 光景幾廻寒瀬月 風霜多歳古溪松 醉中意氣如春暖 老後鬢眉被雪封 乗興無眠燈下夜 曉來遮莫魏宮鐘 - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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SOURCE: hcmds 343, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 167–69; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE EIGHT: Hirotoshi and his companions need to be at the palace by dawn to start the day’s work. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 70.

Priest Renzen. A Refined Conversation Beside the Brazier Quietly chatting, drinking a little wine with several friends. A winter’s night, the night is long, impossible to sleep. Before the deep brazier we sit, warming up some wine; Beside the little bookshelf I stand, trimming the wick of the lamp. Since growing old I’ve completely forgotten the misty flowers and the moon; Even asleep, I continue to think of the Buddha, the priesthood, and the Law. When my pillow is cold, my bed chilly, my garments freezing too, I somehow know that there’s snow on the mountains and ice on the ponds. 釋蓮禪

爐邊清談

閑談少飲兩三朋 冬夜夜長寐不能 深火爐前居煖酒 小書架下立挑燈 老來都忘煙花月 眠底猶思佛法僧 枕冷床寒衣也冱 暗知山雪與池冰 SOURCE: hcmds 351, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 185–86; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Refined conversation (qingtan 清談) refers to the abstruse philosophical discussions of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. LINE FIVE: In his old age the poet has lost interest in the attractions of spring, represented here by the “misty flowers and the moon.” Since spring is often associated with love and sexuality in Chinese poetics, Renzen may also be indicating that he no longer has carnal desires. Line six would seem to support this idea. LINE SIX: These are known as the Three Treasures of Buddhism. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50.

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Priest Renzen. A Quiet Conversation Beside the Brazier A winter’s day, I’ve invited guests to come here for a visit; Sitting and lying beside the brazier, time slips slowly by. A toasty fire of mugwort and brambles; we doze and warm our hands. Fine the wine made out of grapes; tipsy, we relax. Our conversation tonight amidst the snow is at an end. We’ll get together again next spring, meet beneath the flowers. Our humorous discussions and crazy talk have all been idle chatter. Instead we ought to strive for words that earn us karmic merit. 釋蓮禪

爐邊閑談

冬天延客式遊時 坐臥爐邊鐘漏遲 蒿蕀火溫眠炙手 葡萄酒美醉開眉 前談今夜雪中盡 後會明春花下期 戲論狂言皆口業 翻之爭作善根詞 SOURCE: hcmds 354, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 192–94; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines seven and eight: For “idle chatter” Renzen has used the Buddhist term kou ye 口業, which designates karma created by speech. In line eight, Renzen seems to be expressing the hope that next time they meet their conversation will be less frivolous and more centered on Buddhism. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50.

Fujiwara no Chikamitsu. At Leisure, Enjoying the Cool Dense pines, old moss—a hidden, peaceful spot. Here I find I am never troubled at all by the heat. Blocking the sun, emerald vines: a different season, you’d think. Unrolled in the breezes, my green mat: I lie amidst autumn sounds. Alone, next to a pavilion by a stream, the winding waters cold. From afar I smile at the fancy carriages: folk wipe their brows as they pass.

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Who would know that on this sweltering day I’ve set aside my tasks? My plantain clothes and gauze cap are fine for this occasion! 藤原周光

閑中納涼

松深苔老幽閑地 箇裡都無煩熱生 礙日綠蘿迷月令 展風青篾臥秋聲 獨臨水閣廻流冷 遙笑華軒拭汗行 誰識炎天拋要路 蕉衣紗帽適吾情 SOURCE: hcmds 357, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 198–99; octave (heptasyllabic). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 105.

Ōe no Masafusa. Relating My Thoughts [With set rhymes] 1

Don’t be disillusioned with Heaven, don’t blame your fellow man. The human world’s ups and downs have long weighed on my mind. The common people number not just one; why even mention this? The dark-haired masses are in the thousands; how could you count them all? 5 Just who is a saint and who a worthy; and also, who is a sage? Which duke, which viscount, and which marquis as well? Sometimes flowing, sometimes blocked—how can ice stay stable? Sometimes going, sometimes coming—clouds float about at will. Destiny very hard to fathom: can it be understood or not? 10 Living long or dying young: who knows, can we ever tell? Neither “non-existence” nor “existence” nor the “non-existence of existence.” Not seeking and not taking, yet also not not-demanding.

大江匡房

述懷 勒

天莫悵望人莫尤 世間倚伏固悠悠 蒼生非一何開口

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黔首且千豈盡頭 詎聖詎賢兼詎智 何公何子亦何侯 或通或塞冰爭定 偶去偶來雲自浮 運命難窮應極否 壽夭叵識得知不 非無非有非無有 不覓不將不不求 SOURCE: hcmds 359, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 201–203; pailü (twelve lines, heptasyllabic). LINE ELEVEN: This line is almost identical to the following passage, part of a commentary on a line about the meaning of Nirvana, from the Buddhist treatise Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Ch. title 中觀根本慧論 or simply Zhonglun 中論) by Nagarjuna (second century), which reads: “[Nirvana is] not abandoned. Not attained. Not annihilated …” [涅槃] 非無非有非有無. Trans. from George Cronk, Fundamentals of the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamaka-Karika) (1998), http://www.cronksite.com/wp -content/uploads/2014/02/NagarjunaGC.pdf (Nov. 2017). The treatise lays out the principles of non-duality and the notion of a greater reality that lies beyond questions of existence and non-existence, a middle way between two extremes. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 335. COMMENTS: This unusual poem crosses into an other-worldly liminal space where Masafusa seems to find reality fractured and confusing, with things in constant motion and his own identity suddenly ambiguous. It appears to mimic the fevered ramblings of a dying man, perhaps written in the same circumstances as the next poem, where the poet is facing death. Many of the ideas present in both verses derive from the core principles of Daoism and Buddhism, among them the meaninglessness of all human standards and values, the illusory nature of existence, and the cosmic insignificance of every individual. Like Jia Yi 賈誼 (200–168 bce) in his poem “Rhapsody on the Owl,” Masafusa is observing that since the workings of a universe in constant flux cannot be fathomed, we must accept with equanimity whatever comes our way. For a further sample of Masafusa’s sometimes eerie spiritualism and eccentric interest in other dimensions see the anecdote in Gōdanshō 3–40, where a diviner grandly suggests that Masafusa may be a reincarnation of Mars, appealing to Masafusa’s own vanity and sense of uniqueness.

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Ōe no Masafusa. Written While Ill Near death and full of shame, sunk in the miseries of illness, All of this coinciding with the very depths of autumn. Hair looking like frosty snow, white and nearly all gone; Tears resembling paulownia leaves: red and falling down. The road to glory: endless scattered flowers in disarray; My life: water racing past, rapidly rushing along. Unless one were Wang Zijin, who could forever endure? The Nine Saints and Seven Sages—are they still alive or not? 大江匡房

病中作

近死慙情沈病愁 一時計會是窮秋 頭如霜雪白將盡 涙與梧桐紅不留 榮路紛紛花散漫 生涯苒苒水奔流 非王子晋誰長好 九聖七賢今在不 SOURCE: hcmds 360, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 203–204; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE FOUR: Paulownia leaves were vulnerable to frost, and their falling traditionally signified the onset of autumn. “Falling down” is more literally “not staying where they are” (bu liu 不留). Masafusa’s reference to his tears being red means that he is now weeping blood, a common trope for shedding tears of anguish. LINE SEVEN: Wang Zijin (Wang Ziqiao 王子喬, sixth century bce) was a prince who practiced alchemy; according to legend, he ascended to heaven on a white crane, becoming a Daoist immortal. Masafusa is making a commonplace observation seen in verse from as early as the Han dynasty: life is short and fleeting, and only an exceptional few have ever managed to achieve immortality. LINE EIGHT: The Nine Saints: the legendary emperors Fu Xi, Shen Nong, Huang Di, Yao, Shun, and Yu, along with the historical figures King Wen, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius. The Seven Sages are the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Masafusa is somewhat comforted by the knowledge that even these iconic personages could not live forever. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 335.

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Fujiwara no Shigeakira. I was informed that some of our distinguished colleagues in the profession planned to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Master Miyoshi, professor of mathematics, with a poetry banquet. Deeply moved, I just went ahead and composed the following poem. Devoted to The Way! How could it be just your talent we revere as sagely? Because of your virtue Heaven has granted you a life span full and complete. To a long life you have added years, achieving longevity among men. To delay old age you found the way, becoming an immortal on earth. Your heart desiring to gain good karma, you adhere to Buddhist austerities; Though your mouth once savored fine cuisine, you now restrict your diet.

[The professor has for many years practiced austerities. He recites Buddhist hymns and abstains from wine and sex. He also eliminated meat and strong-smelling vegetables from his diet. Hence these lines.]

You lecture on the classics day after day, accumulating splendid deeds. We know for certain that you will bloom as a lotus in the Western Paradise. [After a lecture, a poetry banquet will be held, hence the reference.]

藤原茂明 傳聞我道英才賀算道善博士九十年算之詩會。不堪情 感。聊成諷吟而已。 嗜道何唯才是賢 君爲仁者保天年 長生加算人間壽 却老得方地上仙 心慕善因歸戒乗 口嘗妙味斷葷羶　 博士多年之間。身持齋戒。口誦妙偈。 禁酒及色。斷葷又羶。故云。

講經日日薰修積 定識遂開西土蓮 講會之次展詩席。故云。

SOURCE: hcmds 362, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 207–10; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The profession alluded to here was Chinese history and letters (kidendō), one of the four major disciplines taught in the Academy. Master Miyoshi was Miyoshi no Tameyasu (d. 1139), a renowned intellectual whose areas of expertise included Buddhism, mathematics, and Chinese letters. A native

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of Etchū, Tameyasu went to the capital in 1067 to study with Miyoshi no Tamenaga 三善爲長. Although failing his exams many times and not becoming a hakase until the age of sixty (Guest, p. 83), Tameyasu eventually distinguished himself as mathematician. He also wrote several important texts on Pure Land Buddhism and compiled other works of a folkloric or literary nature, including Shōchūreki 掌中歴 (Palm of the Hand Almanac) and Chōya gunsai, a diverse collection of model court documents and verse in literary Sinitic. For an account of his primer Zoku Senjimon 續千字文 (Ten Thousand Character Classic, Continued, 1132), see Guest, ibid., pp. 82–97. The HCMDS commentary, vol. 2, p. 209–10 provides a citation of Fujiwara no Munetomo’s 藤原宗友 (fl. 1151) biography of Miyoshi found in his Honchō shinshū ōjōden 本朝新 修往生傳, reprinted in Inoue Mitsusada and Ōsone Shōsuke, eds., Ōjōden hokke genki (1974). LINE ONE: In other words, academically gifted though Tameyasu may be, his devotion to Buddhism (The Way) is even more praiseworthy. This line sets the stage for the rest of the poem, where the central message is that Tameyasu has led an exemplary life and will be rewarded with rebirth in the Western Paradise. Poet’s note to LINE SIX: The Honchō shinshū ōjōden biography (see citation above) indicates that Tameyasu became celibate in 1099, ceased to eat meat in 1120, and stopped drinking wine in 1128. He became terminally ill in 1139, and after realizing that the end was near devoted himself to chanting and reciting sutras. The same account relates that after he died his breath remained warm for three days and his body emitted a pleasant fragrance; these phenomena were ascribed to Tameyasu’s high moral rectitude during his lifetime. Poet’s note to LINE EIGHT: This note appears to belong with the title, not with line eight. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 202.

Fujiwara no Shigeakira. A Casual Poem Tossed Off in an Idle Moment: Written Simply to Ameliorate the Melancholy of Old Age Since casting aside my official post—such a worthless scholar! My snowy hair is all cut off; I receive no monthly wage. These clothes of mine are easy to wear, just the heira robes of a monk. What point is there in accumulating flowery literary pieces? Longing for the forest, the caged bird was unable to spread its wings; Out of water, the fish in the cart-rut saw its scales nearly drying out. Now that I’ve reached the age of seventy, weak and growing old, Who apart from Bao Shu would know and understand me?

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藤原茂明

聊成閑中之偶詠。令慰老後之愁吟而已。

拋來官職一庸儒 雪鬢剃除月俸無 裁得易穿唯薜衲 蓄將何益是花租 思林籠鳥翅難出 失水轍魚鱗欲枯 七十箇廻衰老後 若非鮑叔詎知吾 SOURCE: hcmds 363, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 210–12; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE ONE: “Such a worthless scholar” brings to mind Du Fu’s poem “Jiang Han” 江漢 (The Jiang and Han Rivers), where Du describes himself in the same way, but with the word fu 腐 (rotten) instead of yong 庸 (worthless, ordinary). See the notes to kkbs 179, above, for pre-Du Fu sources of this expression. LINE FOUR: Now that he has taken Buddhist vows, Shigeakira views his literary career as an empty achievement. Lines five and six: The caged bird metaphor is derived from a verse by Tao Yuanming, who likened his sense of liberation after leaving office to that of a bird just released from its cage. The fish in the cart-rut reference comes from a parable in Zhuangzi: see hcrs 154, above. LINE EIGHT: On the identity of Bao Shuya, see fss 43. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 81. COMMENTS: Judging from the title, retiring and becoming a Buddhist monk has not brought Shigeakira the serenity he expected.

