Impassioned vows exchanged over many a tear shed to last until the day waves crash over Mount Suenomatsu.
契りきな | chigiriki na |
かたみに袖を | katami ni sode wo |
しぼりつつ | shiboritsutsu |
末の松山 | Sue no Matsuyama |
波越さじとは | nami kosaji to wa |
Kiyohara no Motosuke
Kiyohara no Motosuke 清原元輔 (908−990) was a low-ranking official but most importantly a poet. A grandson of Kiyohara no Fukayabu 清原深養父 (dates uncertain; Hyakunin Isshu 36) and father of Sei Shōnagon 清少納言 (dates uncertain; Hyakunin Isshu 62), he never rose above Junior Fifth Rank (従五位 jugoi) but was one of the most prominent poets of his time.
The time of Motosuke is closely associated with Tenryaku 天暦 (947−957) era of the reign of Emperor Murakami (村上天皇 Murakami tennō; 926–967; reigned 946–967). It was an era that by the time of Hyakunin Isshu compilation (that is, the first half of 13th century) came to be seen as the golden age of court and poetic life.
Motosuke was largely involved in the Tenryaku era developments in the field of waka poetry. In the fifth year of Tenryaku (951) he was selected as one of the five men in Poetry Bureau or wakadokoro 和歌所, whom came to be known as Five Men of the Pear Chamber (梨壺の五人 Nashitsubo no gonin)1. As a member of wakadokoro, Motosuke became one of the compilers of the second imperial poetry anthology Gosenshū 後撰集 (Later Collection; 953) and worked on clarifying the orthography of poems in the first waka anthology Man’yōshū 万葉集 (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves; around 759).
Motosuke was a prolific poet, who contribute to numerous poetic occasions, including the Poetry Matches at the Inner Palace in Tentoku 4 (天徳四年内裏歌合 Tentoku yo’nen dairi uta-awase)2. He has over a hundred poems in Shūishū and later imperial poetry anthologies and a personal collection of Motosuke’s poems, Motosuke Shū 元輔集 (Collected Poems of Motosuke), is also extant.
Not only one of the Hyakunin Isshu poets, he is also one of Fujiwara no Kintō’s 藤原公任 (966−1041; Hyakunin Isshu 55) Thirty Six Poetic Immortals (三十六歌仙 Sanjūrokkasen).
The waves that engulf Mount Suenomatsu
If we were to look through the imperial waka poetry anthologies, we would find Motosuke’s famous chigiriki na poem in the fourth anthology, Goshūishū 後拾遺集 (Later Collection of Gleanings; 1086), among the love poems.
According to the headnote in Goshūishū, the poem was addressed to a woman who had a change of heart, and written on behalf of someone else. If that was indeed the case, then clearly the poem was not written based on personal feelings. That, however, does not take away from the poem’s value, as the author carefully employs the image of Sue no Matsuyama 末の松山 (Mount Suenomatsu) to create a stunning expression of disappointment and heartbreak when a woman’s heart leans toward someone else. The poem could be rendered in English as:
We promised! While grasping each other’s sleeves, that the waves would not wash over Mount Suenomatsu.
Notes on translations of individual phrases | ||
契りきな Chigiriki na | I translated the first phrase quite literally, as chigiru means to promise, auxiliary ki denotes past tense, and na expresses deep emotion, which could be rendered in in an exclamation mark. | |
かたみに袖を しぼりつつ katami ni sode wo / shiboritsutsu | The next two lines are treated together, as separately they fail to make a coherent whole. Katami ni means each other; sode are sleeves, which are most definitely tear-drenched, - a detail that the reader was expected to pick up without explicit mentions; shiboru in shiboritsutsu means to squeeze, to twist, and tsutsu denotes continuous or repetitive action. | |
末の松山 波越さじとは Sue no Matsuyama / nami kosaji to wa | The last two lines are again treated together. Sue no Matsuyama or Mount Suenomatsu is a mountain in modern-day Miyagi宮城 prefecture. Nami means waves, while kosaji combines a verb kosu (to go over; to cross) with an auxiliary verb ji, which shows negative intention regarding the verb it is attached to. | |
The poem employs a few poetic devices that are common in waka. Firstly, the poem uses inversion and therefore breaks after the first line. The first line, chigiriki na, should actually be the final one and to wa of the last line points to it3. Of course, without inversion the 5-7-5-7-7 structure of the original waka would be lost and the poem would not be a poem at all but if we were to play with my translation, the poem without inversion would be:
While grasping each other’s sleeves, that the waves would not wash over Mount Suenomatsu, - we promised!
