Round One
Left
山だもるあきのかりほにおく露はいなおほせどりのなみだなりけり
| yamada moru aki no kariho ni oku tsuyu wa inaosedori no namida narikeri | Warding mountain fields, in Autumn upon a hasty hut The dripping dewdrops are Migrating birds’ Tears. |
Tadamine
1
Right
たつたひめいかなるかみにあればかは山をちくさにあきはそむらん
| tatsutahime ika naru kami ni areba ka wa yama o chikusa ni aki wa somuran | Princess Tatsuta: What manner of deity Might she be, that All the mountain’s thousand grasses She dyes with autumn hues? |
2
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 11 |
| Title | 朱雀院女郎花合 |
| Romanised Title | Suzakuin ominaeshi awase |
| Translated Title | Maidenflower Contest held at the Suzaku Palace |
| Alternative Title(s) | |
| Date | Autumn, Year unknown |
| Extant Poems | 3 |
| Sponsor | Emperor Uda 宇多天皇 |
| Identifiable Participants | Ōshikōchi no Mitsune; Taira no Sadafun?; Mibu no Tadamine |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics | Maidenflowers (ominaeshi 女郎花) |
This contest has only three extant poems, all of which are included in Kokinshū (IV: 233; IV: 234; IV: 236). It appears to have been an extremely small scale event, with only three rounds, and six poems, of which only the aforementioned three are identifiable.
The contest’s second poem is identified in its text as being by Taira no Sadafun, but in Kokinshū and elsewhere, this poem is attributed to Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, so there remains the possibility that Sadafun did not take part. This poem also occurs in the larger Teishi-in ominaeshi uta’awase (15), so a further possibility is that this contest was a senka awase where prior poems were combined in new ways, rather than a formal event.
Hagitani (1963, 111) argues that this contest should be considered as a separate one in its own right, rather than being a part or continuation of one of Uda’s other maidenflower contests, on the grounds that it is given its own separate entry in Ruijū uta’awase 類聚歌合 (‘Compendium of Poetry Contests’)[1], and thus the editors of this work obviously believed it to be a distinct event.
[1]Ruijū uta’awase 類聚歌合 (‘Compendium of Poetry Contests’) is, as its name suggests a collection of uta’awase texts. It was assembled in two parts, with the first part said to have been compiled at the command of Emperor Goreizei 後冷泉 (1025-1068; r. 1045-1068) under the supervision of Fujiwara no Yorimichi 藤原頼通 (992-1074) and Minamoto no Tsunenobu 源経信 (1016-1097) and completed at some point before 1068. The second part was compiled later, on Emperor Horikawa’s 堀河 (1079-1107; r. 1087-1107) orders, but not completed until around 1127. The extant version of this work contains the texts of about 200 poetry contests covering the period 885-1126.
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 10 |
| Title | 宇多院女郎花合 |
| Romanised Title | Uda-in ominaeshi awase |
| Translated Title | Maidenflower Contest held by Former Emperor Uda |
| Alternative Title(s) | |
| Date | Autumn, Year unknown |
| Extant Poems | 14 |
| Sponsor | Emperor Uda 宇多天皇 |
| Identifiable Participants | |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics | Maidenflowers (ominaeshi 女郎花) |
Little is known about this contest, other than that it was clearly sponsored by Emperor Uda. One of its poems made its way into Fubokushō (XI: 4232), where it is conflated together with poems from the Teishi-in ominaeshi awase, but as that poem does not appear in that contest’s texts, it must be from a separate contest. Hagitani (1963, 107) suggests that this contest could have taken place at any time prior to Engi 延喜 13 [913] with the most likely timing being a few years after Teishi-in ominaeshi awase in Shōtai 昌泰 1 [898].
The exact extent of this contest is also unclear, but it must have had at least ten rounds, of which only seven survive.
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 8 |
| Title | 寛平御時歌合襍載 |
| Romanised Title | Kanpyō no ōntoki uta’awase zassai |
| Translated Title | Miscellaneous Poem from a Poetry Contest during the Reign of the Kanpyō Emperor |
| Alternative Title(s) | |
| Date | Kanpyō period [889-898] |
| Extant Poems | 1 |
| Sponsor | |
| Identifiable Participants | |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics | Geese (kari 雁) |
The poem in question here is KKS IV: 210, which is recorded in that anthology as being an anonymous ‘Topic unknown’ one. Its attribution to a poetry contest is made by Minamoto no Toshiyori (Shunrai) 源俊頼 (1055-1129), in one of his judgement Naidaijin tadamichi uta’awase 内大臣忠通歌合 (‘Palace Minister Tadamichi’s Poetry Contest’; 13th day of the Ninth Month, Hōan 保安 2 [26.10.1121]) where he states the poem is from a contest held in Kanpyō 9 [897]. Hagitani (1963, 93) acknowledges this attribution may be spurious, given that it seems unlikely the compilers of Kokinshū would not have mentioned the contest, had it been well known, but suggests deferring to Toshiyori’s expertise, given that he may have had access to materials which we do not.
