Biographies CXLV: The Waka Poets, Part I

Kakinomoto-no-Hitomaro

¶Ki-no-Tsurayuki, in his preface to the Kokin Wakashū, states: "For moving heaven and earth, for stirring the demons and gods, for teaching the way of men and softening the bond between husband and wife, nothing surpasses waka." Waka is rooted in the feelings of the human heart and is expressed by stringing words out at length; this is a universal matter that holds true in every country. As a refinement of such words, the western land (China) has shi, poetry, and our land has uta, song. Though the forms of language and writing differ, in that both arise from joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure and give expression to what is right in human nature and feeling, there is no difference between them. The exclamation "Ureshiki kana" is said to have had its beginning in the remote age, before the world was yet opened. And the poem "Yakumo tatsu" is said to have originated with Hayasusanoo-no-Mikoto. Since then, the poems of "Naniwazu" and "Asakayama" were composed and set up as models of waka. If these are sung to the accompaniment of strings, it is said that they can even change and shift the customs of a people. From nameless men and women of the marketplace to the highest ministers of the court, whenever something moves the heart, it cannot but be put into words. That the "six principles" were complete, that poems of praise and poems of satire stood side by side, that one could describe the customs of the people, observe the state of government, rouse men's feelings, and voice grievances, all lay precisely here. The evil of later ages, however, was that poetry came to devote itself only to the adornment of fine phrases. Bewitching, sensuous verse became a means of arranging love affairs, and soft, yielding verse became a pretext for admonition; the weaving of feeling and the polishing of words grew ever more skillful and ever more minute. Meanwhile the correct and elegant measure was almost cut off. Men of discernment lamented that frivolous words rose like clouds and showy expressions welled up like springs. It is said to be like discarding the rich fruit of autumn and plucking only the fleeting flowers of spring, and the saying is indeed just. Yet the nature and feelings with which people are endowed have not changed from antiquity to the present. That being so, how could there fail to be, even in such an age, those who set this disorder right, brought verse back to a plain and pure style, and fully grasped what is right in human nature and feeling? Successive courts compiled imperial anthologies, and each family had its own collection; they stand in rows like stars and spread like clouds, and their flourishing is truly brilliant. Therefore we compose the biographies of the waka poets.