Fujiwara no Arinobu. An Impromptu Poem Written on an Autumn Day at a Pondside Pavilion At leisure, seeking the cool and shade—imagine how we felt! A pondside pavilion at a splendid spot; allowed to pay a visit. Bamboo drooping its bushy leaves, dispersing the summer heat; Lotuses shedding their dainty garments, covering ripples of green. Standing upon a sheer bank, gazing at the water nearby; Scrambling up a lofty tower, looking out at the many hills. Comrades, fellow revelers, you mustn’t laugh at me, If whenever we have a break from work, I get drunk and I sing!

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藤原有信

秋日池亭即事

閑逐陰涼意奈何 池亭占勝許經過 竹底繁葉消炎日 蓮落輕衣覆綠波 佇立危巖臨水近 攀登高閣見山多 交遊時輩莫嘲我 每屬暇餘醉且歌 SOURCE: hcmds 373, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 234–35; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE TWO: The fact that they needed permission to visit (literally, “pass through”) this site suggests that it was in one of the imperial parks. Arinobu was in the company of Prince Sannomiya, who wrote hcmds 372 (not translated) on the same occasion. BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara no Arinobu (ca. 1039–99) was the third son of Sanetsuna 實綱 and the great-grandson of Arikuni, in the Hino 日野 lineage of the Fujiwara. The second of Arinobu’s three sons was Munemitsu (see hcmds 224). After completing his advanced studies, Arinobu took the taisaku exam in 1063/10, later becoming a chamberlain in 1065/1 and receiving the rank of junior fifth, lower in 1068. In 1087 he was serving as provisional senior assistant head of the Ministry of War, having finally gained a promotion to the senior fifth rank, lower. His subsequent posts include senior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial, professor, tutor to the crown prince, senior secretary in the Office of the Empress’ Household (1093), and left minor controller (1094). In 1097, after a two-year stint as provisional vice-governor of Mimasaka, Arinobu became governor of Izumi. He served as right middle controller near the end of his life (1098) and held the rank of junior fourth, lower at the time of his death. Arinobu has 6 poems in Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū, 5 in Honchō mudaishi, and 1 each in Senzaishū and Shikashū.

Fujiwara no Chikamitsu. An Impromptu Poem Written in Summer at a Pavilion Near a Spring 1



5

I once heard the pond in the woods described as a splendid spot: In Reizeiin there stands a pavilion, right beside a spring. Below the hills a guesthouse where the moss is still growing green; Back at the shore a boat with singing-girls, lotuses naturally fragrant. A day off work and I pay you a visit, opening the bamboo gate;

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A day of leisure and you await me, sweeping the mossy yard.



The wind on the banks has dispersed the heat—why unroll the mats? In the stony shallows, even before autumn enough water to fill a jug. The imperial palace curving westward; the hazy trees are dark. A sacred shrine soaring high in the south; the dusky pines are green.

[There will be a note here.]

10

[I am referring to the Chūsan Reisha shrine.]



15



Dangling silk threads flying aslant—a pair of flying egrets; Not on fire, yet needlessly glowing—myriad dots of fireflies. The wavy folds on my withered face increase from day to day; Mirrored in the flow, my aged temples: I rue their starry whiteness. All morning long I amble freely, forgetting all worldly affairs. What do I care if my life has finally entered its twilight years?

藤原周光

夏日泉亭即事

聞道林池稱勝形 冷泉院裡一泉亭 傍山賓閣苔猶綠 歸浦妓船藕自馨 暇日尋君排竹戶 閑天待我拂苔庭 有注

岸風消暑何開簟 石瀬先秋足浸瓶 帝闕西廻煙樹暗 靈祠南峙暮松青 所謂中山靈社是也。故云。

垂絲斜去雙飛鷺 非火空燃萬點螢 疊浪衰容隨日日 鑑流老鬢愧星星 終朝遊放忘塵事 遮莫生涯仄暮齡 SOURCE: hcmds 375, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 237–40; pailü (sixteen lines, heptasyllabic). LINE TWO: Reizeiin 冷泉院 was originally one of Emperor Saga’s residences, adjacent to the southeast corner of the palace and diagonally opposite the Shinsen’en. Delimited by the streets Ōinomikado, Nijō, Horikawa, and Ōmiya, it was a favorite gathering place

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for the emperor and his courtiers for centuries and the site of an important storage facility for imperial books and other objects, despite burning down twice in the tenth century (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, vol. 1, p. 101). LINE FIVE: The identity of his host is not known. LINE SIX: The intended note was apparently never inserted. LINE SEVEN: People used mats made of bamboo or sedge to keep cool in summer. LINE TEN: The Chūsan Reisha 中山靈社 (Sacred Shrine on the Mountain) appears in story 21 (maki 5) in Kojidan 古事談, a text dating from the early thirteenth century, which relates that once during the reign of Emperor Go-Reizeiin (r. 1045–68) the shrine began to emit light. This was interpreted as a sign that the god of the shrine felt displeasure over the leaving of carriages and horses before the gate. Subsequently these were made to move elsewhere. See the commentary, p. 239. LINE TWELVE: The fireflies are described as glowing “needlessly” (kong 空) because it is still daytime; they are likely in an area of deep shade. A similar trope involving “confusion” on Nature’s part because the place is so dark during the day occurs in a verse by Minamoto no Toshifusa, cbsk 9–2: the birds have gone to roost in the daytime, mistakenly imagining that night had fallen. Line sixteen: The commentary glosses 仄 as 迫る (to press upon, to pursue) and notes that two other editions have 及 (to approach, reach) instead. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 105.

Sannomiya (Prince Sukehito). Early Winter, Gazing Afar from a Pavilion in the Woods Forest pavilion, lonely and silent—and a hidden wonder. We cast our gaze to the distant horizon and the features of the landscape. Drowsy, discussing the scenery, which every day declines; Tipsy, staring at frosty leaves, which as autumn departs grow withered. A grey hawk flaps its wings and soars over wintery trees; White egrets fly in a group, returning to their former pond. While using the occasion to versify and enjoy recitation, We foolishly forget that the sun is steadily racing toward the west. 三宮 (輔仁親王)

初冬林亭眺望

林亭寂寞也幽奇 遙望天涯與地宜 睡論風情追日減 醉望霜葉送秋衰

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蒼鷹一擊過寒樹 白鷺群飛歸故池 適綴篇章吟玩處 空忘落日漸西馳 SOURCE: hcmds 386, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 271–73; octave (heptasyllabic). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 216.

Koremune no Takatoki. An Impromptu Poem Written at a Country House South of the City in Late Autumn South of the city wondrous scenery, unlike anywhere else. Several pieces of poetry, a single pot of wine. In low fog the deer bell, near the hillside milling; Upon the ripples moonlight floats, a sheet of spreading ice. Autumn wind in the aged trees, through the window barely heard; Chilling rain on the withered plants, the wilderness is soaked. Drinking, composing, spirits aroused—but why do I feel chagrined? My seventies are approaching fast, yet still I am a dunce. 惟宗孝言

暮秋城南別業即事

城南勝趣與他殊 詩句數篇酒一壺 霧底鹿鳴山近繞 波頭月泛冰平鋪 秋風樹老窗聲少 寒雨草衰野邊濡 觴詠興成何所恥 七旬齡迫性猶愚 SOURCE: hcmds 401, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 308–309; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE FOUR: The sheet of ice is simply moonlight, a metaphor bringing to mind Li Bai’s quatrain Ye si 夜思 (Nighttime Thoughts), in which the poet imagines that the moonlight on his bedroom floor is frost. LINE FIVE: The wind is quiet because the trees no longer have any leaves for it to blow through and rustle.

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BIOGRAPHY: Koremune no Takatoki (Noritoki, Yukitoki; 1015?–ca. 1097?) was a poetscholar from a family that was known for its legal expertise but not particularly high in hereditary status. His father Takachika 教親 (possibly Norichika) once served as governor of Noto (Nakamura and Ino, p. 551). Information on Takatoki’s early to middle career remains fragmentary. Fujiwara no Akihira, compiler of Honchō monzui, is believed to have been his teacher, both before and after Takatoki’s entry into the Academy around 1030. He became a monjōshō graduate in 1034 and appears to have taken the hōryaku examination in 1043, although he apparently did not pass it on the first try. For a detailed account of his life, see Yoshida Yasuo, “Koremune no Takatoki den-kō: jūisseiki no bunjin, keishi, zuryō” (2008), pp. 24–30. Takatoki made little headway throughout his early and middle years, but his situation improved during his service as tutor to regent (later kanpaku) Fujiwara no Morozane 師實 (1042–1011, son of former regent Yorimichi) and his son Moromichi 師通 (1062–99), who later became kanpaku himself. Takatoki also benefited from a close relationship with Prince Tomohira’s son Minamoto no Morofusa 源師房 (1008– 77), who became minister of the right in 1069. He served as a top administrator in the regent’s household office, first for Morozane and then for Moromichi. In 1071 Takatoki was appointed professor and head of the Academy. He is listed as being without a post in 1079 and in 1083, but around 1087 his career once again took a turn for the better when he became manager of the Housekeeping Office, concurrently holding a post as senior secretary of Bitchū, an apparent sinecure. Takatoki also held various governorships late in his career, including one in Ise, in 1092, and another in Iga around 1094, which he occupied for about three years. He reached the rank of junior fourth, lower. One of the leading poets of his age, Takatoki has more than fifty pieces in Honchō zoku monzui, Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū, and Honchō mudaishi. He was also highly proficient in native verse, one of his poems being cited in Wakan kensakushū. Takatoki unknowingly played an important role in the preservation of Kaifūsō, since all extant manuscripts derive from a copy he made in 1041 (Yoshida, p. 26; see also nkbt 69, p. 16). Throughout his career Takatoki organized and attended numerous poetry banquets and wrote prefaces to certain poems composed at these events. In the realm of native verse he compiled an annotated edition of Man’yōshū. References to him in records cease after 1097.

Fujiwara no Sanenori. Going on a Winter Day to the Mountain Village of Ono for a Taste of Rural Life On a whim we leave the capital, excitement on the rise. We pay a visit to some rural folk at a cottage in the mountains. The fence surrounding the back garden: simply crimson trees. Mats spread out in the front yard: emerald-colored moss. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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A fisherman offers namasu to us—with chopsticks we take a taste; A village elder gives us wine—three cups of it we’re served. Now that we’re visiting this hidden spot, northeast of the city, Do not laugh if a bumpkin like me is rubbing shoulders with the phoenixes! 藤原實範

冬日會小野山莊訪土俗

忽出洛陽感更催 山家土俗訪相來 墻樊後苑唯紅樹 席展前庭是綠苔 膾課水郎嘗一箸 酒徵村老勸三盃 今尋幽境城東北 莫笑鄙才接鳳才 SOURCE: hcmds 431, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 367–69; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Ono 小野 was in the district of Otagi, between Kami-Takano 上高野 and Yase Ōhara 八瀬大原, in the capital. LINE ONE: Luoyang 洛陽, one of the capital cities in ancient China, is used to designate Heian-kyō here. LineS three and four: Accustomed to a world of walls and fences, the city-bred courtiers may have found it novel to discover that the maple trees surrounding the house and garden were all there was for a fence. Similarly, they were apparently struck by the charming simplicity of sitting on moss instead of mats while being entertained. LINE FIVE: Namasu 膾: a dish made of raw fish and vegetables in a vinegar or miso marinade. LINE EIGHT: Sanenori uses similarly self-abasing language in line seven of poem 434, below, no doubt a polite flourish to ingratiate himself with his superiors. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 328.

Priest Renzen. At a Country Villa, Gazing Afar in Autumn Here on a visit to this country villa, away from the realm of dust. An autumn view to break your heart—who could ever leave? The patter of leaves, one then another: yellow falling rain. Mist from the valley everywhere, over the azure hills. I ask a woodcutter to give me directions, after the sun has set. Falcons wing their way through the woods in the light and hazy mist. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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To my surprise I find myself invited in by a neighbor: A single cup of his unstrained brew—suddenly my face is red! 釋蓮禪

別墅秋望

一尋別墅出塵寰 秋望斷腸誰得還 木葉聲聲黃落雨 峽煙處處翠微山 樵郎問路斜陽後 華隼擊林薄霧間 不意今逢臨子勸 濁醪一盞暫酡顏 SOURCE: hcmds 432, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 369–71; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE TWO: This line epitomizes the ambivalence felt by poets toward autumn: the mournful beauty of nature in decay evoked melancholy feelings that compelled poets to versify. LINE EIGHT: Zan 暫, rendered here as “suddenly,” could instead mean “for a while.” BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50, above.

