My fear is that you will forget your promise to never forget me, so I would prefer to die now while I am still happy.
忘れじの | wasureji no |
行く末までは | yuku sue made wa |
かたければ | katakereba |
今日を限りの | kyō wo kagiri no |
命ともがな | inochi to mogana |
Mother of the
Honorary Grand Minister
Takashina no Kishi 高階貴子 (also read as Takako; ?−996) belonged to the Takashina 高階 clan, which traced its history back to Prince Takechi (高市皇子 Takechi no miko / Takechi no ōji; 654−696), one of Emperor Tenmu’s (天武天皇 Tenmu tennō; ?–686, reigned 673–686) sons. Her father was Takashina no Naritada 高階成忠 (923−998), who served as teacher of the (Chinese) Classics to Emperor Ichijō (一条天皇 Ichijō tennō; 980−1011, reigned 986−1011) when he was still a Crown Prince, and eventually rose to the position of Senior Assistant Minister (大輔 taifu) at the Ministry of Ceremonial (式部省 shikibushō).
Perhaps because of her father’s scholarly background, Kishi was known for her great command of Chinese and served at the Handmaid’s Office (内侍司 Naishi no tsukasa) in the court of Ichijō’s father, Emperor En’yū (円融天皇 En’yū tennō; 959−991, reigned 969−984), where she came to be known as Kō no Naishi 高内侍 or Handmaid Kō1 and where her responsibilities included “conveying imperial edicts ([詔書] shōsho) and rescripts ([勅書] chokusho) to the officers of the court” (Mostow 2001, 123).
Quite possibly it was at that time that she caught the eye of Fujiwara no Michitaka 藤原道隆 (953−995), the first son, heir-apparent of Chancellor (関白 kanpaku) Fujiwara no Kaneie 藤原兼家 (929−990), and soon became Michitaka’s principal wife.
Together with Michitaka she had seven children, all of whom seemed to have bright futures ahead of them. Their first-born son Fujiwara no Korechika 藤原伊周 (974−1010) rose to the position of Provisional Major Counselor (権大納言 gon dainagon) in 992, while still in his late teenage years, and in 994 he was appointed Minister of the Center (内大臣 Naidaijin). Their second son Fujiwara no Takaie 藤原隆家 (979−1044) also showed promising signs by rising to Junior Third Rank (従三位 jusanmi) in 994, at barely 15 years old, while the youngest of the brothers, monk Ryūen 隆円 (980−1015), was made Bishop (僧都 sōzu) while still a teenager. But even more important were their daughters, the first of whom, Fujiwara no Teishi 藤原定子 (also read as Sadako; 976−1000) is perhaps best-known as the first consort of Emperor Ichijō and patron of Sei Shōnagon 清少納言 (965? − ?; Hyakunin Isshu 62). Teishi’s sisters were not as famous, but in 995 Fujiwara no Genshi 藤原原子 (also read as Motoko; 980?−1002) entered the service of Crown Prince Okisada (居貞親王 Okisada shinnō), who later became Emperor Sanjō (三条天皇 Sanjō tennō; 976−1017, reigned 1011−1016; Hyakunin Isshu 68); she came to be known as Shigeisa 淑景舎. Meanwhile another sister married Imperial Prince Atsumichi (敦道親王 Atsumichi shinnō; 981−1007), and the fourth one became Emperor Ichijō’s Mistress of the Wardrobe (御匣殿 Mikushigedono).
Teishi’s lady-in-waiting Sei Shōnagon, who among many other things also wrote about the entrance of Shigeisa to the court of the Crown Prince in early 995, noted in her Makura no sōshi 枕草子 (The Pillow Book):
The Grand Counsellor [Korechika] was a most handsome and impressive figure, while the Captain [Takaie] gave the impression of being highly talented and resourceful − indeed both were so splendid that I was struck, as I gazed, by how wonderful must be the karma of Her Ladyship their mother [Kishi], not to mention of course His Excellency [Michitaka] himself.
(trans. McKinney 2006, 110)
For a time the family of Michitaka and Kishi was doing incredibly well. Michitaka reached to the pinnacle of power, the position of Chancellor (kanpaku) in 990 and came to be known as Naka no Kanpaku 中関白 (Middle Chancellor), his lineage − Family of the Middle Chancellor (中関白家 Naka no kanpaku ke). Meanwhile Kishi was respected as mother of the Empress but she also continued participating in public events as a poet. Although she only has five poems in imperial collections of waka, her poetry in Chinese − language mostly reserved for men − seems to have been worthy of praise and Ōkagami 大鏡 (The Great Mirror, around 11th century) notes:
Kishi, the mother of Michitaka's daughters, is the lady everyone knows as Kō no naishi. <...> She is a serious Chinese poet. She participated in Emperor Ichijō's Chinese poetry parties, and her compositions outshone the perfunctory efforts of certain gentlemen.
