In the quiet spring sunlight cherry’s new blossoms in a whirlwind of petals descend.*
ひさかたの | Hisakata no |
光のどけき | hikari nodokeki |
春の日に | haru no hi ni |
しづ心なく | shizu-gokoro naku |
花の散るらむ | hana no chiruran |
Ki no Tomonori 紀友則 (?−905?) was one of the compilers of Kokinshū 古今集 (Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern; 905) − the first imperial anthology of Japanese poetry − and is considered one of the representative poets of its age.
A lot like his contemporaries and fellow compilers of the anthology − his cousin Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之 (866 or 872–945?; Hyakunin Isshu 35), Mibu no Tadamine 壬生忠岑 (after 850−?; Hyakunin Isshu 30), and Ōshikōchi no Mitsune 凡河内躬恒 (859−925; Hyakunin Isshu 29), − Tomonori came from a rather humble background. Son of Junior Assistant Minister of Emperor’s Household (宮内少輔 Kunai shōyū) Ki no Aritomo 紀有朋 (?−880), he was born into the Ki 紀 clan and did belong to the Heian 平安nobility, but in his day the clan had long fallen in decline and Tomonori spent the first four decades of his life without holding a single position in government office or a rank.
It was only in 897, when he is believed to have been over forty, that he got his first office. That year he became a Secretary of Tosa (土佐掾 Tosa jō), the following year he started working as Junior Private Secretary (少内記 shōnaiki) at the Ministry of Central Affairs (中務省 Nakatsukasashō) and in 904 he was promoted to Senior Private Secretary (大内記 dainaiki) at the same ministry.
But Tomonori was able to establish himself as one of the leading poets of his time decades before obtaining any official positions. His talent was recognised as early as the first half of the Kanpyō 寛平 era (889−898) and he participated in poetry contests sponsored by the highest-standing members of the imperial court. When in 893 Emperor Kōkō’s (光孝天皇 Kōkō tennō; 830−887; Hyakunin Isshu 15) son Imperial Prince Koresada (是貞親王 Koresada shinnō; ?−903) sponsored Koresada no miko no ie no utaawase 是貞親王家歌合 (Poetry Contest at Imperial Prince Koresada’s House), Tomonori was one of the participants. And when later that same year Koresada’s mother and Kōkō’s consort Princess Hanshi [Nakako] (班子女王 Hanshi joō; 833−900) sponsored Kanpyō no ōntoki no kisai no miya no utaawase 寛平御時后宮歌合 (Empress’s Poetry Contest of the Kanpyō Era), Tomonori was again present, alongside Tsurayuki, Tadamine, Fujiwara no Toshiyuki 藤原敏行 (?−901 or 907; Hyakunin Isshu 18), Ōe no Chisato 大江千里 (dates uncertain; Hyakunin Isshu 23), and other notable poets of the day.
One can easily see how Tomonori was first and foremost a poet and not a government official. And thus his assignment to serve as one of the compilers of Kokinshū in 905 could be seen as a sort of the pinnacle of his career. But after the 21st day of the Second Month of that very year − after the occasion when Tomonori composed for folding screens of Fujiwara no Sadakuni 藤原定国 (866−906) − mentions of him cease. It therefore appears that Tomonori passed away sometime in 905, without ever seeing the finished Kokinshū − in fact, the anthology even includes Tsurayuki and Tadamine’s poems written upon Tomonori’s death.
The remaining editorial board of Kokinshū chose forty seven of Tomonori’s poems for the anthology, which makes him the third best-represented poet after Tsurayuki and Ōshikōchi no Mitsune. He has a total of seventy poems in imperial anthologies and almost the same number is also found in his personal collection Tomonori Shū 友則集 (Collected Poems of Tomonori), which most definitely does not reflect his total poetic output. But that never diminished his standing as a representative poet of the age of Kokinshū as well as of the Kanpyō era, and among others, Fujiwara no Kintō 藤原公任 (966–1041; Hyakunin Isshu 55) acknowledged Tomonori as one of the Thirty Six Poetic Immortals (三十六歌仙 Sanjūrokkasen).
