Wednesday, 03 March 2010

• Gazing at the mountains until they fade from view...

  It's been a busy few weeks, been working on this for a while, hoping I can get back on track... but there's a lot going on even now so it might not work out so well...
  

  額田王下近江国時作歌井戸王即和歌

  
  

  額田王、近江の国に下る時に作る歌、井戸王、即ち和ふる歌

  
  

  Nukata no Opokimi, a poem composed at the time of descending to the province of Apumi, Yi no pe no Opokimi, a poem in reply

  
  

  味酒　三輪乃山　青丹吉　奈良能山乃　山際　伊隠萬代　道隈　伊積流萬代尓　委曲毛　見菅行武雄　數々毛　見放武八萬雄　情無　雲乃　隠障部之也

  
  

  味酒三輪の山あをによし奈良の山の山の際にい隠るまで道の隈い積もるまでにつばらにも見つつ行かむをしばしばも見放けむ山を心なく雲の隠さふべしや

  
  

  Umasake                              Delicious wine

  Miwa no yama                    Mount Miwa- where wine is offered to the gods,

  Awo ni yoshi                        Blue earth,

  Nara no yama no                Mount Nara - rich with blue clay,

  Yama no ma ni                    Between the mountains

  Ikakuru made                     Until they are disappear

  Michi no kuma                    The bends in the road

  Itsumoru made ni               Until they pile up

  Tsubara ni mo                    How intently

  Mitsutsu yukamu wo          I will fix my gaze upon them as I go

  Shiba shiba mo                  Over and over

  Misakemu yama wo          These mountains which I seek to gaze upon and reflect,

  Kokoro naku                     Heartlessly

  Kumo no                           how can the clouds

  Kakusapu beshi ya           continue to hide them from me so?

  
  

  反歌

  
  

  三輪山乎　然毛隠賀　雲谷裳　情有南畝　可苦佐布倍思哉

  
  

  三輪山をしかも隠すか雲だにも心あらなも隠さふべしや

  
  

  Miwayama wo                               Mount Miwa—

  Shikamo kakusu ka                      must you hide it like that?

  Kumo dani mo                              Even clouds

  Kokoro aranamo                        ought to have hearts;

  Kakusapu beshi ya                      How can you continue to hide it?

  
  

  右二首歌山上憶良大夫類聚歌林曰遷都近江国時御覧三輪山御歌焉日本書紀曰六年丙寅春三月辛酉朔己卯遷都于近江

  右の二首の歌は、山上憶良大夫が類聚歌林には「都を近江の国に遷す時に、三輪山を御覧す御歌なり」といふ。日本書紀には「六年丙寅の春の三月、辛酉の朔の己卯に、都を近江に遷す」といふ。

  
  

  Regarding the above two poems, Lord Yamanoue no Okura says in Ruijiu Karin, “At the time the capital was moved to the province of Apumi, the honorable poems upon gazing at Mount Miwa.” In the Nihon Shoki it says, “In the third month of spring of the sixth year Older brother of fire Tiger, in the beginning of the month of the Younger brother of metal Bird on the Older brother of earth Rabbit day, [they] moved the capital to Apumi.”

  
  

  綜麻形乃　林始乃　狭野榛能　衣尓著成　目尓都久和我勢

  
  

  綜麻形の林のさきのさ野榛の衣に付くなす目につく我が背

  
  

  Pesokata no                            Line of spun hemp thread

  Payashi no saki no                 At the edge of the forest

  Sano hari no                          The hazel trees in the field

  Kinu ni tsuku nasu                Just as they bring color to my garment

  Me ni tsuku wa ga se             My beloved is brought before my eyes

  
  

  右一首歌今案不似和歌但舊本載于此次故以猶載焉

  右の一首の歌は、今案ふるに和ふる歌に似ず。ただし、旧本、この次に載す。この故になほし載す。

  
  

  Regarding the above poem, thinking of it now it does not resemble a reply poem. In an old book, it lists it as next. Therefore, we list it here.

  
  

  These three poems are, according to the preface provided, composed upon the move of the capital to Apumi (Ōmi) in 667 during the reign of Emperor Tenchi. There is a lot of speculation as to the significance of/the reason for this move: the capital since the beginning of the Yamato state had always been in the Kinki region, and moving outside of it was unheard of. Many attribute the move to Tenchi's fear of retaliation from the T'ang/Shilla army following the loss at the Battle of the Paekchon River. However, the move did not take place for a full four years after the battle and there were other factors at play. Regardless, the move was of course an emotional time for the emperor and the courtiers accompanying the emperor on the journey into Ōmi. Leaving the land their ancestors had long ruled from in various locations, they pass the famous Mount Miwa, long revered as the symbol of Emperor Sujin's court; it had been played down vs. Mount Kagu which became the symbol of the court from the time of Emperor Keitai, but the ancient religiosity of the mountain, its sacred quality and especially its deity were all very much likely at the forefront of the minds of the members of the imperial procession as it passed, and Nukata no Ōkimi captures that feeling in her choka + hanka combination which evoke the traditional images associated with the mountain while conveying the speaker's reluctance to leave it behind, the mountain with such a deep connection to the “history” of the Yamato court. Leaving the mountains behind is a symbol of leaving the Yamato basin behind, the land so long (well, how long is the question but...) the center of power for the Yamato rulers. Nukata no Ōkimi, as the “poetess of great words,” puts the feelings of the Emperor into song as we saw she often did with his mother Saimei (now passed away....). That is why again the quote from Yamanoue no Okura again assigns these two poems to the Emperor (Tenchi) in contrast to the headnote which designates it as the work of Nukata. Nukata, with her incredible poetic talents, was able to capture the emotions flowing through the emperor and the various other members of the procession through her poem.