The real star of the poem, however, is Sue no Matsuyama or Mount Suenomatsu and the image of waves engulfing it.
Sue no Matsuyama by itself is an interesting toponym, which is often used in waka poetry (such famous toponyms that have intertextual connotations are called utamakura 歌枕). Sue 末 means end, while matsu 松 is a pine, but the word is a homophone of matsu 待つ, meaning to wait4. Therefore, Sue no Matsuyama sounds like a mountain of pines, waiting to the end. The toponym by itself seems to suggest devotedness.
The image of Mount Suenomatsu is often combined with the image of waves and is closely associated strong love bonds. Mount Suenomatsu is an actual mountain in modern-day Miyagi prefecture and it is not far from the the seashore but not close enough to be engulfed by the waves. Therefore, in love poetry it signifies commitment, unwavering and unchanging hearts of lovers.
Motosuke was not first to employ this image and his poem is most clearly associated with an earlier poem, a folk song, found in the the 20th book of Kokinshū 古今集 (Collection of Early and Modern Japanese Poetry; 905), where we find Easter songs (東歌 Azuma uta) and more precisely, Michinoku5 songs (陸奥歌 Michinoku no uta). The song or poem in question goes:
| Kokinshū 1093. A Michinoku song | ||
君をおきて | kimi wo okite | ||
あだし心を | adashigokoro wo | ||
わが持たば | waga motaba | ||
末の松山 | Sue no Matsuyama | ||
波も越えなむ | nami mo koenan | ||
If I leave you, if my heart is easily swayed towards another, the waves would wash over Mount Suenomatsu. That is, my feelings and devotion for you will certainly not falter. | |||
The idea of Motosuke’s poem, despite using the same images of Mount Suenomatsu and waves, and borrowing the connotations, differs greatly, - it is not anymore a promise of devotion but an admonition for broken vows: We promised! <...> that the waves would not engulf Mount Suenomatsu, yet they did.
This poem is only sometimes considered an example of honkadori 本歌取 technique, which became widespread in later times6. Nevertheless, it highlights the fact that deep knowledge of poetic canon and imagery, as well as the ability to incorporate this knowledge in new compositions, were essential to waka poets since the early times. And it shows to a modern reader, that in order to read and appreciate waka, this knowledge is also indispensable.
Notes
1 The name Five Men of the Pear Chamber came from the fact that wakadokoro was located a hall that had a pear tree in its courtyard, and was therefore informally known as the Nashitsubo 梨壺 or Pear Chamber. The five men were:
- Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu 大中臣能宣 (921−991)*
- Minamoto no Shitagō 源順 (911−983)*
- Kiyohara no Motosuke*
- Sakanoue no Mochiki 坂上望城 (?−980)
- Ki no Tokibumi 紀時文 (922−996)
Poets marked with * were included among Fujiwara no Kintō’s Thirty Six Poetic Immortals.
2 Poetry Matches at the Inner Palace in Tentoku 4 took place in 960. Among Hyakunin Isshu poems, numbers 40 (by Taira no Kanemori), 41 (by Mibu no Tadami), and 44 (by Fujiwara no Asatada) come from this event.
3 A similar example of inversion can be seen in 17th poem of Hyakunin Isshu.
4 The wordplay of matsu (a pine[tree] and to wait) is used to a great effect in 16th poem of Hyakunin Isshu.
5 Michinoku 陸奥 (also read as Michi no oku or Mutsu) was a northern region, to which the modern Miyagi prefecture with Mount Suenomatsu also belonged.
6 Honkadori or poetic allusions became widespread in early 13th century and most of the last 15 Hyakunin Isshu poems employ this technique. For an example, see poem 97 by Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家 (1162−1241), one of the leading poets of that time and the compiler of Hyakunin Isshu.