At first sight Tomonori’s poem in the Hyakunin Isshu may seem like a quintessential spring poem on falling cherry blossoms. And so seems to suggest its headnote from the second book of spring poems (Book II) of Kokinshū: composed on scattering cherry blossoms. But even poems may not be what they seem on the surface, and this one is a good example.
Reading the original, a sense of rhythm stands out:
ひさかたの | hisakata no |
ひかりのどけき | hikari nodokeki |
はるのひに | haru no hi ni |
しづごころなく | shizu-gokoro naku |
はなのちるらむ | hana no chiruran |
The first three lines all include one hi; four of the five lines also start with either ha or hi, and no repeats four times throughout the poem. All of this creates rhythm, which is particularly beautiful in the first half, but then sort of breaks in the second, exactly following the changing mood.
The poem opens with a makura-kotoba 枕詞 or a pillow word hisakata no, which (just like chihayaburu) is a fixed expression used in classical Japanese poetry. True meanings of the vast majority of makura-kotoba have been lost but if we were to break down hisakata no, it would mean something along the lines of “from a distant (hisa) direction (kata)”. Every makura-kotoba has its own specific set of words it can modify and in this case the modified word is hikari (“light”), which opens the second line hikari nodokeki. As hisakata no suggests something coming from far away, the“light” (hikari) is understood as “light of the Sun”, coming a distance from far beyond our reach.
The other word in the second line, nodokeki, means “calm”, “quiet”, “gentle”. It is used in rentaikei 連体形 (attributive form) and is therefore grammatically connected to haru no hi ni (“on a day in spring”) of the third line, where haru is “spring” and hi is “day”, but the same word also means “Sun” and “sunlight”, as if referencing back to hikari (“light”).
The first three lines, even with the makura-kotoba, are not particularly complicated and can be understood as: “In the sunlight of a quiet spring day”. The picture the author paints in those lines is distinctly calm and the fourth line − shizu-gokoro naku − seemingly continues this, starting with shizu-gokoro, meaning “calm heart” or “calm hearts”. But then it is followed by naku (ren’yōkei 連用形 or continuative form of nashi), meaning “without”, rendering the line to “without calms hearts”. And the last line − hana no chiruran − ends with verb chiru (“to scatter”) and a speculative auxiliary ran (written as ramu) attached to it, asking “why (ran) do the flowers (hana) scatter (chiru)?”
Therefore in the last two lines, the calm imagery of the first three is suddenly contrasted by the “restless hearts” of the blossoms, scattering even on a quiet day, when no wind blows. And many interpretations argue that it is actually not the blossoms with their hearts unable to find peace, but the humans watching them. Perhaps it is the realisation of the fleeting nature of everything, perhaps the sense of time passing, as another spring comes to an end. The blossoms will bloom again, they have no cause for concern, a human, on the other hand...
In the sunlight
of serene
spring day
why do flowers scatter,
their hearts without peace.
Notes
* The Chihayafuru anime subtitles by Crunchyroll have the poem as: In the sleepy spring sunlight cherry’s new blossoms in a whirlwind of petals descend. To make it slightly more accurate, I changed “sleepy” to “quiet”.
Illustrations
Square illustration: Nobunaga kontseruto 信長協奏曲〈コンツェルト〉, dir. Fujikawa Yuusuke 冨士川祐輔, Fuji TV, 2014. / Editing by the blog author.
Poet card: Ki no Tomonori by Katsukawa Shunshō 勝川春章 1775, carved and pained by David Bull in 1991.
Poem sheet: Editing by the blog author, original images from
・Chihayafuru 3 ちはやふる 3, dir. Asaka Morio 浅香守生 , Madhouse Inc., 2019–2020.
・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.