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Hyakunin Isshu
Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, also called Hyakunin Isshu, is an
anthology of a 100 poems by 100 different poets. The poems are
all "waka" (now called "tanka").
Waka are five-line poems of 31 syllables, arranged as 5, 7, 5,
7, 7. The waka represented in Hyakunin Isshu were court poetry,
which almost exclusively used the waka format from the earliest
days of Japanese poetry until the..seventeensyllable haiku came
into prominence in the seventeenth century.
Hyakunin Isshu is said to have been compiled by>1:he famous
thirteenth-century critic and poet Fujiwara no Sadaie (also
known as Teika), though his son Fujiwara no Tameie may have had
a hand in revising the collection. Teika also compiled a waka
anthology called Hyakunin Shuka (Superior Poems of Our Time),
which shares many of the same poems as Hyakunin Isshu. The
hundred poems of . Hyakunin Isshu are in a rough chronological
order from the seventh through the thirteenth centuries. The
most famous poets through the late Heian period in Japan are
represented.
Hyakunin Isshu has had an immense influence in Japan. In Donald
Keene's phrase, the poems have "constituted the basic knowledge
of Japanese poetry for most people from the early Tokugawa
period until very recent times. This meant, in a real sense,
that Teika was the arbiter of the poetic tastes of most Japanese
even as late as the twentieth century." The influence of
Hyakunin Isshu was particularly extended through the card game
based on the collection, called uta karuta, played especially at
New Year's day.
Among foreign critics and translators there have been differing
opinions about the value of Hyakunin Isshu. Arthur Waley thought
that the collection "is so selected as to display the least
pleasing features of Japanese poetry. Artificialities of every
kind abound." Kenneth Rexroth is more temperate: "[It] is a very
uneven collection.
It contains some of the most mannered poetry of classical Japan,
but it also contains some of the best." Donald Keene offers this
summary: "It can hardly be pretended that all the poems deserve
the immortality Teika bestowed on them, but many are fine poems,
and his choices do no harm to his reputation as a critic."
"Poetry has its seed in the human heart and blossoms forth in
innumerable leaves of words ... it is poetry which, with only a
part of its power, moves heaven and earth.
Presented
by Dr. Angelee Deodhar
( Continue
to last issue)
*
Fun'ya no
Yasuhide
It is by its breath
That autumn's leaves of trees and grass
Are wasted
and driven.
So they call this mountain wind
The wild
one, the destroyer
**
Oe no
Chisato
As I view
the moon,
Many things come into my mind
And my
thoughts are sad;
Yet it's not
for me alone,
That the
autumn time has come.
***
Sugawara no Michizane
dir="ltr">
(845-903)
At the present time,
Since I
could bring no offering,
See Mount
Tamuke !
Here are brocades of red leaves,
As a tribute
to the gods.
****
Fujiwara no Sadakata
dir="ltr">
(873-932)
If your name is true,
Trailing vine of "Meeting Hill,
" Isn't there some way,
Hidden from people's gaze,
That you can draw her to my side?
*****
Fujiwara no Tadahira
(880-949)
If the maple leaves
On Ogura mountain
Could only have hearts,
They would longingly await
The emperor's pilgrimage.
****
Fujiwara no Kanesuke
(877-933)
Over Mika's plain,
Gushing forth and flowing free,
Is Izumi's stream.
I do not know if we have met:
Why, then, do I long for her?
***
Minamoto no Muneyuki
(--939)
Winter loneliness
In a mountain village grows
Only deeper, when
Guests are gone, and leaves and grass
Are withered: troubling thoughts.
***
Oshikochi no Mitsune
(--925)
If it were my wish
To pick the white chrysanthemums,
Puzzled by the frost
Of the early autumn time,
I by chance might pluck the flower.
**
Mibu no Tadamine
(850--)
Like the morning moon,
Cold, unpitying was my love.
And since we parted,
I dislike nothing so much
As the breaking light of day.
Translated by
Dr. Angelee Deodhar |
