#yamasaki no ōkimi
IMG_6586by Margi
I’m back - going to try to churn out at least a couple posts a week. I was in Korea for my research for the latter half of 2015… back stateside now, and hoping to start my days with a refreshing poem from MYS. I suppose this is not the most up-lifting poem(s) to start out with - but it spoke to me. Also, it’s a chōka/hanka combination, so there’s a lot of it, which somewhat? makes up for no posts for almost a year.
MYS 3:423-425
同石田王卒之時山前王哀傷作歌一首
As in the previous poems, upon the death of Ishida [Iwata] no Ōkimi, a poem composed by Yamasaki [Yamakuma] no Ōkimi as he grieved
角障經 石村之道乎 朝不離 将歸人乃 念乍 通計萬<口>波 霍公鳥 鳴五月者 菖蒲 花橘乎 玉尓貫 [一云 貫交] 蘰尓将為登 九月能 四具礼能時者 黄葉乎 折挿頭跡 延葛乃 弥遠永 [一云 田葛根乃 弥遠長尓] 萬世尓 不絶等念而 [一云 大舟之 念憑而] 将通 君乎婆明日従 [一云 君乎従明日<者>] 外尓可聞見牟
つのさはふ 磐余の道を 朝さらず 行きけむ人の 思ひつつ 通ひけまくは 霍公鳥 鳴く五月には あやめぐさ 花橘を 玉に貫き [一云 貫き交へ] かづらにせむと 九月の しぐれの時は 黄葉を 折りかざさむと 延ふ葛の いや遠長く [一云 葛の根の いや遠長に] 万代に 絶えじと思ひて [一云 大船の 思ひたのみて] 通ひけむ 君をば明日ゆ [一云 君を明日ゆは] 外にかも見む
tunosapapu/ipare no miti wo/asa sarazu/yukikemu pito no/omopitutu/kayopikemaku pa/pototogisu/naku satuki ni pa/ayamegusa/pana tatibana wo/tama ni nuki[nukimazipe]/kadura ni semu to/nagatuki no/sigure no toki pa/momitiba wo/worikazasamu to/papu kuzu no/iya toponagaku[kuzu no ne no iya toponaga ni]/yoroduyo ni/taezi to omopite[opobune no omopitanomite]/kayopikemu/kimi wo ba asu yu[kimi wo asu yu pa]/yoso ni kamo mimu
Horns creeping up/along the road to Iware [Craggy Land]/each morning, without fail/he had traveled/lost in his thoughts/as he went– In the fifth month, when the cuckoos cry out/the wild irises/and the flowering oranges/making them into beads on a string [stringing them both up]/shall I make a crown?/In the ninth month/at the time of early winter’s rains/the yellow and crimson leaves/shall I break them off to adorn my head?/Like winding kuzu vines/that stretch ever far and long [like the roots of the kuzu vines, stretching ever farther and longer]/for the myriad ages/this would not come to an end, he thought [like a great ship, he relied upon this belief]/as he traveled back and forth–As for my lord, from tomorrow [My Lord, from tomorrow]/will he be looking upon it from afar?
或本反歌二首
Two echo verses found in one text
隠口乃 泊瀬越女我 手二纒在 玉者乱而 有不言八方
komoriku no/patuse wotome ga/te ni makeru/tama pa midarete/ari to ipazu yamo
Surrounded by mountains/the maiden of Hatsuse/those beads she had wrapped about here wrist/have now scattered about/you might say…
河風 寒長谷乎 歎乍 公之阿流久尓 似人母逢耶
川風の寒き泊瀬を嘆きつつ君が歩くに似る人も逢へや
kapakaze no/samuki hatuse wo/nagekitutu/kimi ga aruku ni/niru pito mo ape ya
The river winds/are chilling in Hatsuse/sighing, sighing/as you walked along/will I ever meet another like you?
右二首者或云紀皇女薨後山前<王>代石田王作之也
As for the above two verses, in one text it says these were composed by Yamasaki no Ōkimi on behalf of Ishida no Ōkimi after Ki no hime miko passed away.
