Charcoal kilns
雪ふりてけふともしらぬおく山にすみやくおきなあはれはかなみ
| yuki furite kyō to mo shiranu okuyama ni sumi yaku okina aware hakanami | As the snow falls Today in the unknown Mountains’ depths, Burning charcoal, an old man Feels sadness at the emptiness of all… |
390
Tag Archives: okina
Naidaijin-ke uta’awase 15
Round Three
Left
万代の秋のかたみになす物はきみがよはひをのぶるしらぎく
| yorozuyo no aki no katami ni nasu mono wa kimi ga yowai o noburu shiragiku | Of ten thousand ages’ Autumns a keepsake I will make: My Lord’s age Extended by a white chrysanthemum! |
Lord Akinaka
29
Right
今朝みればさながら霜をいただきて翁さびゆくしら菊の花
| kesa mireba sanagara shimo o itadakite okina sabiyuku shiragiku no hana | When this morn I look That’s how it is: with frost Bestowed A lonesome ancient seems This white chrysanthemum bloom! |
Lord Mototoshi
30
Toshiyori states: this first poem is strongly characterized by felicitation, and that’s about all the fault I can mention. As for the second poem, ‘a lonesome ancient seems’ is certainly an expression I don’t know. Still, if I think of examples from prior poems, ‘lone ancient’ could be interpreted as deriving from ‘dotaged ancient’, but then the conception seems different here, so this is most likely wrong. I can only give a decision once I am certain.
Mototoshi states: ‘Of ten thousand ages’ / Autumns a keepsake / Will make’ resembles Kanemori’s famous work,[1] which has often been alluded to in composition, I think. This poem is charming. ‘Will make’ is an extremely abbreviated expression, and so the final ‘age / Extended by a white chrysanthemum’ appears to have little connection to it. There is Tomonori’ s ‘Dew-dappled / Let us pluck and wear’[2], and also responses sent on the 9th day of the Ninth Month to the residences of Tadamine and Tsurayuki like ‘Bearing droplets / Age is extended by / Chrysanthemums’, aren’t there. Given that’s the case there would be many such keepsakes of extended age. As for the Right’s ‘That’s how it is: with frost / Bestowed / A lonesome ancient seems, well, it seems that just how I composed a poem about lingering chrysanthemums—have I done something wrong?
Sumiyoshi-sha uta’awase kaō ni-nen 57
Round Seven
Left (Tie)
わがさかりやよいづかたへゆきにけむしらぬおきなにみをばゆづりて
| wa ga sakari yayo izukata e yukinikemu shiranu okina ni mi oba yuzurite | My glory days, O, where have they Gone? An unfamiliar old man Has taken my place… |
Lord Kiyosuke
113
Right
いかなればわがひとつらのかかるらむうらやましきはあきのかりがね
| ika nareba wa ga hitotsura no kakaruramu urayamashiki wa aki no kari ga ne | What has happened, that My brothers, one and all, Should go so far? How I envy The cries of autumn geese… |
Lord Sanetsuna
114
Both of these poems of the Left and Right are, once again, suited to their poets. The Left appears to have a charming conception, looking back on more prosperous times which have now gone—just as anyone would. This is certainly something to resent and yet, in his glory days he was a man of high renown, or someone with great responsibilities among lower officialdom, or even in the Inner Palace Guards or Great Council of State—to hear a man recollecting this and asking ‘where have my glory days gone’—speaking of such things sounds charming, in the end. Truly charming. The poem of the Right finds fault with ‘What has happened, that /My brothers, one and all’ and the poet says ‘How I envy / The cries of autumn geese’. The line of geese in the autumn appears unmistakably to refer to the ordering of brothers—perhaps that order has been disrupted? If so, this, too, is extremely charming. To the extent that these, too, express the writer’s troubles, for the moment, I make them a tie.
Wakan rōeishū II: 732
Eikyū hyakushu 650
Love V: 6
Left (Win).
あか月にあらぬ別も今はとて我が世ふくれば添ふ思ひかな
| akatsuki ni aranu wakare mo ima wa tote wa ga yo fukureba sou omoi kana |
At dawn This parting is not; Now it is When my life reaches twilight – I think… |
Lord Sada’ie.
851
Right.
翁さび身は惜しからぬ戀衣今はと濡れん人なとがめそ
| okina sabi mi wa oshikaranu koigoromo ima wa to nuren hito na togame so |
Feeling like an ancient, But I regret it not! My loving clothes: Now’s the time to dampen them But blame me not! |
Jakuren.
852
The Right state: the Left’s poem has no faults to mention. The Left state: we wonder about the appropriateness of ‘now’s the time to dampen them’ (ima wa to nuren).
In judgement: ‘Feeling like an ancient’ (okina sabi) ‘now’s the time to dampen them’ (ima wa to nuren) does not sound like it fits formally with ‘but I regret it not!’ (mi wa oshikaranu). The Left, in addition to sounding like it has no faults, has ‘this parting is not; now it is’ (aranu wakare mo ima wa tote), which certainly sounds right. It is superior.