Yamabe-no-Akahito

¶Kakinomoto-no-Hitomaro traced his ancestry to Amatarashihiko-kuni-oshihito-no-Mikoto (Note: following the Shin'sen Shōjiroku). Hitomaro served at the courts of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu (Note: this appears in the Man'yōshū and in the eulogy on Hitomaro's portrait by Fujiwara-no-Atsumitsu in the Shoku Honchō Monzui. Accounts of the age in which Hitomaro lived do not agree. The preface to the Kokin Wakashū speaks of "Kakinomoto-no-Hitomaro of the Nara court." The commentary of the monk Kenshō says that Fujiwara-no-Noritaka and Fujiwara-no-Kiyosuke both stated that "the Nara court means Emperor Shōmu." In his Kokin Wakashū Mokuroku, Fujiwara-no-Nakazane places him in the reign of Emperor Heizei, while holding that Hitomaro was a man of the Daihō period. Examining the Man'yōshū now, Hitomaro's poems are included only down to the time of the Fujiwara capital, and the dates stop at Daihō. As for the Nara court, poems of Akahito are included but none of Hitomaro. Atsumitsu's eulogy says: "He served the sage courts of Jitō and Monmu, and had audience with Prince Takechi and Prince Niitabe." Consulting various books, in the third year of Wadō (710) under Empress Genmei the capital was moved to Heijō, which is to say Nara, and the period from then until Emperor Kōnin is called the Seven Reigns of Nara. That being so, it is not clear which emperor's reign the so-called Nara court actually denotes. If he was a man of the Daihō period, as the Mokuroku maintains, this accords with the Man'yōshū; it seems that Hitomaro was born before Empress Jitō and died in the early years of Empress Genmei. As to the account in Tsurayuki's preface, Fujiwara-no-Sadaie, Fujiwara-no-Tameie, and the monk Kenshō have all expressed doubts, as set out in detail in their own writings. Accordingly the first two books are followed here). His office and rank are not known in detail (Note: considering the matter, the Man'yōshū contains a poem Hitomaro composed as he was about to die, whose headnote reads "Kakinomoto-no-Asomi Hitomaro, on the point of death in Iwami province." Ki-no-Tsurayuki's preface to the Kokin Wakashū calls him "Hitomaro of Senior Third Rank," and Ki-no-Yoshimochi's preface calls him "the former master, Taifu Kakinomoto." Examining the ritsuryō code now, it says that "the death of one of Sixth Rank or below is called shi, 'death.'" The long poem of Mibu-no-Tadamine in the Kokinshū describes Hitomaro as "of low station." From this we know that Hitomaro's rank was low. The so-called "Senior Third Rank" was probably a copyist's error in which "six" was written as "three." Minamoto-no-Chikafusa's Kokinshū Chū and the Kasenden also doubt it, and what appears in Yoshimochi's preface is probably no more than a title of honor. None of these can be taken as a sure basis). He was skilled at composing waka and was called in his time the "Saint of Poetry." His wondrous conceptions soared high, and he had no equal from antiquity to the present (Note: following the preface to the Kokin Wakashū). He associated with the imperial princes Prince Naga, Prince Niitabe, Prince Takechi, and others (Note: following the Man'yōshū and the eulogy on his portrait). He accompanied imperial progresses to Ki, Ise, Ikazuchi-no-oka, and Yoshino, and traveled through the provinces of Ōmi, Iwami, Tsukushi, and others, and wherever he passed there was none where he did not compose poems (Note: considering the matter, the monk Kenshō's Hitomaro Kanmon says the following: "The poems contained in Hitomaro's private collection number over three hundred, of which fourteen wrongly include poems by other persons. Many anonymous poems in the Man'yōshū have also been mixed in. Furthermore, if the poems by Hitomaro in the Kokin Wakashū, the Shūishū, and the Yamato Monogatari are compared with the Man'yōshū and the private collection, they appear in some and not in others, and are highly doubtful. The story given in the preface to the Man'yōshū Shō, that in the fifth year of Tenpyō-shōhō (753) Hitomaro held an exchange of question and answer with Tachibana-no-Moroe, lies far from the years in which Hitomaro lived; it seems the private collection was compiled by someone after Tenpyō-shōhō, its arrangement is disordered, and it was not compiled by Hitomaro himself." The Kanmon continues: "The Shūishū contains a poem Hitomaro is said to have composed while in Tang, but examining the Man'yōshū, this is not a poem of Kakinomoto-no-Hitomaro. It is a poem composed in the eighth year of Tenpyō (736) when the envoy to Silla reached Tsukushi, and it seems there was another man of the same surname and name. The record of the envoy to Tang Ōtomo-no-Satemaro, quoted in the Fukuro Zōshi, says: 'Kamitsumichi-no-Hitomaro, shishō, secretary, of Yamashiro province, and the deputy envoy Tamade-no-Hitomaro, Assistant Governor of Mutsu, set sail in the fourth month of the first year of Tenpyō-shōhō (749) and returned to the country in the ninth month of the second year (750).' The private collection also contains poems said to have been composed while in Tang, but this too is an error." Examining the Shoku Nihongi now, there is no record that Kamitsumichi-no-Hitomaro or Tamade-no-Hitomaro was sent to Silla, and there is no other material to be examined). In his last years he lived in Iwami province, and there he ended his life (Note: following the Man'yōshū). His grave is in Sō district of Yamato province (Note: following the monk Kenshō's Hitomaro Kanmon and Kamo-no-Chōmei's Mumyōshō. Considering the matter, in the Kanmon Fujiwara-no-Kiyosuke says: "When I once passed through Yamato province, I heard from an old man that beside the Isonokami temple in Sō district there is a shrine called the Harumichi shrine, and that the temple beside that shrine is called Kakinomotodera and was built by Hitomaro. A small mound before the shrine is called Hitomaro's grave. When Kiyosuke went and saw it himself, of the so-called Kakinomotodera only a few foundation stones remained. Hitomaro's grave was about four shaku high, and there I set up a sotoba, a memorial tablet, and inscribed it 'Grave of Kakinomoto-no-Asomi Hitomaro.'" Kenshō says that although Hitomaro died in Iwami province, his grave being in Yamato province probably results from later persons, harboring doubts, having reburied him, and that it is the same case as Taira-no-Korenaka, who died at Dazaifu and whose remains were moved to Shirakawa in Yamashiro province. Considering the matter now, the Mumyōshō says that Hitomaro's grave is at Hatsuse and that the local people call it the Poem Mound; Hatsuse lies in Sō district, which accords with Kenshō's account. Another grave is said, in the Masukagami, to be beside Ōkuradani in Harima province, and it is also widely told that it lies on Takatsunoyama in Iwami province. Furthermore, according to the long poem in the Man'yōshū in which Hitomaro mourned his wife, Hitomaro had a child, but the name is not known).