Fujiwara no Sanenori. An Impromptu Poem Written at Shirakawa Palace in Late Autumn This morning we left the capital and went to pay a visit To this place whose fame has long been known, ever since ancient times. On the road through the pass the wind felt cold as we watched the other travelers. Above the villages smoke rising; we heard distant fulling blocks. Red trees, emerald waters—remnants of autumn’s beauty; A shepherd’s flute, a woodcutter’s song—early twilight sounds. From time to time, court nobles invite us lowly folk along, And sometimes we all indulge in pleasure far into the night.

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藤原實範

暮秋白川院即事

今朝出洛一相尋 此地佳名傳古今 關路風寒望旅客 鄉村煙聳聽疏碪 紅林碧水殘秋色 牧笛樵歌薄暮音 適遇公卿徵辟日 有時遊蕩漏更深 SOURCE: hcmds 434, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 373–74; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE FOUR: Sanenori is referring to the sound of village women using mallets to pound cloth on fulling blocks to soften it. Hearing fulling blocks while traveling was a common trope, usually associated with nostalgia for home. The shepherd’s flute and the woodcutter’s song in line six are further conventional images. LINE SEVEN: “Nobles” (kugyō 公卿) refers to the high nobility, about thirty individuals at any given time. Typically, its members held the third rank or higher and included the chancellor and ministers of the left and right, the major and middle councilors, and the consultants (who held the fourth rank). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 328.

Fujiwara no Tadamichi. Recently I headed to Umezu, and yesterday morning I passed through Uji. On my way back, I stopped in Yamashina. Each day I’ve walked long distances, and in every way I am feeling my age. Yet the scenery has been most enchanting, with mist and haze all around. There have been so many things to see along the way, giving rise to inspiration and emotion. I shall attempt to describe what I have observed in order to enlighten anyone unfamiliar with these places. (#1) Umezu Near Chang’an with its twelve boulevards one finds this residence: The governor-general and counselor brought his friends here long ago. To the northwest is Kameyama, beyond the city limits. Southeast, the ‘Wild Goose Pagoda,’ two or three stories high. I stood and gazed at the Sentō Palace glimpsed through parted clouds; Though old I visited a forest with temples, being met by stormy winds.

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Umezu and the Katsura River especially captured my fancy: The blossoms were like white waves; the moonlight looked like ice. 近曾向梅津。昨朝過宇縣。歸路寄山階。日日遠行、事事知老。抑 山水風流、煙霞氣色。云此云彼。有興有情。聊敘所觀、以悟不知矣。 藤原忠通

梅津

長安十二衢邊宅 都督納言昔引朋 西北龜山郊縣外 東南雁塔兩三層 立望仙洞雲披閱 老訪禪林嵐響應 桂水梅津尤有意 花如白浪月如冰 SOURCE: hcmds 439, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 382–84; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: This is the first in a set of four travel poems probably written during late spring in 1163, when Tadamichi was sixty-seven. Tadamichi had taken Buddhist vows the year before. His journey took him from Umezu 梅津 (in modern Ukyō-ku, Kyoto, between Uzumasa and the Katsura River) to Uji 宇治 (southeast of Kyoto), then north to Yamashina 山階 (now written 山科, east of Kyoto). Eventually Tadamichi returned to the city, most likely to Hosshōji. His father Tadazane 忠實 had kept a home in Uji, having withdrawn there in 1120. The fourth poem indicates that Tadamichi made this journey partly to escape the heat and humidity of the capital. Yamashina is at a slightly higher altitude than Kyoto and was evidently cooler. LINE ONE: Chang’an was China’s capital during the Former Han and Tang dynasties and, like Luoyang, conventionally denotes the city of Heian. LINE TWO: Totoku 都督 (a so-called “Tang” or Chinese-style title used in Heian times) was an alternate term for the post of governor-general (sotsu or sochi 師) of the Kyushu Government Offices in Dazaifu. The identity of the individual referred to here is uncertain, but a likely candidate is Ōe no Masafusa, who received appointments as middle counselor in 1094 and provisional sotsu in 1097. Another possibility is Minamoto no Tsunenobu 源經信 (1016–97), who served as major counselor from around 1090 and as provisional sotsu from 1094. See the Honma commentary, p. 383. LINE FOUR: “Wild Goose Pagoda” harks back to the Da Yan Ta 大雁塔 (Great Wild Goose Pagoda), built in Chang’an in 652. The name serves here as an elegant designation for a local pagoda, but it is unclear which one.

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429

LINE FIVE: Sentō Palace: possibly a reference to the residence of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa (r. 1155–58) or simply a fanciful designation for an unspecified site near Kameyama, away from the mundane world. See commentary, p. 383. It could also be referring to the Tobain Detached Palace; see the notes to cbsk 9–9. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hdg 7.

(#2) Uji The Uji area scenery—how to describe its charm? Beyond the green blinds, in every direction rivers and hills in view. Spring blossoms, autumn moon: nowhere as splendid as this. Golden Valley and Southern Tower cannot even compete. The phoenix carriages left ancient tracks, traversing dawn’s dark mists. The simurgh palanquins traveled the old road, passing through evening fog. From a hazy village in a hidden spot the priests return to their temple. I keep them company all night long in their worship of the Buddha. 宇縣 宇縣風流趣奈何 翠簾四面得山河 春花秋月不如此 金谷南樓其任他 鳳轄昔蹤朝霧暗 鸞輿古路晚嵐過 煙村幽處僧歸寺 相伴終宵禮佛陀 SOURCE: hcmds 440, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 385–86; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE FOUR: “Golden Valley” refers to Jingu Yuan 金谷園 (Golden Valley Park), which belonged to Shi Chong 石崇 (249–300), an aristocrat and poet known for his ostentatious displays of wealth. Located northwest of Luoyang, the park was the site of a villa where Shi held lavish parties. See the notes to kfs 69. “Southern Tower” belonged to Yu Liang 庾亮 (d. 340), an aristocrat and military leader closely associated with Emperor Ming Di of the Jin dynasty. Lines five and six: The two mythical birds are figures for the emperor and the aristocracy.

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(#3) Yamashina This morning I left the Uji area, stopping at my country house. Deep in the hills on a remote path, visitors never come. Trivial letters from family keep arriving all the time; Local folk go back and forth, I recognize each face. Five years ago, right here, I built myself this house. After I have passed away, to whom will it belong? It’s always been a secluded spot, but nothing stays the same. For now, I’ll make this brushwood cottage the place where I reside. 山階 宇縣朝辭過野館 山深路僻欠門賓 等閑鄉信時時到 來往州民面面馴 五載于茲營此地 一生之後屬誰人 元由幽境應無定 暫卜柴扃欲寄身 SOURCE: hcmds 441, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 386–88; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE ONE: From Uji to Yamashina was a distance of about twelve miles. Some forty years earlier, Tadamichi’s father had kept a home in Uji, perhaps in the same spot.

(#4) The Journey Back Seventy years old, a distant journey; walking bowed and bent. I changed houses, for I found I was sticking to my mats and bedding. Hanging on to the vigor of youth is not within anyone’s power; To banish the ailments that come with old age, who would come to my aid? My remaining breaths: hard to know how many days I have left. My future lives: what will be the paths I end up taking? A twilight of decline and peril, once I entered my fifth decade: My sons—and my grandsons too—started to cause me vexation.

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歸路 七十遠行行步屈 移居粘席與眠俱 拘留壯齒非人力 除却老痾待誰扶 餘喘暗難知幾日 他生終欲赴何途 及頹危暮五旬後 云子云孫始惑吾 SOURCE: hcmds 442, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 388–89; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE ONE: The poet was actually sixty-seven at the time. Lines seven and eight: As noted on p. 389 of the commentary, Tadamichi appears to be alluding to sentiments in a poem by Fujiwara no Kanesuke (藤原兼輔, 877–933; Gosenshū 1103), which reads 人の親の心はやみにあらねども子を思ふ道にまどひぬ るかな (“The heart of a parent is not darkness, and yet he wanders lost in thoughts upon his child”). Translation by Edward Seidensticker, in Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature, p. 329. As Richard Okada explains, the specific context of this poem, which is cited repeatedly in Genji monogatari, is the dilemma over whether or not to send one’s child away to serve at court. See Okada, Figures of Resistance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of the Genji and Other Mid-Heian Texts (1991), p. 339.

Priest Renzen. The Joys of Spring at My Mountain Home Mountain house: a bamboo cottage with a brushwood gate. The pleasures of spring keep me here, no thoughts of going back. Beyond my door, from valley depths the warbler’s constant call; In the shade of the wall by a narrow path willows pliant and soft. The masses of blossoms are still miming the color of winter snow; The lingering moon is covered by the hazy light of dawn. Forest mist, clouds from the gorge, and yet I feel regret: I’m well aware that once summer arrives, few will come to visit.

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432 釋蓮禪

Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩

山家春興

山楹竹舍又柴扉 春興拘留爰忘歸 戶外谷深鶯歷歷 墻陰路細柳依依 衆花猶假雪冬色 殘月披籠霞曉輝 林霧峽雲兼作恨 定知及夏客來稀 SOURCE: hcmds 449, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 402–404; octave (heptasyllabic). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50.

Fujiwara no Chikamitsu. Spring Thoughts at My Home in the Mountains Ever since building this bamboo cottage on the outskirts of the city, The scenery at this place of mine has brought me so much joy! Pink and powdery blossoms flutter, covering me at dawn as I dream; By the blue pennants the wine is ready; I take a springtime cup. Woodland mists engulf my cottage, spread then roll away; Mountain sparrows, tame by the eaves, fly off and then return. Never say that my hermitage offers little to keep me alive: My garden will surely provide the means to see me through my years. 藤原周光

山家春意

一從郊外竹扉開 管領風光有意哉 紅粉花飛埋曉夢 青旗酒熟引春盃 林霞遶舍舒還卷 山雀狎簷去又來 莫道幽棲生計乏 灌園自作送年媒 SOURCE: hcmds 450, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 404–405; octave (heptasyllabic).

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Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩 LINE FOUR: Kiosks selling wine were marked by pennants. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 105.

Fujiwara no Atsumitsu. An Autumn Day at My Home in the Mountains, Gazing Afar Within a ravine a secluded dwelling, scenery sublime. The hills and rivers, lonely and deserted, are worth the climb to see. Through a woodcutter’s valley there runs a path that reaches autumnal peaks; A Buddhist temple, no walls around it, faces a murky forest. Off in the clouds, leading her chicks, the immortal crane in flight; Away in the pasture, the aged cow has a mind to lick her calf.

[Recently, many scholars have been recommending their sons for service in the Retired Emperor’s palace. One example is the junior assistant head of the Ministry of Ceremonial. This makes me unbearably melancholy, hence these lines.]

Our family’s profession I have not yet transmitted to my sons. My hair may be white, but I cannot shed the hatpin of office I wear. 藤原敦光

秋日山家眺望

洞裡幽居景氣深 山川蕭索足登臨 樵溪有路通秋嶺 僧院無墻對暮林 雲表將雛仙鶴翅 野中舐犢老牛心 當時諸儒多舉其子聽院昇殿。此座李部少卿其一也。 不堪愁緒。聊有此句矣。

箕裘舊業未傳子 白首不能抽吾簪 SOURCE: hcmds 455, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 413–15; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines five and six: These lines are remarkably similar to lines five and six in another Atsumitsu poem, hcmds 264, translated above. Poet’s note to LINE SIX: Atsumitsu longed to be as beneficial a parent as these two creatures, but he had been unable to secure tenjōbito (privy courtier) status for his sons. Thus he feels that he cannot retire until this goal has been accomplished. Since their father held the fourth rank, Atsumitsu’s sons were technically eligible to become

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privy courtiers, but inclusion was not automatic. For more on tenjōbito, see the notes to hcmds 159; it appears that years earlier Atsumitsu had been unable to obtain this status even for himself. Lines seven and eight: Atsumitsu alludes to his predicament concerning his sons’ status in an interlinear note to hcmds 543. He states: “I am already sixty and have risen to the fourth rank. Yet so often I have missed out on imperial favor and as a result have been unable to see my sons put forward for service.” Some relief for Atsumitsu finally came in 1137, when he was about seventy-three: he successfully petitioned to have his fourth son Narimitsu awarded a stipend for studying at the Academy, and his eldest son Nagamitsu was made a kurōdo 蔵人 (chamberlain), entitling him to become a privy courtier. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 25.