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 7 |
| Title | 東宮御息所温子小箱合 |
| Romanised Title | Tōgū miyasudokoro onshi kohako awase |
| Translated Title | Little Box Match held by Yoshiko, Crown Prince Lady of the Bedchamber |
| Alternative Title(s) | |
| Date | Spring, Kanpyō 9 [897] |
| Extant Poems | 2 |
| Sponsor | Fujiwara no Yoshiko (Onshi) 藤原温子 (872-907) |
| Identifiable Participants | Fujiwara no Yoshiko (Onshi) 藤原温子; Ise 伊勢 |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics | Comb boxes (kushige 櫛笥) |
There are no independent records of this contest, and our knowledge of it comes solely from the headnotes to two poems, one by Ise and one by the Shichijō Lady of the Bedchamber (shichijō miyasudokoro 七条御息所) which occur in three separate collections: Kokin rokujō 古今六帖, Fuboku wakashō 夫木和歌抄[1], and Ise-shū 伊勢集. These headnotes are not entirely in agreement, meaning that there is some doubt about the order in which the poems should be presented. In addition, as the Lady of the Bedchamber holding the contest is not referred to by name, there are a number of viable candidates. Hagitani (1963, 88-90) argues that Onshi (Yoshiko) is the most likely, given the content of the poems and the wider context, suggesting that Ise would have been unable to participate in the contest in person at this time as she would have just given birth to Uda’s son, Imperial Prince Yukinaka 行中親王 (897-909), and hence would have had to send her contribution to it.
Despite the dearth of materials, this contest is significant because it is the only surviving evidence that box matches were held as court entertainments. It is thus a further form of mono awase 物合, where objects were compared, and the poems served as an accompaniment to them, rather than the main focus of the event.
Hagitani (1963, 90) further suggests that another feature of the exchange between Yoshiko and Ise here, is that is is a rare moment where we see jealousy expressed, with Yoshiko resentful of the affection that Ise has been bestowed by Uda.
See the contest poems in Fubokushō.
See the contest poems in Ise-shū.
[1]Fuboku wakashō 夫木和歌抄 (‘The Sacred Tree Selection of Japanese Poetry’)(also known as Fubokushō, Fuboku wakashū 夫木和歌集, and Fubokushū 夫木集) is a personal poetry anthology compiled by Katsumata no Nagakiyo (dates unknown) in the late Kamakura period (around 1310). It contains over 17,000 post-Man’yō poems which were not selected for inclusion in imperial anthologies, by about 970 named poets.
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | 6 |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 9 |
| Title | 亭子院女郎花合 |
| Romanised Title | Teishi-in ominaeshi awase |
| Translated Title | Maidenflower Contest held by Former Emperor Uda |
| Alternative Title(s) | |
| Date | Autumn, Shōtai 1 [898] |
| Extant Poems | 51 |
| Sponsor | Emperor Uda 宇多天皇 |
| Identifiable Participants | The Minister of the Left (sadaijin 左大臣); (Mibu no) Tadamine 忠岑; (Ōshikōchi no) Mitsune 躬恒; (Fujiwara no) Okikaze 興風; His Majesty (gyosei 御製); Her Majesty, the Empress (kisai no miya きさいのみや); Minamoto no Tsurana; Muneyuki 致行; Nochikata のちかた; Susugu すすぐ; Motoyori もとより; Yoshikaze よしかぜ; Yasuki やすき; Amane あまね; Mareyo まれよ; Motoyuki もとゆき; Ise 伊勢 |
| Judgements | Y |
| Topics | Maidenflowers (ominaeshi 女郎花) |
The headnote to this contest states:
In the year after that in which the Teishi Emperor relinquished the throne, he held a maidenflower match, making no instruction as to who should lead the teams of the Left and Right, so His Majesty and Her Majesty, the Empress, fulfilled those roles.
The contest itself contains eleven rounds and thus twenty-two poems, but these are then followed by twenty-nine poems which ‘were not matched but simply noted down’. The implication of this is that attendees at the contest also composed their own ‘maidenflower’ poems either before, or at, the event, and these were collected in order to provide a complete record of the day.
Unlike in later contests, the ‘judgement’ here consists of an ambiguous statement after the conclusion of the contest that ‘the poem(s) of the right won’ (uta wa migi kachinikeri). As Japanese nouns are not marked for number, this could mean either that there was a collective victory for the Right, or that only the Right’s poem in the final round was judged and found better than the poem of the Left. As the poems in this round are by Uda and Yoshiko (Onshi) respectively, and it would have been Uda who performed the judging, it is possible that this is simply him deferring to his empress out of politeness.