Ariwara-no-Narihira

¶Yamabe-no-Akahito (Note: following the Man'yōshū. In Ki-no-Yoshimochi's preface to the Kokin Wakashū the name is written "Yamabe-no-Akahito," and Kenshō's commentary and Minamoto-no-Chikafusa's Kokinshū Chū follow this, further citing the Shin'sen Shōjiroku to say that "the Yamabe clan descends from Emperor Suinin." But the Yamabe clan of the Shōjiroku bears the kabane "Kimi," and the Yamabe of the Shoku Nihongi bears the kabane "Mahito." The present book, by contrast, writes "Yamabe-no-Sukune Akahito." As for the Yamabe-no-Sukune, the Nihon Shoki records that in the first year of Emperor Kenzō (485) Kume-no-Odate was granted the kabane "Yamabe-no-Muraji," and that in the thirteenth year of Emperor Tenmu (684) the kabane was changed to "Sukune." By this the Yamabe of the first spelling and the Yamabe of the second were originally separate clans, and the accounts from the Kokinshū preface onward are all mistaken) became known in the world through waka, and his name was set beside that of Kakinomoto-no-Hitomaro, the two being called "Sanshi," the Mountain and the Persimmon (Note: following the Man'yōshū, the prefaces to poems by Ōtomo-no-Yakamochi and Ōtomo-no-Ikenushi, and the preface to the Waka Rinrui in the Shoku Honchō Monzui). Critics hold that, while it is hard to set Hitomaro above Akahito, it is equally hard to set Akahito below Hitomaro. In later ages he was called the "Immortal of Waka" (Note: following the two prefaces to the Kokin Wakashū). In the early years of Jinki he accompanied the imperial progress to Ki province. In the Tenpyō period he attended the detached palace at Yoshino and composed poems at the emperor's command. He once visited Kasuga and went as far as Kamioka, bathed in the hot spring of Iyo province, traveled to Karani Island and Minume Bay, and journeyed to the eastern lands where he gazed on Mount Fuji; the poems he composed on these occasions were praised in his time (Note: following the Man'yōshū).

Ōtomo-no-Kuronushi

¶Ariwara-no-Narihira was the fifth son of Imperial Prince Abo. In the Tenchō period, together with his elder brother Yukihira, he was granted the surname "Ariwara" (Note: following the Sandai Jitsuroku). In his time he was called "Zaigo Chūjō," the Middle Captain of the Fifth Son (Note: following the Sarashina Nikki). He was elegant and handsome in appearance, free and unrestrained in disposition, and skilled in composing waka (Note: following the Sandai Jitsuroku. Considering the matter, Ki-no-Tsurayuki's preface, that is, the preface to the Kokin Wakashū, names and comments on six persons, Narihira, the Sōjō Henjō, Fun'ya-no-Yasuhide, the monk Kisen, Ono-no-Komachi, and Ōtomo-no-Kuronushi, whom later ages call the "Six Immortals of Poetry." Minamoto-no-Chikafusa's Kokinshū Jochū writes "Six Chosen Poets," but that book is probably a forgery, and the characters for "immortal" and "chosen" also differ. When the name "Six Immortals of Poetry" began is not known in detail; it is merely noted here in passing). A critic remarked: "In Narihira's poems the feeling overflows beyond the words, and there is something the words cannot exhaust. He is like a flower that has wilted and scattered; though little color and gloss remain, a fragrance lingers still" (Note: following the preface to the Kokin Wakashū). In the Jōgan period he was appointed Uma-no-kami, Director of the Right Bureau of Horses, and by imperial command went to the Kōrokan to console envoys from Bohai. He became Gon-no-Chūjō of the Right Imperial Guards. In the Gangyō period he successively held concurrent posts as Gon-no-kami of Sagami and Mino. He died at the age of fifty-six (Note: following the Sandai Jitsuroku). He once traveled to Musashi province, and when he reached the Sumida River he saw a water bird and asked its name, and was told it was a "miyakodori," a capital bird. Filled with a mournful feeling, he composed a waka.

