Two Tanka Poems from “A Hundred Verses from Old Japan” or the “Hyaku-Nin-Isshiu”

SARU MARU, A SHINTO OFFICIAL or SARU MARU TAIU

Oku yama ni
Momiji fumi wake
Naku shika no
Koe kiku toki zo
Aki wa kanashiki.

HEAR the stag's pathetic call
Far up the mountain side,
While tramping o'er the maple leaves
Wind-scattered far and wide
This sad, sad autumn tide.

NOTE: Very little is known of this writer, but he probably lived not later than A.D. 800. Stags and the crimson leaves of the maple are frequently used as the symbolism of autumn.

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NAKAMARO ABE or ABE NO NAKAMARO

Ama no hara
Furisake-mireba
Kasuga naru
Mikasa no yama ni
Ideshi tsuki kamo.

WHILE gazing up into the sky,
My thoughts have wandered far;
Methinks I see the rising moon
Above Mount Mikasa
At far-off Kasuga.

NOTE: The poet, when sixteen years of age, was sent with two others to China, to discover the secret of the Chinese calendar, and on the night before sailing for home his friends gave him a farewell banquet. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and after dinner he composed this verse. Another account, however, says that the Emperor of China, becoming suspicious, caused him to be invited to a dinner at the top of a high pagoda, and then had the stairs removed, in order that he might be left to die of hunger. Nakamaro is said to have bitten his hand and written this verse with his blood, after which he appears to have escaped and fled to Annam. Kasuga, pronounced Kasunga, is a famous temple at the foot of Mount Mikasa, near Nara, the poet's home; the verse was written in the year 726, and the author died in 780

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From: A HUNDRED VERSES FROM OLD JAPAN

ISBN: 978-1-907256-19-6

http://www.abelapublishing.com/hvoj.html

A percentage of the profits will be donated to the CHRISTCHURCH EARTHQUAKE APPEAL.

A Hundred Verses from Old Japan - or the Hyaku-nin-isshiu - Raising funds for the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal

THE Hyaku-nin-isshiu, or 'Single Verses by a Hundred People', were collected together in A.D. 1235. They are placed in approximate chronological order, and range from about the year 670. Perhaps what strikes one most in connection with the Hyaku-nin-isshiu is the date when the verses were written; most of them were produced before the time of the Norman Conquest (AD 1066), and one cannot but be struck with the advanced state of art and culture in Japan at a time when Europe was still in a very elementary stage of civilization.

The Collection consists almost entirely of love-poems and what the editor calls picture-poems, intended to bring before the mind's eye some well-known scene in nature; and it is marvellous what effect little thumbnail sketches are compressed within thirty-one syllables. Some show the cherry blossoms which are doomed to fall, the dewdrops scattered by the wind, the mournful cry of the wild deer on the mountains, the dying crimson of the fallen maple leaves, the weird sadness of the cuckoo singing in the moonlight, and the loneliness of
the recluse in the mountain wilds; while those verses which appear to be of a more cheerful type are rather of the nature of the 'Japanese smile', described by Lafcadio Hearn as a mask to hide the real feelings.

Japanese poetry differs very largely from anything we are used to in the West. It has no rhyme or alliteration, and little, if any, rhythm, as we understand it. The verses in this Collection are all what are called Tanka which has five lines and thirty-one syllables, arranged thus: 5-7-5-7-7 which is an unusual metre for Western ears. For this translation the editor has adopted a five-lined verse of 8-6-8-6-6 metre, with the second, fourth, and fifth lines rhyming, in the hope of retaining at least some resemblance to the original form, while at the same time making the sound more familiar to English readers.

33% of the publisher's profit from the sale of this book will be
donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

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