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Showing posts from September, 2020

Hyakunin Isshu: poem 8 (Priest Kisen・wa ga io wa)

My own home is a retreat laying southeast of the capital ,  where I can hide from the troubles of this world.

Hyakunin Isshu: poem 89 (Imperial Princess Shokushi [Shikishi]・tama no wo yo)

Nothing can be worse than living a moment longer when I cannot bear growing any weaker than I already have.

Minamoto no Ienaga Nikki: a year before <...> she had composed "Do not forget me / Even you, plum tree by the eaves!"

The death of Zensaiin [Shikishi Naishinn ō] left all at a loss for words. As more and more die, the Way of Poetry declines; so one feels one must try all the harder.  A year before her death, at the time of 100-po em sequences, she had composed "Do not forget me / Even you, plum tree by the eaves!" And When the following year the tree at her Ō idono residence bloomed as if in sympathy, I could not help saying to myself “This year, at least…” − Minamoto no Ienaga,  Minamoto no Ienaga Nikki 源家長日記 (Diary of Minamoto no Ienaga) Translated in Huey 2002, 87−88.   Minamoto no Ienaga  源家長 (1170 − 1234) in his memoir  Minamoto no Ienaga Nikki  源家長日記 (Diary of Minamoto no Ienaga), remembering the years after the death of  Princess Shokushi (式子内親王  Shokushi naishinnō ; between 1149 and 1152−1201; her name can also be read as Shikishi or Noriko;  her poem is included in  Hyakunin Isshu  as number 89 ).   The passage is translated by Rober...

Hyakunin Isshu: poem 57 (Murasaki Shikibu・meguriaite)

Long last we meet, only for you to leave hurriedly, so I could not recognise you, like the moon hidden behind the clouds. 1