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | 4 |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 5 |
| Title | 寛平御時后宮歌合 |
| Romanised Title | Kanpyō no ōntoki kisai no miya uta’awase |
| Translated Title | Poetry Contest held by the Empress Dowager during the Reign of the Kanpyō Emperor |
| Alternative Title(s) | 皇太夫人班子女王歌合 Kōtai fujin hanshi jō uta’wase (‘Poetry Contest held by Princess Nakako, the Empress Dowager’) |
| Date | Autumn, before 9/Kanpyō 5 [10.893] |
| Extant Poems | 193 |
| Sponsor | Princess Nakako (Hanshi) 班子女王 |
| Identifiable Participants | Ki no Tomonori 紀友則; Minamoto no Masazumi 源当純; Sosei 素性; Fujiwara no Okikaze 藤原興風; (Ki no) Tsurayuki 貫之; Ki no Akimine 紀秋岑; Ariwara no Muneyana 在原棟梁 (850-898); Ono no Yoshiki 小野美材 (?-902); 大江千里; Fujiwara no Sugane 藤原菅根 (856-908); (Ōshikōchi no) Mitsune 躬恒; (Mibu no) Tadamine 忠岑; (Sakanoue no) Korenori 是則 (?-930); (Fujiwara no) Toshiyuki 敏行; Sugano no Tadaōmu 菅野忠臣; Minamoto no Muneyuki 源宗于 (?-940); Ise 伊勢 (872?-938?) |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics | Spring; Summer; Autumn; Winter; Love |
This competition was a large-scale event conducted to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of Empress Dowager Nakako (Hanshi) (833-900), the mother of Emperor Uda. While she was formally the sponsor of the contest, it seems likely that it was her son who arranged it on her behalf. The competition seems to have orginally consisted of one hundred rounds, not all of which survive, broadly organised into poems on the four seasons and love. As there are no records of the performance of this event, and there are no other instances of such large events taking place at this period in uta’awase development, the consensus is that it, too, was a senka awase, like Prince Koresada’s earlier contest. Extant texts of the competition do not record the poets’ names but, in a further similarity to Koresada’s contest, many of the poems made their way into other anthologies (some poems were included in multiple other collections – the poems in Kokinshū and Kokin rokujō, for example, overlap to a great extent) and it is from these that some of the participants’ identities have been discovered.
See below for a list of poems from the competition in other collections, and you can start reading through the contest’s poems here.
Kokinshū
Gosenshū
Shūishū
| SIS I: 40 | SIS I: 75 | SIS IV: 239 |
Shinkokinshū
Shinchokusenshū
Shokugosenshū
Shokusenzaishū
Shinsenzaishū
XII: 1251
Shinshūishū
III: 303
Kokin rokujō
| I: 89 I: 143 I: 244 I: 286 I: 385 I: 398 I: 460 I: 620 I: 652 I: 668 I: 712 | I: 717 II: 1137 II: 1393 III: 1683 III: 1825 III: 1961 IV: 1983 IV: 2031 IV: 2035 V: 2664 V: 2732 | V: 3207 V: 3514 VI: 3753 VI: 3973 VI: 3981 VI: 4013 VI: 4359 VI: 4425 VI: 4437 VI: 4441 VI: 4447 |
Fubokushō
Mandaishū
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | 3 |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 4 |
| Title | 是貞親王家歌合 |
| Romanised Title | Koresada shinnō-ke uta’awase |
| Translated Title | Poetry Contest at the House of Imperial Prince Koresada |
| Alternative Title(s) | 二宮歌合 Ni no miya uta’awase (‘The Second Prince Poetry Contest’); 仁和御時親王歌合 Ninna no ōntoki shinnō uta’awase (‘The Imperial Prince’s Poetry Contest held during the Reign of the Ninna Emperor’) |
| Date | Autumn, before 9/Kanpyō 5 [10.893] |
| Extant Poems | 71 |
| Sponsor | Prince Koresada 是貞親王 |
| Identifiable Participants | Fujiwara no Toshiyuki 藤原敏行 (?-901/907); Ōe no Chisato 大江千里 (dates unknown); Ki no Tomonori 紀友則 (845?-907); Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之 (ca. 866/872-945); Mibu no Tadamine 壬生忠岑 (ca. 860-920); Fun’ya no Asayasu 文屋朝康 (dates unknown); Ōshikōchi no Mitsune 凡河内躬恒 (859?-925?); Fun’ya no Yasuhide 文屋康秀 (?-885) |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics |
Koresada 是貞 (?-903) was a son of Emperor Kōkō 光孝天皇 (830-887; r. 884-887) and the elder brother of Sadami 定省, who was to ascend the throne as Emperor Uda 宇多 (867-931; r. 887-897). Like his brother, Koresada’s chances of becoming emperor seemed lost when he was demoted to commoner status in 870 with the awarding of the Minamoto 源 surname as a result of the machinations of Fujiwara no Mototsune 藤原基経 (836-891), but after events resulted in the return of Sadami to princely status and his installation as emperor in 887, it was felt to be inapproriate for the sovereign’s elder brother to remain a commoner and he was readmitted to the imperial family in 891.