Priest Renzen. Autumn Inspirations: At a Rustic Inn West of the city, autumn inspirations: much that meets the eye! Brushwood walls of the inn pierced by the rays of the setting sun. House in the grove a deep red—light on the mulberries and catalpas. In the paddy fields chilly snow—flowering millet and rice. Cobwebs woven upon the plants; my heart a tangled loom. A line of geese intermingled with clouds, filling my field of view. The wondrous landscape here was wrought entirely by Nature. Nothing at all has been added to it by the hand of Man. 釋蓮禪

野店秋興

郊西秋興觸望多 兒店柴穿夕日斜 林戶紅深桑梓影 水畦雪冷稻粱花 蟲絲織草心機亂 雁陣結雲眼路遮 勝絕風流依造化 不斯人力以相加 SOURCE: hcmds 462, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 427–28; octave (heptasyllabic).

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LINE FIVE: Renzen is extending the weaving metaphor present in the first half of the line. He refers again to experiencing confusion in the next poem, line fifteen, and in line two of poem 465, below. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50.

Priest Renzen. On a winter’s day I went to the old Higashiyama residence that belonged to the former master of the Right Office of the Capital. Compelled by what I saw and heard, I wrote this poem, tears streaming down my face.

1

My elder brother has gone away: hard to see him again. I weep as I visit his former home, my mind runs on and on. Gone, forgetting the visits they paid, the guests of yesteryear.



Left behind, full of love and devotion, those little children of his.

5

Delicate tears dotting her make-up—dew on a chrysanthemum hedge. Sounds of grieving borne on the wind, down the pine-lined paths. Books and scrolls lie scattered and forlorn in the moonlight by the window.





10





15



[When the master was alive he was visited by countless members of the priesthood and the laity. They all enjoyed themselves and their conversation sparkled. It was always this way. This time the place is silent and deserted, hence this line.] [I have included this line because a couple of the orphaned children came into the hall to meet me. They talked about their father’s life, showing so much love for him that I found myself starting to weep.]

[The written materials he left behind, in both Japanese and Chinese, have not been tidied up, hence this line.]

How could we ever find his face in that mirror covered with dust? The Pure Land’s beauteous splendor will always remain the same, But in the human realm, change and decline—all is like a dream. In her boudoir his widow sorrows; nights, her pillow cold. The temple priests make no offerings; mornings, the burner empty.

[The daily offerings made by a pair of priests have ceased, and no incense smoke issues from the burner.]

Moss has sealed the stony surfaces, growing ever more green; Leaves have filled the entire grove, their red not swept away. The sights before my eyes perforce bring tangled feelings of grief. Monkeys and birds calling out to each other I hear from east of the valley.

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釋蓮禪

冬日向故右京兆東山之舊宅。視聽所催。潸然而賦矣。

長兄一逝再難遇 泣訪故居思不窮 去忘交遊前日客 京兆存日。緇素成雲。遊樂芳談。 尋常不斷。今來見之。闃而無人。故云。

留成戀慕少年童 遺孤一兩。出向堂上。語存生之事。 有戀親之氣。予不覺落淚。故云。

啼粧淚脆菊籬露 別悵聲遺松徑風 書卷徒拋窗月底 相傳書記。和漢共無人于收拾。 故云。

形容何在鏡塵中 佛家華麗尚如昔 人事變衰都似夢 閨婦有愁宵枕冷 寺僧無供曉爐空 寺僧一兩日供已闕。

爐中煙絕。故云。

苔封石面彌添綠 葉滿林頭不掃紅 觸物自然悲緒亂 呼群猿鳥聞溪東 SOURCE: hcmds 463, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 429–32; pailü (sixteen lines, heptasyllabic). TITLE: The master of the Right Office of the Capital was Renzen’s older brother, Fujiwara no Kin’akira (Kin’aki) 藤原公章 (1080?–1133?). See the commentary, p. 430. Lines five and six: Renzen is describing the sorrow of his brother’s widow. Line sixteen: While these creatures have one another for company, the poet by contrast is alone and bereft. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50.

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Nakahara no Hirotoshi. On Passing My Former Home in Yamashiro Province Paying a visit to my former home, I spur my steed along. Leaving the capital, on and on, heading east and west. Windows broken and no one keeping the bamboo under control; Porch collapsed, a pair of cranes roosting in the pines. The tea garden and herb plot—for whom do they now exist? The autumn moon and spring breezes cause me misery. Silently I reflect on the past; my grief I have not forgotten. Best to offer myself a toast and get as drunk as mud. 中原廣俊

過雍州舊宅

一尋舊宅策龍蹄 出洛行行東也西 窗破竹無人管領 台傾松有鶴雙栖 茶園藥圃爲誰設 秋月春風教我悽 閑憶往時憂未忘 不如勸盞醉如泥 SOURCE: hcmds 464, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 432–34; octave (heptasyllabic). Lines three and four: These depart from the usual structure of heptasyllabic lines in kanshi, which are generally divisible into the shang si xia san 上四下三 pattern: a four-character hemistich followed by a three-character one. In each of these lines the caesura comes after the second character, followed by a prosy five-character unit. LINE EIGHT: “Drunk as mud” is an expression occasionally seen both in kanshi and in verse by Du Fu, Li Bai, and Yuan Zhen. “Mud” refers here to small invertebrate aquatic creatures that when out of water became sluggish and immobile, as if dead drunk; conglomerations of them were said to resemble mud, as noted in Yiwu zhi 異物志 (Compendium of Unusual Phenomena, comp. ca. second century), China’s earliest encyclopaedia of general knowledge about the flora, fauna, geography, and peoples of southern China. Only portions of the original work are extant, mostly preserved in other texts. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 70.

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Priest Renzen. Mountain Village in Late Autumn In the cramped confines of this mountain village I have my hideaway. Late autumn I cannot bear—my mind gets easily muddled. Clinging to the stones, ancient moss, withered and stunted in the mist; Near the window, frigid fruit trees, bowed down after the rain. Travelers crossing this mountain peak can barely reach the top; Woodsmen and boys gathering firewood—how many trees have been felled? It’s more than just the sights I see that chill me to the core; There’s also the calls of wild geese and the howling of the apes. 釋蓮禪

山村暮秋

山村窄裡一幽栖 秋暮不堪心易迷 粘石舊苔煙悴短 當窗寒菓雨來低 峯尖行客纔登越 木仆樵童幾剪齊 非只物華遮眼冷 又聞雁叫與猿啼 SOURCE: hcmds 465, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 434–35; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE SIX: Qi 齊 has much the same meaning as the preceding word jian 剪 (to fell, cut down). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 50. COMMENTS: Now that he is getting old, Renzen finds everything around him a memento mori.

Ōe no Sukekuni. Early Autumn, Floating on the Nishi River Such good fortune: the major captain bade me to join his excursion. From inside the boat I gazed at the mountains, points of interest many. The leaves on the trees forlorn and sparse, enshrouded by winding clouds. Magnolia oars sent us forward as the water eddied about. On the Katsura River all day long, this floating, drifting scholar; In the Pagoda-tree Market for a thousand years: a man stuck in the mire. At twilight we were set to return—but return we could not face. This is because we kept on seeing sights that to us were new. - 978-90-04-38721-8 Downloaded from Brill.com11/09/2020 11:16:25AM via free access

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大江佐國

初冬遊泛西河

幸從幕府承徵辟 舟裡望山興味頻 木葉蕭疏雲繚繞 蘭橈容裔水奫淪 桂河一日泛遊士 槐市千年沉滯人 昏黑欲歸歸未得 是依風物逐時新 SOURCE: hcmds 470, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 445–46; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: The Nishi River 西川 is another name for the Katsura River 桂河, west of Kyoto. See also the note to line 5. LINE ONE: This post is major captain of the Imperial Bodyguards; the individual in question is unidentified. LINE FOUR: Magnolia oars: see the notes to lines 19–20 of the preface to ks 26, above. LINE SIX: During the Former Han dynasty, the Pagoda-tree Market (Huai shi) was a book market in Chang’an, located near the Tai xue 太學, one of two official academies in the capital. It was a popular gathering place for scholars. Here the phrase is referring to the state Academy. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 68. COMMENTS: Drifting along in the boat, sometimes twirling around without any forward motion, reminds the poet of his own endlessly slow progress in his academic studies and official career.

Fujiwara no Michinori. Staying in Nagato Province at an Inn Near the Sea Salt merchants, fish-tax collectors, officials going back and forth: I prevail on them for letters from home: as couriers they’ll do for now. Homesick tears, many streams, beneath the frontier moon; A journey of a thousand miles, west of the clouds of Chu. Here in the ravine the rain has ceased, the dusky hills seem near; Away in the offing the waves are calm, autumn’s Milky Way hangs low. My thoughts stray back to distant Luoyang, to my friends of poetry and wine. Alone I will chant, alone I will drink, till the village roosters crow.

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440 藤原通憲

Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩

遊長州臨海館

塩商漁稅往還士 試乞家書暫足攜 鄉淚數行胡月下 客遊千里楚雲西 洞中雨霽暮山近 海角浪平秋漢低 遙憶洛陽詩酒友 獨吟獨酌待村雞 SOURCE: hcmds 477, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 2, pp. 458–60; octave (heptasyllabic). TITLE: Nagato Province (Chōshū) is today part of Yamaguchi prefecture, in the far west end of Honshu. Michinori’s foster father Takashina no Tsunetoshi 高階經敏 once served as governor there, and Michinori may have been paying him a visit. LINE FOUR: Chu was a state in south-central China during the Zhou dynasty. “West of the clouds of Chu” simply means very remote, which is evidently how Michinori viewed Nagato. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 84.

Fujiwara no Shigeakira. Visiting Chōrakuji Temple on a Spring Day Spring, and we took our leave of the capital to forget about our cares. At an ancient temple we gazed afar; drunk on wine we rested. First we accompanied a wood-cutter and for a while we ambled along; Then we met a Buddhist priest and spent some time together. In a rustic hut the clouds had entered—we sensed the hills were close. In a blossomy ravine birds were roosting—they knew it was a hidden spot. When dusk came and the sun was setting I felt a certain regret: At our poetry gathering no one at all had sent any poems my way! 藤原茂明

春日遊長樂寺

春辭京洛忘沈憂 古寺眺望醉裡休 先伴樵夫暫緩步 續逢禪客共閑遊 茅簷雲入覺山近

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花洞鳥栖知地幽 夕日傾時還作恨 文場更不使廻矛 SOURCE: hcmds 522, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 23, pp. 29–30; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE TWO: References to drinking wine are sometimes seen in temple-visiting poems. In hcmds 763, by Fujiwara no Atsumitsu, the poet admits to being ashamed that he is drinking wine at the temple, breaking one of the prohibitions. LINE EIGHT: The meaning of hui mao 廻矛 here is unclear. Although the commentator suggests that the phrase might mean to participate in exchanging views about poems (p. 30), the graph 矛 does not fit into the rhyme scheme (a problem not raised by the commentator). We suggest that this word is a scribal error for ware/yo (Ch. yu) 予 (I or me), the sentence meaning: “At the poetry gathering no one sent any poems my way [for comment or response]” or, reflecting a causative construction, “No one had verses sent to me.” BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 202. COMMENTS: This poem is the first of five examples of temple-visiting poems translated here, selected from among several hundred in the anthology. Many conventions in both diction, tropes, theme, and structure are recurrent, particularly in the opening and closing couplets. A poet might describe his departure from the capital as involving “stealing leisure,” and undertaken “on a whim,” “leaving the dust and clamor of the mundane world behind.” The middle couplets are almost invariably parallel in structure and describe the natural scenery of the area where the temple is situated. At the end, it is common to find expressions of reluctance to return to the capital now that the day is over, the poet wandering “indecisively back and forth,” unable to leave. The closing sentiments often include subdued references to career disappointment, aging, and the ephemerality of life.

Ōe no Masafusa. Visiting Chōrakuji Temple on a Spring Day Since growing old I find I cannot help but cherish spring. Socializing now with the Minister, in whose dust I follow. Disheveled hair a frosty color, almost turned to snow. This floating life now in its twilight: how many springs are left? I chance to mix with the cicada-wing caps, as a visitor viewing the flowers; For a while this doddering failure is comforted, one who lives in a dream. Priests: do not say that our words are empty, frivolous babble. Those who are here to form ties with you have all established merit.

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442 大江匡房

Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩

春日遊長樂寺

老來爭不惜芳辰 蓮府閑遊從後塵 衰鬢白霜將至雪 浮生已暮幾殘春 偶交蟬冕花前客 暫慰龍鐘夢裡身 禪侶莫言偏綺語 結緣皆是善根人 SOURCE: hcmds 523, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 3, pp. 31–34; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE TWO: The minister may have been Palace Minister Moromichi; see the commentary, p. 31. LINE FIVE: Cicada-wing caps: a metonym for the nobility. Lines seven and eight: Masafusa seems to be entreating the temple priests to overlook the visitors’ preoccupation with writing verse, which they likely considered unhelpful in establishing good karma. His point is that while this activity (and their idle chatter) may seem frivolous, the versifiers are devoutly religious and deserve a measure of indulgence. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 335.