  The poem by Yi no pe no Opokimi (Inoe no Ōkimi) is a poem in reply to the two by Nukata; although the classical editors note following it that it does not seem like a reply to the previous two, Itō Haku makes an intriguing argument relating to an old myth about Mount Miwa that indeed seems to support that it is in fact a reply poem and a very cleverly constructed one (or at least it is a poem related to Mount Miwa and therefore is appropriately listed following the two Nukata verses).

  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Nukata's choka + hanka is the role of the clouds; the personification of them as something that is inhibiting her desire to gaze at the mountain and reflect on the years gone by. However, the question is whether this can truly be labeled personification—ancient Japanese religious tradition and the consciousness of the people of this period would have the clouds as deities anyway, as agents of change rather than as passive bodies of condensed water vapor floating along the wind. Thus a transitive verb is used (“kakusafu”) to describe the action of the clouds. The desire of the speaker to fixate their gaze on the mountain as a means of reflecting on the location which they are now leaving, is interesting again considering the relative importance of Mount Kagu from the time of Emperor Keitai compared to Mount Miwa, but Mount Miwa was again still a very sacred place and one of the symbols of Yamato, along with Mount Nara which is also mentioned in the choka, and so the speaker announces that until those mountains are hidden between the other moutains, and until the bends in the road pile up (i.e. they have gone too far for it to be visible any longer) she wants to keep gazing at them; with that strong desire, how can the heartless clouds even think to hide them from her? Even clouds ought to have hearts, and understand her desire... she (he/they) is leaving a place very dear, and faced with inevitable parting all that is left to do is gaze at the scenery of Yamato as it descends further and further into the distance. Clouds are the villain here, the obstruction preventing the realization of that desire. It is interesting that the clouds do not appear in the narrative until the end of the choka, however; we can almost feel the movement of the speaker/the procession through the lines of the choka. First we are at the foot of Mount Miwa, then Mount Nara, both with their traditional epithets, then we can feel them getting further and further away; we can feel the speaker straining to look behind as they go, even as the two mountains become lost among the others, and even as the road behind them expands and places more distance between themselves and the sacred mountains. And just while the speaker is gazing back at the mountains, trying to keep them in view, the clouds take over the scene. The movement of both space and time are thus very tangible in the narrative of the poem. The hanka, however, focuses on the last part, perhaps because it is the here and now, the end result of the speaker's effort to keep the mountains in view that was foiled by the clouds: the speaker laments that clouds too ought to have a heart to understand the difficulty of parting with these symbols of Yamato and the past/courtly tradition, so how can they be so cold to hide the mountains from her?

  As far as content goes, with the procession leaving Yamato for Apumi and lamenting the disconnection with the past and tradition that is thus encountered, the “reply” poem does not seem all that connected. Although it makes use of an ancient/local name for Mount Miwa (Pesokata) it lacks any sort of a similar lamenting tone. Rather it likens the way that the image of her love “attaches” to her eyes, or rather appears before her, to the way the hazel trees “attach” color to her clothes; the verb used in both cases is tsuku, in Japanese, having many meanings and thus the parallel is set up cleverly; I attempted to mimic this in my translation by using the verb “bring” in a similar way but it does not work quite a well. The “line of spun hemp thread” (pesokata no) as Itō hypothesizes sets the scene at Mount Miwa due to its connection with an old local legend about the mountain: a young beautiful girl named Ikutamayoribime living near the mountain who did not seem to have any male visitors somehow ended up pregnant, and when her parents asked her how it happened, she explained that a beautiful man she had never seen before suddenly appeared and … impregnated her. Wanting to know where he lived, by the order of the parents she sprinkled red earth on the floor and attached a needle threaded with a spool of hemp thread to the skirt of the man's garment (assumably when he next visited her), and the next morning the parents followed it to the shrine on Mount Miwa. They therefore discovered the man was in fact the god of Mount Miwa (miwa meaning three rings, which was all that was left on the spool of hemp thread in the morning, so that is where the name came from). Therefore “shape” of a line of hemp thread is another way to refer to Mount Miwa. Because of the “hari” meaning hazel tree also meaning needle, another way to interpret the part of the poem where the “color of the hazel trees in the field at the edge of the forest bring color to my garment” is that the “needle” attaches to “my garment” just as the needle threaded with hemp thread is attached to the garment of the god of Mount Miwa in the story. The “beloved” (wa ga se) mentioned at the end therefore could be then interpreted as the god and the poet as speaking from the perspective of the girl in the story. The image of her beloved appears as the color of the hazel trees bring color to her garment or as the needle is attached to the garment (thereby leading her to him as the girl/parents are led to Mount Miwa in the story). Therefore this poem is in fact rich with local flavor of the area around Mount Miwa, but whether it is a direct reply to Nukata no Ōkimi is questionable; but it fits well into the “narrative” of the Man'yoshu just where it is.

  • 3:16 PM
  • 20 Views
  • 0 eProps
  • 0 Comments