Empress Regnant JitōEmpress Jitō (持統天皇 Jitō tennō; 645–702) is one of the poets whose poem in the Hyakunin Isshu originally comes from the first collection of Japanese poetry, the Man’yōshū 万葉集 (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves; finished around 759), and she therefore represents the oldest period in the history of waka 和歌.
Jitō was born as Princess Uno no Sarara (鵜野讃良皇女 Uno no Sarara no himemiko), and was the second daughter of Emperor Tenji (天智天皇 Tenji tennō; 626–671; Hyakunin Isshu 1). In 657 she married her uncle Prince Ōama (大海人皇子 Ōama no ōji), who went on to become Emperor Tenmu (天武天皇 Tenmu tennō; ?–686) in 673. With Tenmu, Jitō became mother of Prince Kusakabe (草壁皇子 Kusakabe no ōji; 662–689), who was supposed to succeed his father on the throne but died just three years after his father without ever becoming the emperor. Therefore Jitō took the throne and and ruled as empress regnant from 690 to 697. In 698 she was succeeded by her grandson, son of Kusakabe, Emperor Monmu (文武天皇 Monmu tennō; 683–707). [See the family tree for a clearer picture.]
While Jitō’s husband Tenmu ruled from Asuka no Kiyomihara no miya 飛鳥浄御原宮, in 694 Jitō moved the capital (as was customary at the time) to Fujiwarakyō 藤原京, from which Mount Kagu (香具山 Kaguyama), the focal point of Jitō’s poem, was most probably visible.
春過ぎて夏来たるらし白たへの衣干したり天の香具山
Haru sugite / natsu kitarurashi / shirotae no / koromo hoshitari / Ama no Kaguyama
Spring has passed,
summer really has come.
Pure white
robes are drying, –
Heavenly Mount Kagu.
(Man’yōshū 28)
This poem of Empress Jitō was originally included in Man’yōshū and is a beautiful example of early Japanese poetry. The poem is very visual – the empress is probably composing on the coming of summer as she sees it right in front of her, with Mount Kagu most likely visible from her palace in Fujiwarakyō and engulfed in white, perhaps in summer mists.
The version we see in Hyakunin Isshu, however, is a little different. It comes from Shinkokinshū 新古今集 (New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern; officially presented in 1205, finished around 1216) – an imperial anthology compiled in the first decade of 13th century, some 500 years after the original poem was written. By then, the capital had long been moved to Heiankyō 平安京 (modern-day Kyōto 京都), the language and the way it is written, the preferred poetic styles − everything had changed significantly. And so the way in which the poem was read, or more accurately the poem itself, had also changed:
春過ぎて夏来にけらし白妙の衣干すてふ天の香具山
Haru sugite / natsu kinikerashi / shirotae no / koromo hosu chō / Ama no Kaguyama
Spring has passed,
summer seems to have come.
They say, pure white
robes dry
on Heavenly Mount Kagu.
(Shinkokinshū 175; Hyakunin Isshu 2)
Here, the coming of summer is nostalgic rather than visual, almost as if the poem was an echo of the days long gone, in a place far away. In this version the white robes are said to dry on Heavenly Mount Kagu, – they are no longer observed directly, and the author has only heard of them. Grammatically, it is the phrase koromo hosu chō 衣干すてふ , in which the chō てふ (which is a contraction of to ifu といふ, modern to iu という) indicates hearsay and creates this sense of indirectness, while the original hoshitari 干したり is a direct observation ([robes] are drying).
And the summer in the Shinkokinshū version only seems to have come – the coming of summer is not obvious. The kitarurashi 来たるらし of Man’yōshū version is a direct observation, while the kinikerashi 来にけらし of Shinkokinshū and the Hyakunin Isshu is a speculation based on evidence – the white robes drying on Mount Kagu, – which carries a sense of temporal distance and is therefore rather nostalgic.
What exactly are the “white robes” (shirotae no koromo 白妙の衣) remains a topic of debate. It might have been actual robes, referring to the seasonal changing of clothes (衣更 koromogae) and airing them before wearing, which was done on the first day of summer. But it might have been mists, engulfing Mount Kagu in early summer. There is even an interpretation that the white robes are a metaphor for unohana 卯の花 or deutzia flowers (Mostow 1996, 146) that bloom white in early summer.
Placement of the poem in Shinkokinshū clearly shows it was seen as the “first day of summer” composition, as it opens the book of summer poems. In the Lunar calendar, used at the time, it would be the first day of the fourth month (called uzuki 卯月, literally deutzia month, and therefore supporting the deutzia metaphor idea), which is more or less May or June of the modern Solar calendar.
While there are a number of ways to read the poem, I believe that visualising it is key and whichever way we choose to do that, Mount Kagu is engulfed in white. And what is more, this mountain in the poem is not just a mountain of this world. As Mount Kagu, it is in the the old Yamato 大和 province, modern-day Nara 奈良 prefecture, and was likely visible from Jitō’s palace. But as the heavenly Mount Kagu or Mount Amanokagu (天香具山 Amanokaguyama), it is also a mountain in Takamagahara 高天原 (also read as Takamanohara) or the Plain of High Heaven – a mythological dwelling place of the heaven gods. As such, the mountain is both part of the mythical and the human worlds, and the whiteness engulfing it creates a bright, almost mystical image.
This image might as well have been seen by later readers as symbolising the ideal reign of Empress Jitō, whose poem in Hyakunin Isshu follows the composition attributed to her father Emperor Tenji, whose poem is seen as expressing compassion for his subjects and a metaphor of the ideal emperor. Furthermore, one of Tenji's famous poems sung about Mount Kagu as one of the Three Mountains of Yamato (大和三山 Yamato sanzan) (see the post on Emperor Tenji's Hyakunin Isshu poem), and due to the placement of poems in the Hyakunin Isshu, his daughter's poem can also be seen as an indirect allusion.
Hyakunin Isshu, by placing poems of Emperor Tenji and Empress Jitō one after another, seems to imply the interpretation related to ideal imperial reign, but it does also echo the unending change of seasons, − the autumn, which will, after winter and spring, eventually be changed into summer. And the season of summer seems of importance in Hyakunin Isshu, as Jitō’s first-day-of-summer poem is reflected in the last-day-of-summer composition by Fujiwara no Ietaka 藤原家隆 (1158–1237; Hyakunin Isshu 98) at the end of the anthology, framing the whole Hyakunin Isshu in the summer season.
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 the blog author.
Poet card: Jitō Tennō by Katsukawa Shunshō 勝川春章 1775, carved and pained by David Bull in 1994.
Poem sheet: Chōyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi / Edited by the blog author.