Nakahara no Hirotoshi. Gazing Out from Chōrakuji Temple Climbing up to this mountain temple, I lean against the rails. From here I cast my gaze afar, enthusiasm hard to contain. A bridge made of a single log spans the valley stream; Senge Pagoda soars above the peaks, far into the clouds. Below cliffside pillars the sun descends, birds call in the gloom. Mountain grotto late in spring, yet blossoms still remain. My post? I am out of office; I wonder if anyone knows. With much free time, scenic sites I am able to go and visit. 中原廣俊

長樂寺眺望

攀躋山寺倚欄干 此處眺望興禁難 獨木橋橫溪水路

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千華塔出嶺雲端 巖楹日落鳥聲暗 洞戶春深花色殘 職是散班人識否 假多風景足尋看 SOURCE: hcmds 524, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 3, pp. 34–36; octave (heptasyllabic). BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 70.

Fujiwara no Sanemitsu. Written Impromptu on an Autumn Day at Zenrinji Temple An old temple east of the capital: Zenrinji is its name. In order to gain some karmic merit I brought my friends on a visit. Nighttime hall, lamps extinguished; chime stones silent in the chill. Autumn hills, leaves fallen; monkeys distant in the night. Secluded caverns—on paths the tracks of priests chanting sutras; Silent valley—beside the stream no sounds from the secular world. Though old and clinging to the passing years, please don’t laugh at me. Whenever I think of the remaining leaves I cannot bear it at all. 藤原實光

秋日禪林寺即事

洛東古寺號禪林 爲結良緣引友尋 夜院燈消寒磬盡 秋山葉落暮猿深 洞幽徑有經行跡 澗靜水無世俗音 老惜年花人莫笑 每思餘葉不能任 SOURCE: hcmds 599, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 3, pp. 172–73; octave (heptasyllabic). LINE EIGHT: “Remaining leaves” 餘葉 has both literal and figurative meanings: the latter include both “remaining years” (in the poet’s life) and “future generations,” for whom Sanemitsu holds little hope. See the concluding page of the Introduction.

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BIOGRAPHY: Fujiwara (Hino 日野) no Sanemitsu (1069–1147) was the son of Fujiwara no Arinobu and brother of poet Munemitsu. He became a monjō tokugōshō graduate at twenty-three, soon receiving the post of ex-officio secretary of Inaba. By 1100 he had reached the junior fifth rank, lower, his next promotion to senior fifth, lower occurring some eleven years later. Sanemitsu’s subsequent posts included chamberlain, superintendent of the Kangakuin (1121), right major controller (1130), and then consultant two years later. He also held appointments as left major controller and head of the Kageyushi. By 1139, he was serving as provisional governor-general of Dazaifu, this following an appointment as acting middle counselor three years earlier. Despite a career of largely unremarkable positions, by 1140 Sanemitsu had risen to the rank of junior second. Four years later, he ended his court career and shortly thereafter took Buddhist vows, adopting the name Saijaku 西寂. Like most of his peers, Sanemitsu was skillful in both Sinitic and vernacular verse composition; six of his kanshi appear in the present collection, with two of his waka in Kin’yōshū. Perhaps his most significant contribution was assisting in the compilation of Tadamichi’s Hosshōji-dono gyoshū. He belonged to a coterie called The Seven Old Men 七叟, prominent members of the Age Veneration Society.

Fujiwara no Chikamitsu. Speaking My Mind on a Summer Day at a Buddhist Temple 1



5



10



15



Taking it easy has always been the thing that I love most. In a room among pines at a quiet spot I absorb the abstruse discussions. Don’t be surprised that a Southern Ruan pauper lives on the northern side; No help for the fact that Northern Zen temples are situated to the south. [There are Zen temples near my humble dwelling, to the north and south, hence this note.]

The steep and level roads of this world I’m aware of deep in my heart; The ups and downs of daily life I’m familiar with even in my sleep. Yuima, after falling ill, held forth on the Ten Metaphors; Rong Qi, after growing old, experienced the Three Joys. Lazy by nature, time after time I go on trips to temples; I’ve much time off, so day after day I visit monasteries. Tea at midday to dispel boredom; it hardly works at all. Old wine to banish melancholy; halfway to getting drunk. I’ve long wished for a permanent refuge in a hidden moonlit valley. White haired, I’ll head off into the mists enshrouding these ancient hills. A retired scholar who is sick of The Way: this is what I am. My posts and my scholarship, nothing achieved; I secretly feel ashamed.

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Honchō mudaishi 本朝無題詩

藤原周光

445

夏日禪房言志

閑適由來最所甘 松房寂處接玄談 莫奇南阮貧居北 其奈北宗禪在南 禪房弊居南北卜隣。故云。世路嶮夷心底識。

生涯倚伏睡中諳 淨名病後喻知十 榮啟老來樂有三 性嬾時時尋法苑 暇多日日到僧菴 午茶散悶功猶少 宿釀破愁醉半酣 素意久栖幽谷月 白頭將入舊山嵐 我斯倦道一居士 官學無成偸可慙 SOURCE: hcmds 764, in Honchō mudaishi zen chūshaku, vol. 3, pp. 497–501; pailü (sixteen lines, heptasyllabic). LINE THREE: This is an allusion to the third-century poet Ruan Ji; see fss 52, above. Within his clan there was a poor branch (to which Ruan himself belonged), whose members lived on the south side of a certain road, and a wealthy branch living to the north. Chikamitsu seems to be saying that by being at this temple he is like a poor relation of the Ruan clan who has presumptuously moved to the north. LINE FOUR: “Situated to the south” simply means being in an inferior position, like the southern branch of the Ruans. The poet was likely aware that the influence of the Northern school of Chan (Zen) Buddhism in China had declined vis à vis the newer Southern one during the ninth century, which had split with the older tradition. Honma observes that the Northern Zen teachings were propagated in Japan during Nara and Heian times (p. 499), however, later schools of Zen (Rinzai and Sōtō sects) were traceable to the Southern branch. See the commentary on differences between the two schools. LINE SEVEN: This line refers to the Yuima-kyō, an influential Mahāyāna text, in which the layman Bodhisattva Yuima (Yuimakitsu 維摩詰, referred to in this line as Jōmyō 浄名, “Spotless Fame”) expounds upon ten metaphors for the body, emphasizing its impermanence and insubstantiality. See also the notes to FSS 32. LINE EIGHT: Rong Qi’s full name is Rong Qiqi 榮啟期; the earliest account of this probably legendary figure is in Liezi. An old recluse, Rong was poor but had not a care

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in the world, and Confucius is said to have asked him why he was so happy. Rong gave three reasons: he was born a human being and not an animal, a man rather than a woman, and had lived to the age of ninety. These were his “Three Joys” (san le 三樂 ). LINE ELEVEN: Chikamitsu may be alluding to the practice of drinking tea during meditation to stay focused. LINE TWELVE: The consumption of wine during temple visits, an obvious breach of Buddhist prohibitions, is mentioned occasionally in this anthology; hcmds 522 (see above) contains another instance. Line fifteen: The Way refers here to Confucian scholarship. The phrase ju shi 居 士 denotes either a retired scholar or a Buddhist novice and perhaps sometimes both at once. BIOGRAPHY: See the notes to hcmds 105. COMMENTS: The theme of career failure is seen in many of the temple-visiting poems in Honchō mudaishi, reflecting the extent to which Confucian studies had declined as a route to preferment. Low-ranked courtiers in particular, who had hoped to advance their careers through scholarship, felt that it had served them poorly, counting for less than belonging to an influential lineage and having ties with the powerful at court. Disillusioned, some turned their backs on court life and embraced Buddhism, seeking comfort in the notion that worldly achievements and “empty fame” were an illusion. However, full acceptance of these ideas and adjusting to temple life apparently had its difficulties, a theme hinted at in the references to wine and tea in the sixth couplet and occasionally seen in other poems as well. Chikamitsu’s vow to head off into the mountain mists seems to suggest a desire for an even deeper withdrawal into complete solitude, where shedding worldly attachments may become easier.

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Index Abe no Seimei 298 Academy. See Daigakuryō Age Veneration Society 52, 370, 378, 444 allusive variation 96, 98, 338, 339 Amida Buddha 116, 280, 291, 390 Amida-kyō 279 An Lushan Rebellion 88, 363 Ariwara no Yukihira 70 n. 204 Ariyoshi no Ason shū 383 ba bing (eight poetic ills) 24 Bai Juyi 9, 13, 24 n. 71, 25 n. 72, 52 n. 146, 53, 54 n. 150, 58, 61, 63, 80, 105, 211, 215, 278, 290, 305, 318, 354, 373, 379 Baiershi yong 14 n. 38, 94 n. 268 Ballad of an Old Cypress (poem, Du Fu) 221 bamboo 211, 226, 241, 262, 284, 295, 338, 355, 389, 405, 422 Bamboo Mat (poem, Yuan Zhen) 312 Ban Biao 140, 271 Ban Gu 271 Ban Jieyu (concubine) 313 banka (elegy) 40 n. 109 banquet poetry 29, 35, 37, 41, 43, 63, 75, 80, 85, 88 n. 252, 143 Bao Shuya 281, 419 Bao Zhao 100 Beckoning the Recluse (poem, Liu An) 296 bessō (clan-based academies) 70, 83 Bian He 193, 194, 397 Bifukumon’in 379, 381 Birdsong Brook (poem, Wang Wei) 189 Bo Ya 126, 212, 213 Bo Yi 284, 299 Bodhisattva Yuima 445 Bonen no ki 410 Building a Hermitage (ode, Shijing) 241 Bunka shūreishū 40, 43, 44, 69, 86, 87 n. 250, 102, 103, 143, 149, 151, 159 Bunkyō hifuron 13, 90, 91 n. 261, 95 n. 273, 161, 187 Bunpōshō 84, 321 Cai Ning 101 Cai Yong 164, 334 Cao Pi 41, 42 nn. 113, 114, 45 n. 122

Cassia Man 280 Chang hen ge (poem, Bai Juyi) 307 Che Yin 408 Chen Fan 152 Chen Kongzhang (Chen Lin) 271 Chen Run 100 Chen She 153 Chen Zi’ang 24 Chinese dates 22 Chinjufu 182 chinrin kadan (the malcontents) 113 chinrin no uta 114 Chisato-shū. See Kudai waka Chiteiki 83 n. 239 chokusen wakashū (imperial waka anthologies) 71 n. 207 Chōya gunsai 24 n. 70, 28 n. 77, 69 n. 200, 84, 418 chrysanthemums 143, 221, 236, 244, 333 Chu ci 143, 156, 158, 199, 247, 248, 296, 323 Chūka ruirin 341 Chūnagon Masakane-kyō shū 365 Chūyūki burui shihai kanshishū x, 78, 176, 336, 337, 338, 376, 377, 379, 402, 406, 408 ci 9, 14 n. 36, 200 cicadas 139, 225, 284 Cinnabar Classic 366 Climbing the Wooded Hill (ode, Shijing) 158 Confucian classics 2, 85, 222, 276, 395 couplet culture 90 Crane Cries, The (ode, Shijing) 392 cranes 235, 260, 275, 287, 392, 416 cuckoo 36 n. 102, 377 Cui Yuan 290, 312 Cypresswood Boat (ode, Shijing) 263, 296 daiei (poems on assigned topics) 102, 103, 176 Daigakuryō 17, 18, 19, 64, 69 Daigokuden (The Great Audience Hall)  136 Daihannya-kyō 136 daimoku (topic statement) 96 Dainichi-kyō 233