¶Addressing the bird of that name, he asks it to tell him, if it truly lives up to its name, whether the person he longs for in the capital is still alive or not.

¶The poem has been handed down in the world as a peerless masterpiece (Note: following the Kokin Wakashū. The Ise Monogatari contains many accounts of Narihira's deeds, but because they do not appear in the official histories such as the Sandai Jitsuroku, they are not adopted here). Later people built a shrine at Iwamoto in Kamo (Note: following the Tsurezuregusa and the Kensai Zatsudan). His two sons, Muneyana and Shigeharu, were both skilled in waka (Note: following the Sakusha Burui). Shigeharu was called by people "Zaiji-no-Kimi" (Note: following the Kōin Shōunroku and the Kokinshū Mokuroku), and he wrote the Yamato Monogatari (Note: following the Kōin Shōunroku).

¶Ōtomo-no-Kuronushi was a man of Ōmi province (Note: following the Tendai Zasuki. The Sakusha Burui writes "Ōtomo" with a different character, but considering the matter, since the Wamyōshō records an Ōtomo district in Shiga county of Ōmi province, the spelling of the present book is followed here). For generations he lived in the Ōtomo district and took his clan name from it (Note: following the Shoku Nihongi. The present book does not record how the clan name came to be borne, but from the document in which Ōtomo-no-Suguri and Hitonushi, men of Ōmi province, delivered rice and fields to the Saidaiji, it is known that the family lived in Ōtomo for generations). Because that district belonged to Shiga county, he was called in his time "Shiga-no-Kuronushi." Since Onjōji lay within that county, Kuronushi was regarded as the master of that land (Note: following Kenshō's commentary and Minamoto-no-Chikafusa's Kokinshū Chū). Kuronushi made his name by his skill in waka (Note: following the preface to the Kokin Wakashū). He became Dairyō, Senior Official, of the county and was granted Junior Eighth Rank Upper. In the Jōgan period Onjōji was made a branch temple of Enryakuji, and Kuronushi became the superintendent of its shrine (Note: following the Tendai Zasuki). In the Engi period the Retired Emperor made frequent progresses to Ishiyamadera. The provincial governor was troubled that this wore out the people. When the Retired Emperor heard of this, on the occasion of his next progress he had levies imposed on other provinces to be offered up and used to meet the costs. The governor was greatly alarmed, and so built a pavilion at Uchide Beach, planted chrysanthemums, and had Kuronushi alone wait there for the return progress. When the Retired Emperor wondered at this and inquired, Kuronushi offered the following waka.

¶The poem tells how small ripples keep washing the shore without pause, and asks whether, with the beach so clean, they mean to say that his lord should stay.

¶The Retired Emperor was greatly pleased, bestowed gifts of reward, and returned to the capital (Note: following the Yamato Monogatari and the Ishiyama Engi). At the Daijōe of Ninna and Shōtai, Kuronushi offered fūzoku-uta, songs of the local customs (Note: following the Kokin Wakashū and the Shoku Gosenshū). Critics hold that Kuronushi's poetry comes next after Sarumaru-no-Daibu of old. The conception has a pleasing detachment from the world, but the form is common, like a country farmer resting before the flowers (Note: following the preface to the Kokin Wakashū). Later people built a shrine within the county and worshiped him, calling him "Kuronushi Myōjin" (Note: following Kamo-no-Chōmei's Mumyōshō).