While Koresada is the official sponsor of this poetry contest, it is, in many ways, a precursor to the subsequent Kanpyō no ōntoki kisai no miya uta’awase 寛平御時后宮歌合 (‘Poetry Contest held by the Empress Dowager during the Reign of the Kanpyō Emperor’) and so it seems that Uda had a strong influence over its content. Extant records of the contest contain 71 poems but scholars speculate that it may originally have had as many as forty or fifty rounds and thus 80 or 100 poems in total. Many of this contest’s poems were also included in other collections and anthologies (see below), and it is from these that the identities of a number of the poets taking part have been identified. As a result of the lack of both any records of the formal conduct of the competition, and judgements of the poems’ quality, it is possible that this is an early example of a ‘selected poem match’ (senka awase 撰歌合), where poems were chosen from poets’ various works and assembled into the format of a competition.
The following is a partial listing of where poems from the competition can be found in other collections.
Kokinshū
| KKS IV: 189 KKS IV: 193 KKS IV: 197 KKS IV: 207 KKS IV: 214 KKS IV: 218 | KKS IV: 225 KKS IV: 228 KKS IV: 239 KKS V: 249 KKS V: 257 KKS V: 263 | KKS V: 266 KKS V: 270 KKS V: 278 KKS V: 295 KKS V: 306 KKS XII: 582 |
Gosenshū
Here are some short video explainers about the poems in the contest.
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | 2 |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 3 |
| Title | 寛平御時菊合 |
| Romanised Title | Kanpyō no ōntoki kiku awase |
| Translated Title | Chrysanthemum Contest held during the Reign of the Kanpyō Emperor |
| Alternative Title(s) | 内裏菊合 Dairi kiku awase (‘Palace Chrysanthemum Contest’) |
| Date | Autumn, Ninna 4-Kanpyō 3 [888-891] |
| Extant Poems | 20 |
| Sponsor | Emperor Uda 宇多天皇 |
| Identifiable Participants | [Ki no] Tomonori 友則; The Suga Prime Minister (suga shōjō 菅丞相) [Sugawara no Michizane 菅原道真]; Sosei 素性 |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics | Chrysanthemums |
This ‘contest’ can be categorised as a ‘things match’ (mono awase 物合). That is, an event where different objects of the same type were displayed and admired for the entertainment of the assembled company. Sometimes, the best of these would be identified, and sometimes not. Poems were often composed to accompany these events and add a literary element to the enjoyment; sometimes the quality of these would be judged, and sometimes not, as is the case here.
As indicated by the competition’s title, the objects being displayed and compared here were chrysanthemum blooms, and this is the oldest known ‘Chrysanthemum match’ (kiku awase 菊合). For the occasion the teams of the Left and Right prepared ten flowers each, all with an accompanying poem, which were displayed on elaborately constructed stands (suhama 州浜). Only three of the participants’ names have been recorded (Ki no Tomonori 紀友則 (850?-904?); Sugawara no Michizane 菅原道真 (845-903); and Sosei 素性 (844?-910?), and this is because four of the poems from the contest were later included in Kokinshū.
| Shinpen kokka taikan no. | |
| Heian-chō uta’awase taisei no. | 2 |
| Title | 中将御息所歌合 |
| Romanised Title | Chūjō miyasudokoro uta’awase |
| Translated Title | Poetry Contest held by the Chūjō Lady of the Bedchamber |
| Alternative Title(s) | |
| Date | Before 26/8 Ninna3 [7.9.887] |
| Extant Poems | 2 |
| Identifiable Participants | Y |
| Judgements | N |
| Topics | Warblers; blossom |
The only knowledge we have of this contest is the fact that two of its poems were included in Kokinshū, and one, by Sosei, is included in his personal collection with a slightly variant and more informative headnote. The identity of the Chūjō Lady of the Bedchamber is also unclear: it is possible that she could have been an Imperial Concubine (kōi 更衣) to Emperor Kōkō 光孝 (830-887; r. 884-887), but due to where Sosei’s poem is situated in his personal collection, where the dates of composition of the surrounding poems are more clear, it is also not possible to discount the theory that she was a concubine of Emperor Uda 宇多 (866-931; 887-897). It is also not possible to say definitively that this was a full contest which actually took place: it might be that these were poems which were composed with a mind to inclusion in another contest and then not used.