筑波嶺の | Tsukuba-ne no |
峰より落つる | mine yori otsuru |
男女川 | Minano-gawa |
恋ぞつもりて | koi zo tsumorite |
淵となりぬる | fuchi to narinuru |
Retired Emperor Yōzei
Emperor Yōzei (陽成天皇 Yōzei tennō; 868−949) was the 57th Emperor of Japan. He ascended the throne in 876 and reigned until 884, but his power was nominal and at the time of abdication he was not even twenty years old.
Yōzei was born Imperial Prince Sadaakira (貞明親王 Sadaakira shinnō), his father − the 56th sovereign, Emperor Seiwa (清和天皇 Seiwa tennō; 850−880; reigned 858−876), his mother − the infamous Fujiwara no Takaiko 藤原高子 (also read as Kōshi; 842−910), well-known as the Second Ward Empress (二条后 Nijō no kisaki). She was the lady Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平 (825–880) was infatuated with before she entered imperial court, and when she was already mother of Crown Prince Sadaakira, it was her screen about which Narihira composed the now-famous chihayaburu ちはやぶる poem (Hyakunin isshu 17).
Emperor Yōzei's reign spanned his early years and in fact he was only the second child emperor, the first being his own father. This arrangement left the real power in the hands of a regent or sesshō 摂政, a position occupied by Takaiko’s brother Fujiwara no Mototsune 藤原基経 (836−891). Nevertheless, Yōzei’s parents also played important roles. The death of Emperor Seiwa in 880 exposed a rift between Mototsune and his sister Empress Mother Takaiko, and then Mototsune, who found Yōzei too difficult to handle, sometimes abandoned the imperial palace and his duties for months, leaving teenager Emperor Yōzei on his own.
In 883, Minamoto no Susumu 源益 (?−883), a son of Yōzei’s wet nurse, was killed at the imperial palace, while in service to Yōzei, and the emperor himself became the suspect. This allowed Mototsune to push Yōzei to abdicate, which he did in 884. The official reason of abdication was illness, but it was no doubt the death in the imperial palace and opportunity that Mototsune saw in it that led to Yōzei vacating the throne, leaving the position to his great uncle Imperial Prince Tokiyasu (時康親王 Tokiyasu shinnō), who became known as Emperor Kōkō (光孝天皇 Kōkō tennō; 830−887; reigned 884−887; Hyakunin isshu 15).
In history, Yōzei’s image is usually one of a person plagued by dangerous mental instability − such that he could be suspected of killing a man in his service. But Yōzei was never on the winning side of political affairs, − it was his uncle Mototsune, who could therefore take care of writing the history. Thus Yōzei’s story is probably to be taken with a grain of salt, as it may well have been a case of exaggerating the behaviour of a difficult teenager and putting the blame on one who was sure to be at the scene.
While we may never know the truth about Yōzei’s character, but as Retired Emperor Yōzei (陽成院 Yōzei-in), he is known to have dedicated a lot of his life to poetry. He was sponsor of numerous poetry contests (歌合 utaawase) and his sons, Prince Motoyoshi (元良親王 Motoyoshi shinnō; 890−942; Hyakunin isshu 20) and Minamoto no Kiyokage 源清蔭 (884−950) were recognised poets. Whether Yōzei himself was an active poet, we cannot tell for sure − he might have been, but his poetry may have not survived, or maybe, however unlikely, has not yet been rediscovered. Nevertheless, his sole surviving poem, initially selected for Gosenshū 後撰集 (Later Collection; 953) and later recognised by Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家 (1162−1241; Hyakunin Isshu 97), suggests him a person of profound sensibility.
As if in contrast to the disturbing historical narrative, the only currently known poem by Retired Emperor Yōzei is one of deepening love and longing. The poem, according to Gosenshū, was sent to the princess of Tsuridono. Tsuridono 釣殿 by itself means “angling pavilion” but in this case it is known that princess of Tsuridono refers to Imperial Princess Suishi (also read as Yasuko; 綏子内親王 Suishi/Yasuko naishinnō; ?−925), daughter of the aforementioned Emperor Kōkō, who eventually became the wife of Retired Emperor Yōzei.
In this poem Yōzei not only expresses his longing, but also plays with orthography and imagery, giving the seemingly simple poem additional depth, and thus making a case for Retired Emperor Yōzei as a poet.
The first line, Tsukuba-ne no, introduces the image of Mount Tsukuba (筑波山 Tsukuba san). Located in the old province of Hitachi 常陸, present-day Ibaraki 茨城 prefecture, the mountain is known for its double peaks − the eastern one considered a woman, the western one − a man. In times before Yōzei, Tsukuba is known to have been a place of worship, where men and women would gather in spring and autumn to freely mingle and worship gods. The primary associations in this poem, however, seem to point to the double peaks, as ne in Tsukuba-ne no means “a peak” (or “peaks”).
The second line, mine yori otsuru, again reaffirms the importance of Tsukuba’s peaks because mine also means “a peak” (or “peaks”). Otsuru is a form of classical verb otsu (to fall; to drop), while yori denotes where from → falling from the peaks of Tsukuba. And the third line, Minano-gawa, introduces the Minano river (男女川 Minano-gawa), which falls from the peaks of Tsukuba. Important here is the Japanese orthography of Minano-gawa, which in some cases is 水無川 (Minano-gawa) , meaning “waterless river” − a meaning hardly fitting with the imagery of the poem, especially when alternative orthography is the aforementioned 男女川 (Minano-gawa), meaning “river [川] of man [男] and woman [女]”.
These first three lines serve as a jokotoba 序詞 or a sort of preface to the main idea of the poem. But in this case, the conclusion and the main idea do not come immediately. The fourth line, koi zo tsumorite, interrupts to add the layer of “love” and “longing”, as koi can mean both, and these feelings are treated as “growing” or very literally − “accumulating”, as expressed by tsumorite.
Therefore, like the Minano river, falling from the peaks of Tsukuba, love too grows to form “deep pools” (fuchi). The last line, fuchi to narinuru, brings the poem to a conclusion:
Like the Minano River,
falling from the peaks
of Mount Tsukuba,
so has my yearning
reached its depths.
The poem that we now find in the Hyakunin Isshu ends with fuchi to narinuru, where auxiliary nuru indicates that pools [fuchi] ended up forming without the intention of the speaker. Such an ending is fitting for the natural imagery but also beautifully spontaneous, as the last line also indicates that the longing has reached its depths [without me knowing / against my powers]. However, this ending is unlikely to be the original. The poem in Gosenshū (and many other collections), has a slightly different ending of fuchi to narikeru, where keru denotes a finished action but also a new realisation of something previously unnoticed. This ending is less spontaneous, rendering a poem more descriptive but perhaps less emotional, although just as magnificent.
Retired Emperor Yōzei’s poem is a romantic piece that goes against the historical narrative about the emeperor. A seemingly simple composition, it connects longing to the imagery of Tsukuba’s double peaks and Minano river, as if reassuring the princess that without her − the lady − neither Tsukuba nor Minano river would be, and so the the Retired Emperor too needed her by his side.