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464 Dairi shiki (Palace Regulations) 143, 145, 162, 167 Daoist thought 112, 122, 131, 143, 225, 241, 247, 248, 401 Dazaifu 133, 178, 215, 216, 217, 235, 236, 308, 316, 428 Den Tatsuon shū. See Denshi kashū Denshi kashū 60, 204 Dianlun 310 diplomatic relations with Tang China 3, 34 n. 94, 56 n. 154 Dongfang Shuo 131, 297, 302 Double Ninth (Chōyō, Chrysanthemum Festival) 23, 35, 47, 49, 142, 244, 333 Drinking Wine (poem, Tao Yuanming) 297 Du Fu 12 n. 30, 24, 25 n. 71, 54 n. 150, 115, 221, 224, 403, 419 Du Xunhe 25, 54 n. 150 Du Yuanwai ji 25 n. 71 Duke Jing of Jin 190 Duke Xiang of Qi 189 Eastern Slope (poem, Su Shi) 115 eibutsu 14, 109, 160, 182, 234, 372 Emishi 33, 66 n. 182, 132, 134, 145, 146 Emperor Daigo 47 n. 128, 65, 66, 67, 214, 239 Emperor Go-Shirakawa 357, 379, 380, 381, 429 Emperor Heizei 19, 33, 105 n. 313, 150 Emperor Ichijō 26, 71, 72, 73, 87 n. 249, 89, 251, 326 Emperor Junna 34, 40, 44, 47, 147, 163, 170, 177, 182 Emperor Kanmu 23 n. 67, 32, 33, 36 n. 102, 39 Emperor Kazan 308, 311, 316, 326, 328 Emperor Kōkō 35, 46, 47 n. 128, 53, 97 Emperor Montoku 49, 60 Emperor Murakami 26, 27 n. 76, 46 n. 126, 68, 69, 72, 74, 97, 185, 247 Emperor Ninmyō 36, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53 Emperor Saga 10, 17, 20, 23 n. 69, 26, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 50 n. 139, 86, 88, 100, 102 n. 299, 103, 112, 142, 143, 148, 151, 159, 160, 167, 182, 184 Emperor Seiwa 35 n. 97, 47 n. 128, 50, 51, 52 n. 145 Emperor Shun 262, 273, 287 Emperor Taizong 25 n. 72

index Emperor Tenji 15, 16 n. 43, 29, 30 Emperor Tenmu 17, 121 Emperor Uda 47 n. 128, 54, 55, 56, 58 n. 164, 64 n. 176, 213, 216, 247, 248 Emperor Wu Ding 131 Emperor Yao 275, 287, 289, 295, 340, 410, 416 Emperor Yōzei 35 n. 97, 51, 52, 53, 221 Emperor Yuan Di 154 Emura Hokkai 3 En route to Xuancheng (poem, Xie Tiao) 263 end-rhyme 10, 98, 104 Engi gyoshū 65 Engi igo shijo (preface, Ki no Haseo) 63, 239 enjō (love and longing) 43, 44 n. 120 eremitism 137, 189, 192, 297, 401 erudite. See hakase etchō (Yue tune) mode 14, 200, 201 etchō-byō (prosodic error) 201 Evening After Evening: Prelude (Xue Daoheng) 101 n. 295 examination poems 101, 194 examinations 17, 18, 87, 151, 194, 402 Extensive Fields (ode, Shijing) 241 fan zhaoyin (anti-reclusion verse) 248 Fan zhaoyin shi (poem, Wang Kangju) 286 Felling Trees (ode, Shijing) 256 financial problems and retrenchment, Heian period 22, 35 n. 98, 41 n. 110, 64, 89 Floating on the Pen River (poem, Bai Juyi) 310 flowing-water parallel couplets 161, 190 Four Hoaryheads 288, 299, 362 From Jinzhu Valley Crossing Peaks and Wandering Along a Stream (poem, Xie Lingyun) 247 fu (prose poems) 3, 9, 44, 132, 148 Fujiwara no Akihira 28 n. 79, 76, 402, 406, 410, 424 Fujiwara no Akisuke 84 n. 244 Fujiwara no Akitada 316 Fujiwara no Arikuni 73, 75, 327, 333 Fujiwara no Arinobu 420 Fujiwara no Atsumitsu 83, 84, 344, 358, 366, 369, 393, 441 Fujiwara no Atsumoto 108, 341, 385 Fujiwara no Atsushige 308

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index Fujiwara no Chikamitsu 91 n. 260, 114, 115, 116, 358, 369, 371, 374, 385 Fujiwara no Fuhito 104 n. 308, 126 Fujiwara no Fuyuo 216 Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu 39, 70, 159, 167 Fujiwara no Hamanari 95 n. 273 Fujiwara no Kanesuke 431 Fujiwara no Kin’akira 436 Fujiwara no Kintō 62, 310, 331 Fujiwara no Kiyosuke 84 n. 244 Fujiwara no Korechika 74, 305, 306, 308, 316, 328 Fujiwara no Maro 50 n. 141 Fujiwara no Michinaga 71, 72, 73, 251, 308, 309, 316, 317, 322, 326 Fujiwara no Michinori 77 n. 227, 84, 381 Fujiwara no Michitoshi 349, 375 Fujiwara no Michitsuna 73 Fujiwara no Moromichi 346, 350, 352, 442 Fujiwara no Moronaga 379 Fujiwara no Moroumi 21 n. 61 Fujiwara no Morozane 341, 424 Fujiwara no Mototoshi 77 n. 227, 358 Fujiwara no Mototsune 51, 53, 55, 205, 206, 212, 216, 221, 252 Fujiwara no Motozane 374 Fujiwara no Munemitsu 395 Fujiwara no Munetada 20 n. 58, 74, 337, 378 Fujiwara no Nagamitsu 398, 434 Fujiwara no Narimitsu 399, 434 Fujiwara no Otsugu 41 n. 110, 167 Fujiwara no Sanemitsu 116, 357, 388, 444 Fujiwara no Sanenori 406 Fujiwara no Sanesuke 73 Fujiwara no Shigeakira 369, 379, 407 Fujiwara no Shunzei 84 n. 244 Fujiwara no Sonondo 36 n. 102, 41 n. 110 Fujiwara no Suetsuna 79 Fujiwara no Sukemoto. See Priest Renzen Fujiwara no Suketada 323 Fujiwara no Sukeyo 25 n. 72, 238 Fujiwara no Sumitomo 69 n. 201 Fujiwara no Tadamichi ix, x, 77, 79, 80, 88, 90 n. 256, 92, 98, 109, 356, 357, 369, 371, 381 Fujiwara no Tadanobu 73 Fujiwara no Takaiko 51 Fujiwara no Takemori 53, 54 n. 149

465 Fujiwara no Tamemitsu 316 Fujiwara no Tametoki 326 Fujiwara no Tanetsugu 32 Fujiwara no Teika 310 Fujiwara no Tokihira 67, 216 Fujiwara no Tsunetsugu 255 Fujiwara no Umakai 31 n. 84, 64, 132 Fujiwara no Yorimichi 347, 402 Fujiwara no Yorinaga 77 n. 227, 357, 371, 379, 381 Fujiwara no Yoshitada 406 Fujiwara no Yoshitsumu 3 n. 6 Fujiwara no Yoshitsune 27 n. 76 Fujiwara no Yukiie 350 Fujiwara no Yukinari 73, 76 n. 221 Funa no Maro 205 Fusō kobunshū 28 n. 77 Fusōshū 8 n. 20, 26, 68, 71, 72 n. 208, 74, 87 n. 250, 90 n. 256, 105 n. 314, 185, 250, 251, 303 ga no uta 338 Gakkan’in 70 n. 204 Gan Bao 191 ganmon (Buddhist petition prayers) 410 Gao Feng 283, 298 Gazing Out from Yu’s Tower at Dawn (poem, Bai Juyi) 354 geese 139, 154, 179, 180, 377, 403 Genpei Wars 116 Genshin sōzu den 375 ghosts 190 Gidō sanshishū 317 gi-monjōshō 18 n. 49 gin (variety of zatsugon) 158 Gō no sochi shū 410 Gōdanshō 25 n. 71, 75, 238, 239, 251, 323, 410 Gōke shidai 84 Gōki 410 gongti shi 43 Gōrihōshū 26, 75, 106, 305 gosei-shi (imperial verses) 102 n. 299 Gosen wakashū 60 Goshūishū 375, 411 Gozandō shiwa 3 Great Wild Goose Pagoda 397, 428 gushi 9, 10, 12 n. 30, 101 n. 296 Gyokurin 358

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466 hadai (expatiation of the poem topic) 96, 339, 343 hakase (Ch. boshi) 238 Hakushi monjū 379 Han E 307 Han Feizi 295 Han Gaozu 87 n. 250, 288, 323 Han shu 20 n. 57, 86, 168, 225, 271, 302 Han Yu 24 n. 71, 82, 318 Hana no en (Flower Banquet) 35 harmonizing in verse 15, 17 n. 45, 102, 103 nn. 301, 303, 104, 105 n. 312, 159, 182 Hata no Aritoki 328, 333 He Zhizhang 54 n. 150 Heiji Uprising 382 Heijō 33 Heijō Palace 127 heira 186, 192 Henjō hokki shōryōshū 187 hentai kanbun 7 Hifuryaku 178 Higashi Sanjōin 73 hi-kudai 92, 93 n. 264 Hitachi fudoki 132 Hōgen Uprising 357, 381 hōhotsu no tai (the oblique and obscure style) 99 n. 286 Hōjōki 116 n. 337 homesickness 111 n. 329, 122, 131, 139, 149, 179, 216, 377, 403 hon’in. See jiin Honchō monzui 21 n. 61, 28 n. 79, 48 n. 135, 75 n. 220, 76, 92, 200, 239, 341 Honchō mudaishi ix, 77 n. 227, 78, 80, 81, 106, 111 n. 329, 113, 115, 171, 198, 341, 358, 368, 369, 370, 377, 379, 380, 386, 446 Honchō reisō 8 n. 20, 26, 72, 74, 90 n. 256, 97, 106, 304, 305, 306, 320 Honchō shinshū ōjōden 418 Honchō shirin 75, 330 Honchō shojaku mokuroku 27, 84 n. 242 Honchō shūku 358, 402 Honchō zoku monzui  28 n. 77, 76 n. 222, 79 honmon (kudaishi allusive reference) 96 hōryaku (exam) 18 n. 49, 151 Hosshinshū 376 Hosshōji 357, 365, 428 Hosshōji Kanpaku. See Fujiwara no Tadamichi

index Hosshōji-dono gyoshū 79, 98, 106, 356 Hou Han shu 20 n. 57, 86, 168 hōwa (response poems) 102, 103 n. 301 Huainan zi 220, 366 Huangfu Shi 54 n. 150 Hui Jing 137 Hui Ke 363 Huiyuan 136 hunting 50, 51, 59, 130, 147, 148, 173, 189, 379 Hymn to the Orange (poem, Qu Yuan) 211 Ichikawa Kansai 28 n. 78 imayō 380 immortality 42 n. 113, 45 n. 122, 241, 280, 285, 286, 416 impermanence 139, 445 informal kanshi ix, x, 3, 8, 29, 37, 38, 41 n. 110, 53, 60, 61, 71, 77, 78, 80, 87, 107, 122, 142, 209, 369, 373 Inkashū 74 n. 216 Inscribed at Ci’en Monastery (poem, Bai Juyi) 397 Isayama no Fumitsugu 159 Ishikawa no Hironushi 190 Isonokami no Otomaro 30, 31 n. 84, 138 Jang Bogo 196 Ji Kang 359, 409 Ji Zha 87, 88, 166, 167 jiin (exact rhyme-matching) 104, 105, 106, 260, 262 Jia Yi 278, 290, 415 Jiang Han (poem, Du Fu) 419 Jiang Xu 111 n. 330, 226, 242 Jiang Yan 100 Jijūden (Benevolent Longevity Hall) 275 Jikaku Daishi-den 260 jikenku (self-abasing couplet) 96 jikunshi (word-gloss poem) 76 Jinshin Rebellion 30 jinti shi 9, 158 Jiu bian (The Nine Arguments) 143, 156, 158, 247 Jōgan-kyakushiki 26 Jōnangū Shin’en 56 n. 153 jueju. See zekku jukkai (expression of the poet’s feelings) 96, 253

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index kabane (hereditary title) 121 Kageyu shōkō shū 75, 328 kaibunshi 77 Kaifūsō ix, 9, 14, 15, 16 n. 43, 22, 23, 27 n. 77, 29, 30, 31, 32, 41, 87 nn. 248, 250, 102, 104, 113, 121, 122, 424 Kairaishiki (Kugutsu [no] ki) 380 kakyo. See examinations Kakyō hyōshiki 95 n. 273 Kamitsukeno no Ehito 162 Kangaku-e (The Society for the Promotion of Learning) 308, 320, 327, 328, 330, 378 Kangakuin 70, 83 n. 240, 308, 323 Kanjizaiō Nyōrai 291 Kanke bunsō 66 n. 187, 72 n. 208, 214, 215 Kanke kōshū 214, 238 Kanke sandaishū 214 Kankyoin 39, 40 n. 109 Kanpisō (Poems Harboring Sorrow) 31 n. 84, 139 kanshi, origin of the term 1, 3, 4 Kawara no In 262 Kaya no Toyotoshi 142, 150 Kayō 23 n. 69, 55 n. 153, 381, 382 Kayō Rikyō 23 n. 69, 40 n. 109 Kazansō 40 n. 109 Kegon-kyō 279 keikoku (administering the state) 44, 45, 182 Keikokushū 13, 27 n. 77, 40, 44, 69 n. 199, 87 n. 248, 93 n. 266, 143, 147, 164, 167, 178, 181, 182, 183, 194, 201 kentōshi 34 n. 94, 56 n. 154 Ki no Chiyo 150 Ki no Haseo ix, 28 nn. 77, 79, 59, 63, 205, 214, 237, 238, 239, 254 Ki no Komaro 106 Ki no Sadanori 238 Ki no Shizuko 50 Ki no Tadana 71, 75, 250, 251, 252 Ki no Tadana shū 75 Ki no Toratsugu 193 Ki no Yoshimochi 16 n. 43 kidendō (Chinese history and letters) 19, 20, 28 n. 79, 47, 70 n. 204, 76, 417 Kikeshū 237, 238 Kikuchi Gozan 3 Kin’yōshū 84 n. 244, 304, 358 King Wen 39, 124, 130, 147, 148, 381, 416 King Zhao of Qin 193