(trans. McCullough 1980, 170)
But the Family of the Middle Chancellor suffered an awful reversal of fortunes. In 995 Kishi’s husband Michitaka passed away. Following his father’s death, Korechika was unable to take crucially important governmental roles and was involved in an incident which led to his and Takaie’s banishment from the capital between 996 and 997. Without political support, Kishi’s daughters in the imperial palace were left helpless, and so the whole Family of the Middle Chancellor fell into decline.
Kishi passed away a little over a year after her husband, in 996. Teishi lived only a few years longer and passed away in 1001, after giving birth to her third child, Imperial Princess Bishi (媄子内親王 Bishi naishinnō; 1001−1008). The following year, Teishi’s sisters Shigeisa (Genshi) and Mikushigedono followed. Korechika was able to come back to the capital but by then the government was in the hands of his uncle Fujiwara no Michinaga 藤原道長 (966−1028) and in 1005 Korechika was granted a title of Gidō sanshi 儀同三司 or Honorary Grand Minister, from which his mother’s sobriquet Gidō sanshi no haha 儀同三司母 (Mother of the Honorary Grand Minister) now borrows and by which she is most often remembered.
The sobriquet Gidō sanshi no haha was never used while Kishi was still alive but it does encompass the rapid decline of the Family of the Middle Chancellor, which continued into the generation of Kishi’s grandson, Fujiwara no Michimasa 藤原道雅 (992−1054; Hyakunin Isshu 63) and beyond, for the lineage to never rise again.
Your promise not to forget me...
Only a few of Kishi’s waka survive to this day but her sole poem in Shinkokinshū 新古今集 (New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern; presented in 1205, finished by 1216) was given the honour of opening the third book of love poems, thirteenth book in total.
Preceded by a headnote when Middle Chancellor began visiting, the poem reflects her concerns over the possibly short-lived affections of Michitaka, who at the time had just began visiting her. The original headnote uses a word kayoi (通ひkayohi), which refers to men visiting women, and in relation to it, to the “visiting marriage” (通い婚 kayoikon) of the Heian period (平安時代 Heian jidai; 794−1192) − a usual practice at the time, when at night the husband would be visiting one of his wives in her own home. Although the principal wife (often called kita no kata 北の方), whom Kishi did become, would most often move into his home, early in the relationship the man would be visiting her in her own home and such, most likely, was the case here.
The first line of the poem − wasureji no − could be translated as “I will not forget you, − you say”. Here wasureji combines mizenkei 未然形 (imperfective) of wasuru (“to forget”) with auxiliary verb of negative intention ji in shūshikei 終止形 (final form), while no is a case particle, which marks the preceding part as words of the author’s lover.
The second line − yukusue made wa − immediately calls to mind a phrase “until the end of time”, but a more common translation of yukusue is “future” or “distant future”, therefore rendering the line to “to the time far into the future”. The third line − katakereba − combines katakere, the izenkei 已然形 (perfective form) of adjective katashi (“difficult”), with causal particle ba and means “because it is difficult”.
The upper half of the poem (上の句kami no ku) expresses the author’s distrust in the casually changing heart of a man, so in the lower half (下の句 shimo no ku) she expresses her wish of a life that reaches its end today, while she is still loved by him.
In the closing lines − kyō wo kagiri no / inochi to mogana − the final mogana expresses a wish, the proceeding to marks this wish, and kyō wo kagiri no inochi is the wish − a life (inochi) that reaches its end (kagiri) today (kyō, originally written as kefu), the day she is still not forgotten by him.
I will not forget you, − you say;
to the end of time
this will be hard to maintain,
so I wish for my life to be one,
which ends on this very day.
In the end, Kishi became Michitaka’s principal wife and they stayed together until his passing. But the reversal of family fortunes followed and Kishi passed away in great misery. And so in this context, her poem reads almost like a premonition of the sorrows she was to endure once Michitaka had left.
Notes
1 Kō is the Chinese reading of the first kanji of Kishi’s family name Takashina 高階. In the same manner, Sei Shōnagon’s 清少納言 Sei comes from Chinese reading of the first kanji of her family name Kiyohara 清原, while Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部, who for some time was known as Tō Shikibu 藤式部, at that time used Chinese reading of the first kanji of her family name Fujiwara 藤原.
Illustrations
Square illustration: Chōyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi 超訳百人一首 うた恋い, dir. Kasai Ken‘ichi カサヰケンイチ, TYO Animations, 2012. / Edited by author of the blog.
Poet card: Gido Sanshi no Haha by Katsukawa Shunshō 勝川春章 1775, carved and pained by David Bull in 1996.
Poem sheet: Chōyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi, 2012. / Edited by author of the blog.