467 Kingyoku shū 311 kinsekibun 2 Kintōkō shū (The Collected Poetry of Lord Fujiwara no Kintō) 311, 331 Kiyohara no Natsuno 40 n. 109 Ko Kyŏngsu 165 Kojidan 326, 422 Kojiki 31 Kokin wakashū 16 n. 43, 26, 58 n. 163, 65 n. 180, 66, 67, 113 n. 334, 168 Kokon chomonjū 239 Kong Zhigui 288 Kongō Hannya-kyō 51 Kongōbuji 187 Kōnin-kyaku 33, 143 Kōnin-shiki 33 Konjaku monogatarishū 239 Konkōmyō-kyō 136 Koremune no Hirochika 345, 353 Koremune no Nakachika 353 Koremune no Takatoki 21, 344, 424 Koreyoshi no Harumichi 71, 103 n. 301, 112, 184, 185, 189 Kose no Fumio 227 Kose no Shikihito 93 n. 266, 160, 203 koshi. See gushi Kuchizusami 330 kudai (topic-lines)  55, 59 n. 165, 75, 89, 90, 92, 93 n. 264, 94, 97 nn. 280, 281, 98, 99, 222, 253, 369 Kudai waka (title) 58, 59 n. 165, 90, 308 kudai waka (topic-line waka) 90 kudaishi x, 26, 51, 53, 55 n. 153, 70, 74, 78, 85, 89, 90 n. 256, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103 n. 304, 144, 179, 209, 305, 338, 356 Kudara (Paekche) 2 n. 4, 30 Kudenshū 379 kuge nikki 8, 28 kugutsu (puppeteers) 82, 379, 380 kugyō 47, 427 Kume no Wakame 138 kundoku 7, 8, 86 n. 247 kunten 7 Kurōdo-dokoro 34 n. 91 Kusuko Disturbance 33, 88, 143, 151, 167 Kuwahara no Akinari 162 Kuwahara no Haraaka 159, 162 Kuwahara no Hirota 176

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468 Kuwahara no Miyasaku 158 Kūyarui (Eulogy for Priest Kūya) 330 kyōku (chest couplet) 96 kyoku (song form) 241 Kyokusui no en (Winding Water Banquet) 22, 35 n. 96 Lady Koreuji 203 Laozi (Laozi) 19 n. 50, 122, 208 Lay Priest of Chikuzen. See Priest Renzen Li Bai 24 n. 71, 54 n. 150, 200, 257, 321, 352, 354, 423, 437 Li Duan 106 n. 315 Li ji 84 n. 242, 254, 266 Li Jiao 14 n. 38, 94 n. 268 Li Kang 268 Liang Hong (Bo Luan) 283, 284, 298 Lie xian zhuan 280 Liezi 266, 307, 385, 445 literacy 1, 2, 5, 36, 103 literary Sinitic ix, x, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 15, 57, 85, 86 n. 247 Liu An 286, 296, 366 Liu Bang. See Han Gaozu Liu Ling 295 Liu Song 310, 409 Liu Xuanshi 409 Longshan (Yinshan), Monk 231 Longtou Lament (poem, Wang Wei) 179 Longtou River, The (poem, Yang Shidao) 180 Look At The Rat (ode, Shijing) 334 Lord Mengchang 293, 305 Lord of the River Xiang (poem, in the Nine Songs) 248 Lord Xinling (Wei Wuji) 293, 294 Lu Cheng 20 n. 58 Lu Ji 257, 271, 296 Lu Jiang 230 Lu Lun 106 n. 315 Lü Shang (Lü Wang) 130, 147, 148, 289 Lü Taigong 381, 382 Lu Yun 271 Lun heng 271, 275, 277 Lun yu 19, 50 n. 141, 122, 174, 212, 247, 266, 268, 271, 280, 284, 301, 302 Lunwen 182 Luo Binwang 101 Luo Yin 80 n. 234

index lüshi (J. risshi, regulated octave) 10, 12, 91, 92, 95 Lüshi chunqiu 213 Man’yōshū 31, 95 n. 273, 121, 132, 138, 375, 424 mappō 116 Masafusa shū 411 Masters Mao, The 280 Mei Sheng 306 Mei Yaochen 80 Meigō ōrai (The Letters of Meigō [Akihira]) 402 Meng Haoran 24 n. 71, 243 Mengzi (text) 298 Mibu no Tadamine 114 Michinori Nyūdō zōsho mokuroku 25 n. 72 Midō kanpakuki 73 Minabuchi no Hirosada 182 Minamoto no Fusaakira 69, 71, 86, 105 n. 314, 259, 260, 265 Minamoto no Masakane 84 n. 242, 365 Minamoto no Masaru 232 Minamoto no Michichika 20 n. 58 Minamoto no Morofusa 424 Minamoto no Morotoshi 365 Minamoto no Shitagō 20 n. 58, 28 n. 77, 251, 264, 330 Minamoto no Tamenori 75, 88, 327, 330 Minamoto no Tōru 262 Minamoto no Toshifusa 40, 344, 347, 383, 422 Minamoto no Toshiyori (Shunrai) 84 n. 244, 349 Minamoto no Tsunefusa 324 Minamoto no Tsunenobu 78, 349, 428 Minamoto no Tsutomu 223 ming (plant) 340 mitsuen (private poetry banquets) 66 mixed meter 9, 13, 41, 158, 160, 199, 201 Miyako no Yoshika 194, 238 Miyataki Imperial Excursion 59 Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki 48, 238 Miyoshi no Tameyasu 24 n. 70, 374, 417 monjō hakase 19, 36 monjō tokugōshō 151 monjōdō 19, 47 Monjōin 70 n. 204 monjōshō 18 n. 49

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index Monk Does Not Bow Down to a King, A (essay, Huiyuan) 136 mono no aware 156, 339 montō hakase 308 moon-viewing 38, 61, 110 mudaishi 80, 92 myōbō 18 myōgyō (Master of the Confucian Classics) 18 myōgyōdō 18 Nagaoka-tei 40 n. 109 Nagarjuna 415 Naien (Inner Palace Banquet) 35, 49, 55 n. 151 Nakahara no Hirotoshi 369, 377 Nakashina no Yoshio 107, 155 Nan Tang shu 230 Nanchiin 36 n. 102, 40 n. 109 Nanshi 322 Narabigaoka Sansō 40 n. 109 nature poetry 107, 108, 109, 110, 111 new-style verse. See jinti shi Ni gu (In Imitation of Ancient-style Poetry, poem series, Bao Zhao) 249 Nighttime Thoughts (poem, Li Bai) 352, 423 nigu shi (imitations of old verse) 101 n. 296 Nihon kōki 33, 36 n. 102, 40 n. 109, 47, 144, 167 Nihon shi shi 3 Nihon shiki 28 n. 78 Nihon shoki 15, 86 n. 247, 382 Nihonkoku genzai sho mokuroku 25 n. 72, 91 n. 261, 100 n. 290 Nikkanshū 28 n. 77, 68, 71, 185 Nine Saints, The 416 Nine Songs, The (Jiuge) 248 Nineteen Old Poems, The 101 n. 296 Ninna gyoshū 53 Ninnaji 247, 393 nirvana 277, 280, 415 nisemono no tai (the figurative-imagery style) 99 n. 286 Nishikoribe no Hikogimi 172, 173 non-duality 277, 280, 415 Ochi no Hiroe 122 Ōe no Asatsuna 20 n. 58, 237

469 Ōe no Chisato 58, 90, 308 Ōe no Iekuni 339 Ōe no Koretoki 28 n. 77, 68, 69, 144, 185 Ōe no Masafusa 24, 25, 26, 84, 121, 323, 326, 370, 374, 375, 380, 410, 411, 428 Ōe no Masahira 73, 75, 90 n. 256, 305 Ōe no Mochitoki x, 73, 74, 90 n. 256 305, 308, 309 Ōe no Sukekuni 339, 375 Ōfuna no Sukemichi 205 Ōgishō 84 n. 244 Ogura hyakunin isshu 310 Ōkura no Yoshiyuki 238 Ōmi no Fukuramaro 21 n. 63, 154 Ōmi no Mifune 151 Ōmiwa no Takechimaro 30 One Hundred Twenty Songs (Li Jiao) 14 n. 38 Onjōji 315 Ono no Ishiko 40 n. 109 Ono no Minemori 41, 42, 43, 142, 144, 145, 151 Ono no Nagami 111, 152 Ono no Suetsugu 195 Ono no Takamura 68, 71, 185, 255, 301 Ōtaku fukatsushō 92, 93 n. 264, 95, 97 n. 280, 99 n. 286 Ōtomo no Narimasu 184 Ōtomo no Ujikami 184 Ōtsu no miya 16 n. 43 Ōtsu no Obito 128 Ouyang Xiu 80 Owari no Hamanushi 46 n. 127 pailü (extended regulated verse) 10, 91 Pan Yue 98, 158, 230, 247, 257, 280, 287, 343, 365, 381, 397 parallelism 12, 13, 92 n. 263, 96, 98, 129, 140, 158, 161, 190, 409 Parhae (Ch. Bohai) 2, 3, 6, 65 n. 182, 88, 162, 165, 185, 206, 238 paulownia 334, 416 peach 372 peng (mythical bird) 153, 263 Penglai 197, 285, 388 pines 150, 174, 340, 343, 344, 346, 347, 348, 350 plum 36 n. 102, 177, 210, 391 Plums Are Dropping, The (ode, Shijing) 177 poems describing paintings 27, 198, 384, 385 poems on history 86, 87, 88

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470 poetic confusion 207, 235, 422, 435 poetry and immortality 42 n. 113, 45 n. 122 Poetry Contest of the Consort Held During the Kanpyō era, The 58 n. 164 prefaces in literary Sinitic 27, 28, 43 n. 116, 58 n. 164, 64 n. 176, 72, 75, 87 n. 248, 122, 214, 238, 239, 251, 306 Priest Dōji 30, 135, 136 Priest Dōyū 105, 151 Priest Ennin 25 n. 71, 54 n. 149, 196, 260 Priest Henjō 167, 183 Priest Jinkan 348, 393 Priest Kōjō 169 Priest Kūkai 13, 46, 90, 105 n. 313, 149, 169, 187 Priest Renzen x, 91 n. 260, 111 n. 329, 369, 373, 374, 386 Priest Ryōki 92 Priest Saichō 160, 169 Priest Zhanran (J. Tannen) 306 Prince Atsumichi 328 Prince Atsuyasu 309 Prince Dan of Yan 354 Prince Iyo Disturbance 88, 167 Prince Morosada. See Emperor Kazan. Prince Motoi 126 Prince Munehito 347 Prince Nagaya 30, 124, 126, 135 Prince Nakao 43, 149, 159, 174 Prince Obito 122 Prince Ōtomo 16 n. 43, 39, 147, 154, 163. See also Emperor Junna Prince Ōtsu 16 n. 43, 30, 104 n. 308 Prince Sadaakira 221 Prince Sannomiya 420. See also Prince Sukehito Prince Shōtoku 30 Prince Sukehito 77 n. 227, 347, 393 Prince Takechi 126 Prince Tokiyo 216 Prince Tomohira x, 74, 75 n. 218, 251, 305, 306, 308 Princess Kenshi 347 Qian Qi 54 n. 150 Qin Qing 266, 307 Qin Shi Huang 248 Qu Yuan 211, 248, 323, 333 quadripartite structure 10, 96, 100 n. 292

index rakku (concluding couplet) 96 rakusho 21 n. 61 reclusion (hermitage) 77 n. 227, 112, 113, 115, 137, 184, 192, 241, 247, 248, 251, 286, 296, 334, 352, 369 reclusion within the court 297 Regent Michitaka. See Fujiwara no Michitaka regulated verse. See jinti shi Reizen’in (Reizeiin) 40 n. 109, 143, 176 Reputation Left by King Wen, The (ode, Shijing) 381 Responding to the Visitor’s Difficulties (essay, Dongfang Shuo) 302 Returning to My Garden and Fields to Live (poem series, Tao Yuanming) 212, 267, 297 Rhapsody on Autumn Inspirations (prosepoem, Pan Yue) 158, 365, 397 Rhapsody on Contemplating the Mystery (prose-poem, Zhang Heng) 263, 278 Rhapsody on Jujubes (prose-poem, Fujiwara no Umakai) 132 Rhapsody on Literature (prose-poem, Lu Ji) 271 Rhapsody on Shanglin Park (prose-poem, Sima Xiangru) 148 Rhapsody on the Great Man (prose-poem, Sima Xiangru) 272 Rhapsody on the Idle Life (prose-poem, Pan Yue) 280, 287 Rhapsody on the Northern Expedition (prose-poem, Ban Biao) 140 Rhapsody on the Owl (prose-poem, Jia Yi) 415, 290 Rhapsody on the Parrot (prose-poem, Mi Heng) 375 rhyme category 11, 12, 94, 102 n. 299, 104, 146, 312 rhyme-matching 13 n. 35, 102 n. 299, 104, 105, 106, 260 rigōshi (separating-and-joining poems) 76, 332 ritsuryō system 5 n. 12, 17, 32, 35 n. 98 River He is Wide, The (ode, Shijing) 331 Rokkasen 46 rokuin (reining in the rhyme) 106 Rong Qiqi 445 Ruan Ji 100, 295, 359, 445

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index Ruidai koshi. See Ruijū kudaishō Ruijū kudaishō 89, 90 n. 256, 104 n. 307, 304, 309, 328 Ryō no gige 147, 255 Ryōjin hishō 320, 379 Ryōunshū 11, 12, 40, 43, 69, 87 n. 250, 104 n. 307, 106 n. 319, 142, 144, 151, 159 Sagain 40 n. 109, 143, 173 Saho Mansion 126 Saigyō 361 Sakanoue no Imao 164 Sakanoue no Imatsugu 164 Sakumon daitai 13, 20 n. 58, 76 nn. 224, 225, 92, 94, 95 n. 273, 96, 97, 98, 99 n. 286, 106, 201 Śakyāmuni 366 Sanbōe kotoba 330 Sanboku kikashū 84 n. 244 Sand of Silk-washing Stream (poem, Su Shi)  158 Sange ōjōki 374 Sanjō no Machi 49 n. 136, 50 sechien 103 n. 304 Seiryōden (The Hall of Cool and Refreshing Breezes) 47, 176, 197, 234, 275, 388 sekiten 35 n. 96, 50, 53, 55 n. 151, 77, 87, 222 Senzai kaku 54 n. 150, 90, 305 Senzaishū 84 n. 244, 393, 411, 420 setsuwa 28 Seven Old Men, The 444 Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove 259, 260, 295, 359, 409, 412 Seventh Month, The (ode, Shijing) 377 Sezoku genbun 330 shadow-rank system 36 Shamon Kyōkō shū 75, 264 Shangguan Yi 24 Shanglin Park 126, 173 Shen xian zhuan 286 Shen Yue 24 shi 1, 3, 4, 9, 16 n. 43 Shi Chong 126, 429 Shi ji 18 n. 49, 20 n. 57, 85, 86, 124, 168, 272, 284, 339 shiawase (kanshi poetry contests) 27, 68, 69, 77

471 Shiawase competition of Tentoku 3 (959)  27 n. 76, 68, 97, 98 n. 283, 103 n. 304 Shige (The Norms of Poetry) 95 n. 273 Shigeno no Sadanushi 44, 103 n. 301, 159, 164, 178, 182, 200 Shijing 9, 13, 50 n. 141, 64, 124, 158, 177, 220, 241, 256, 263, 278, 315, 331, 334, 377, 405 Shijoshū 28 n. 77, 402 Shika wakashū 84 n. 244 shikan (contemplation and insight) 109, 110 n. 325 shikashū 60 Shiki-ke Fujiwara 80, 358, 369, 378 Shikyōki 24 n. 70, 111 n. 328, 121 Shimada no Kiyota 205 Shimada no Tadaomi ix, 13, 26, 54, 60, 105, 204, 205, 206 Shin Kokin wakashū 27 n. 76, 349 Shin sarugaku ki 402 Shingon sect 169, 187, 233, 317 Shinsen Man’yōshū 57 n. 159, 58, 59 n. 165 Shinsen rōeishū 358, 376, 393 Shinsen ruirinshō 54 n. 150 Shinsen shōjiroku 143, 163 Shinsen zuinō 311 Shinsen’en 39, 40 nn. 107, 109, 53, 142, 173, shinshi (Presented Scholar) 18 Shinzei. See Fujiwara no Michinori Shinzei Nyūdō zōsho mokuroku 84 Shishinden (The Purple Sanctum Hall) 275 Shōchūreki 418 Shōgakuin 70 n. 204 Shoku Nihon kōki 35 n. 95, 46 n. 127, 47, 48, 144, 178 Shoku Nihongi 16 n. 43, 22, 23 n. 67, 156 shōshi (ministry exams) 18 n. 49 Shōyūki 73 Shu dao nan (poem, Li Bai) 200 Shu Qi 284, 299 Shūi wakashū 306, 324 Shujing 220, 282 Shuo yuan 266 shūsai (Flourishing Talent) 18, 151 Silla 2, 34 n. 94, 56 n. 154, 165, 187, 331 Sima Qian 85, 87 n. 250, 153, 272, 292 Sima Xiangru 148, 173, 265, 272, 278 Sino-Japanese 6, 7 n. 17 Sitting at Night (poem, Bai Juyi) 313

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472 snow 36 n. 102, 44, 108, 207, 229, 235, 339, 340, 352, 357, 360, 363 Sochiki 350 Song of Xiangyang (poem, Li Bai) 354 Song Yu 98, 143, 158, 247, 343 Song Zhiwen 273 Sonkyō. See Tachibana no Aritsura Sonkyōki 264 Soushen ji 191, 285 Spirit Tower, The (ode, Shijing) 124 Su Shi 115, 158 Su Wu 131, 292, 334 Sugawara no Ariyoshi 383 Sugawara no Fumitoki 239, 326, 327 Sugawara no Kiyokimi 49, 159, 172, 182 Sugawara no Koreyoshi 49, 205, 252 Sugawara no Michizane ix, 8, 13, 26, 27 n. 77, 52, 54, 55, 56 n. 154, 58, 59, 62, 66, 67, 72 n. 208, 97 n. 281, 105, 109, 139, 205, 206, 214, 215, 216, 217, 227, 236, 238 Sugawara no Tamenaga 84, 321 Suisaki 344, 348, 383 Suketada shū 323 sumō 17, 41 Sun Kang 392 Sun Wen 166 Suzakuin 247 swallows 152, 262, 400 Tachibana no Aritsura 21 n. 61, 71, 75, 77, 86, 105 n. 314, 259, 260, 264, 265 Tachibana no Kachiko 70 n. 204 Tachibana no Masamichi 75, 251 Tachibana no Munesue 352 Tachibana rōchū shikan 75 Tadamichi shū 358 Taira no Kiyomori 381, 382 Taira no Masakado Rebellion 69 n. 201 Taira no Suketoshi 342 taisaku (exam) 18 n. 49, 151, 194 Tajihi no Kiyosada 171 Takaoka no Tomotsune 254 Takashina no Moriyoshi 304, 318, 320 Tale of Genji, The 326, 410 Tamenori shū 330 Tami no Kurohito 112

index tan’in (drawing rhyme words) 92 n. 263, 106, 146 Tanabata (Double Seventh) 35, 41, 55 n. 151, 370 Tanaka no Kiyotari 37 tandai (drawing topics) 103, 146 Tang wen (chapter, Liezi) 307 Tangshi sanbai shou ix, 12 n. 30 Tao Gong 100 Tao Yuanming 24 n. 70, 115, 212, 220, 226, 244, 267, 297, 321, 333, 419 tea 143, 170, 203, 446 technical manuals 90, 91 temple excursion verse 112, 113, 117, 171, 305, 441, 446 Tendai 7 n. 18, 110 n. 325, 169, 183, 306, 308, 315, 375 tenjōbito (privy courtier) 47, 388 Thirty-Eight Years’ War 146 three paths 111 n. 330, 226, 242 Tobain Detached Palace 346, 350 tonal prosody 11, 12, 93, 142 Toshi bunshū 194 Toshiyori zuinō 84 n. 244 tripartite structure 10, 96 Tsunenobu shū 350 Umakai shū 31 n. 84, 132 utaawase 27 n. 76, 46 n. 126, 53, 57, 58 n. 164, 110 utagaki 23 n. 67 Vimalakīrti. See Wugoucheng Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra (Yuima-kyō) 259 wain (rhyme-sharing) 104 Wachū setsuin 20 waka 23 n. 67, 26, 28, 33, 36, 40 n. 109, 46 n. 126, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 55 n. 151, 57, 58, 59, 60, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71 n. 207, 73 n. 214, 75, 77 nn. 225, 227, 84 n. 244, 90, 95, 103, 109, 110 n. 325, 113, 114, 132, 177, 311, 349 Waka kuhon 311 wakajo (vernacular poem prefaces) 76 wakan konkōbun 6 Wakan rōeishū 54 n. 150, 305, 311, 377, 410

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index Wang Bo 24 Wang Can 164 Wang Changling 54 n. 150, 95 n. 273 Wang Chong 271, 277 Wang Huizhi 295 Wang Hyoryŏm 65 n. 182, 165 Wang Ji 24 n. 70 Wang Jun (Wang Jungong) 276 Wang Wei 24 n. 71, 54 n. 150, 100 n. 292, 144, 179, 189 Wang Zhaojun 86, 87 n. 250, 154, 168, 169, 194, 196, 292 Wang Zhihuan 161 Wang Zijin 416 Wang Ziyou 409 Wani 2 n. 4 warblers 149, 256, 377, 396 Warm Gusts (ode, Shijing) 405 washi (harmonizing verse) 102, 103 n. 301 Wen Tingyun 262 Wen xuan 19, 20 n. 57, 30, 44, 76, 85, 111 n. 328, 122 Wenyuan yinghua 24 n. 70 Western Paradise  116, 280, 390, 418 White Buddha (Vairocana) 366 willows 39, 210 wine drinking 38, 129, 142, 143, 220, 241, 244, 305, 310, 315, 321, 352, 353, 354, 355, 409, 446 Wisteria Banquet (Fuji no en), 67 n. 193 Worthies and Harmonies 289, 290 Wugoucheng (Vimalakīrti) 259 Xiaojing 19, 50 n. 141, 305 Xie Anshi 269 Xie Lingyun 24 n. 71, 110, 111 n. 328, 247, 257, 269 Xie Tiao 100, 263, 290 Xiongnu 131, 154, 195, 292 Xu gao seng zhuan 137 Xu Hun 54 n. 150, 80 n. 234 Xu You 295 Xue Daoheng 25 n. 72, 101 n. 295 Xue Guangde 362 Yamato no Koazumahito 132 Yamazaki Imperial Villa 147, 381

473 Yan Guang (Yan Ziling) 254 Yan Hui 284 Yan Ying 166 Yang Boyong 285 Yang Guifei 307 Yang Shidao 100 n. 288, 179 Yang Xiong 265, 270, 271, 297, 326 Yang Xuanzhi 105 n. 315 Yasuno no Fumitsugu 182 Yasutane shū 75 Yijing 56, 224, 263, 273 yipang style 109 yōku (waist couplet) 96 Yoshimine no Yasuyo 40 n. 109, 44, 87, 88 n. 252, 167, 175, 182 Yoshishige no Yasutane 75, 83 n. 239, 306, 320 Yu Liang 354, 429 Yuan Gong 241 Yuan Zhen 24 n. 71, 25, 53, 54 n. 150, 80, 101, 105, 251, 278, 312, 318, 319, 377 Yue Nü 241 yuefu 9, 14 n. 36, 86, 87 n. 250, 101 n. 296, 160, 182, 196, 249, 257 yūgen no tai (the abstruse and mysterious style) 99 n. 286 Yuimakitsu 445 Yuima-kyō. See Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra zatsuei 13, 41, 43, 44, 158, 160, 182 zatsugon 13, 14, 93 n. 266, 158. See also mixed-meter and zatsuei Zatsugon hōwa 23 n. 69, 55 zekku (regulated quatrain) 4 n. 8, 10, 43, 159 zekku no kudai 93 Zengzi 212, 266 Zhang Han 201 Zhang Heng 263, 278 Zhang Liang 87 n. 250 Zhang Xiaobiao 54 n. 150 Zhang Yi 335 Zhang Zhengjian 100 Zhang Zhihe 200, 201 Zhanguo ce 359 Zhao Gu 101 n. 295 zhaoyin shi 296 Zhi Qian 259

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474 Zhong Yi 131 Zhong Ziqi 126, 212 Zhu Du Gongbu ji 25 n. 71 Zhu Maichen 132 Zhuangzi (Zhuangzi) 19 n. 50, 122, 131, 153, 208, 247, 248, 263, 280, 282, 295, 297, 318, 334, 344, 401, 405, 419

index Zi Gong 268, 271, 302 Zichan 166 Zoku Honchō ōjō den 326 Zoku Honchō shūku 84, 358, 371 Zoku Senjimon 84, 418 Zou Yang 306 Zuo zhuan 161, 166, 190

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