The main long verse hinges on the location of a road through Iware which connects Hatsuse and likely the Fujiwara capital, via which the subject of grief, Ishida[Iwata] no Ōkimi “commuted” [kayopikemu] (Scholars speculate the “Hatuse maiden” in the first hanka could be his wife, living out in the country, to whose home he commutes back and forth, from his post in the capital, along the Iware road). Interestingly, the poet is attempting to imagine the thoughts of Ishida as he traveled back and forth along the road–well particularly as he traveled up to the capital each morning–and they can’t get much more elegant (fūryū 風流) - Ishida was a man of true taste, it seems, or that’s how Yamasaki wants to present him, in any case. As he encounters irises and orange blossoms in the summer (fifth month=second month of summer by lunar calendar), he appreciates their beauty and his thoughts turn to fashioning them into a flower crown for his head; as he encounters autumn foliage, he again thinks the same thing. Recognizing the beauty of these things and seeking to adorn himself with it is perfectly fitting for a late-seventh century aesthetic - where you couldn’t get much more elegant (cf. Princess Nukata on spring/autumn, or any number of poems from this period about wanting to “kazasu”(adorn) oneself with something). There are quite a few makura kotoba here, which contribute interesting “stage-setting” that enables the poet to move through space, like Ishida is moving along the road: first, the scene of Iware is set by leading us into the word “Iwa” (boulder) via the epithet “horns creeping up”–thus we get an image of craggy, rocky cliffs, rising up into the sky–a mountain pass. Then comes the figure moving along the road each morning, and w are zoomed into his location, and finally his mind, and we see what he sees. The next makura kotoba comes following the two “thoughts” of Ishida (each ending with “to”), where a great length of time is translated into an image of ever stretching, ever inching forward kuzu vines. It is here where we get the sense of a sudden, unexpected death–or rather, one for which Ishida himself was unprepared. He had thought such journeys of his would continue indefinitely, stretching forward into the future far and long like kuzu vines, but such was not to be the case. There is no awareness of the ephemerality of life–just expectation that things will continue as they are indefinitely, until, of course, they don’t. That seems to be the real tragedy here–Ishida, a man of elegance, appreciated each aspect of his daily journey, but he didn’t appreciate that such journeys were limited, that they couldn’t go on forever. And so in the end, he who had traveled the road daily and knew it so well, can only look upon it from afar [yoso ni kamo mimu]. That’s a very powerful way to end the verse–he is no longer a part of the scenery, it goes on without him, and he is now only a distant observer (perhaps looking upon it from the underworld, which coincidentally, was located in the mountains). He didn’t expect, no one expected, for him to so abruptly vanish from the scene, but he was the one aspect of it that could not be renewed, could not be repeated. This is less a traditional banka, expressing grief over the loss of a loved one or a public figure, and more of a personal lament, that focuses on someone who was lost, but in doing so conveys a deep truth about human experience, and expands beyond the purview of a mere song of grief. Perhaps there is subtext here about impermanence, although perhaps not in a fully Buddhist sense, in the way the verse highlights the un-awareness of Ishida of the relatively fleeting nature of his existence, and the fact that it could not go on forever. Granted, the “yoroduyo ni taezi” type locution is common in banka which lament the fact that, particularly for rulers, no one thought they could die, everyone thought they would live and rule forever (well, not literally, but it’s a thing you say when a ruler dies), but here it’s not the cries of grieving loved ones who can’t believe the deceased is gone, but it’s actually a speculative thought of the deceased himself while he was alive (”yoroduyo ni taezi to omopite”) - he was the one who thought he’d be around forever. And now, of course, he is on the “outside” (”yoso”). Yamasaki doesn’t focus on his own grief. Rather, he enters Ishida’s head, to present an elegant, innocent man who can no longer travel the scenic road of which he had so been a part in life, and who in some way laments that fact in the end “from afar” (yoso). There are elements of Yamasaki’s voice that bring us out and remind us he is speculating, projecting for us what Ishida must have been thinking - but the overall effect is that we are more aware of the tragedy of Ishida’s unawareness of impermanence and his abrupt disappearance from the scene than we are of Yamasaki’s own grief over the loss of Ishida. Of course, Yamasaki is bereaved, but we also get the sense that Ishida’s passing has inspired an acute awareness in him of the speed at which the everyday can become precious, and even when each moment of the mundane is savored in a most elegant way–it can all end just like that, leaving one forever “on the outside.”
The hanka obviously inspire confusion, since there is a footnote suggesting they perhaps don’t even belong to this chōka but instead were written on a different occasion, grieving a different death. So people didn’t even know in the eighth century, how can we? Well, the footnote may be right, but I think the imagery and themes present in the hanka match the chōka pretty well, even if they were not composed together (but I kinda think they were). First, “komoriku no” has an echo of “tuno sapapu” from the chōka, and although Hatsuse is not mentioned in the chōka, geographically it can make sense that was where Ishida was coming from along the Iware road. The maiden is again, not mentioned in the chōka, but I think suddenly shifting to not only giving us an explanation for the “commuting” but also to the grief of one left behind, that is not in fact the poet himself, is fitting for a hanka. “Jewels/beads” (tama) wrapped around her wrist echoes the “tama ni nuki” of the chōka, and is a striking image for death - that the man she had kept “wrapped around her wrist” is now gone, scattered like beads from a string. The other obvious connection, is of course, that “tama” (bead) is cognate with “tama” (spirit), i.e. his spirit has left her, scattered away. The ending is a little strange, “might one say?/you might say..” is a little ambivalent, but perhaps is used to fill out the syllables, and further has an emphatic, grieving tone with the “yamo” at the end. One can feel almost a desperation in the ambivalent tone as well, as if the poet, and perhaps also the maiden, are struggling to find the words to describe what has happened, the describe what they are feeling. The second hanka is a bit more straightforward, a lament that one will never see the likes of Ishida walking along the road again. Everything in the entire verse modifies “pito” (person) in the final ku, which is again fitting - because it emphasizes there will never be another ‘person’ like him (”niru”). Hatsuse appears again here, this time as place of cold “river winds,” which accords another layer to the figure traveling back and forth along the road. Further, the “nagekitutu” suggests a feeling Ishida, one consumed with love for Hatsuse no otome, perhaps, but also moved by the nature around him, which echoes the content of the chōka, but from a distance, rather than from inside Ishida’s head.
Together I found these verses a tour de force - there’s no heavy-handed lamenting of impermanence here, no desperate shouting about how he wasn’t supposed to have gone, how can he have left the world behind, etc. Rather, this is a different sort of tribute, one I think you see emerging in the late seventh and early eighth centuries and definitely in Hitomaro’s work, where the deceased is the focus, rather than those left behind, necessarily, although there is of course both here. By speculating on Ishida’s mindset, Yamasaki is of course both avoiding talking about his own grief and conveying the sense of the second hanka, i.e. that he will never meet another like him, but this is done in a subtle way that is both appealing and refreshing when compared to earlier more ritualistic literal “coffin-pulling” poems (banka). There is in any event a lot of striking imagery, use of makura kotoba, and deep sentiments here.
Feels good to be reading MYS again. I was interested in maybe talking a little bit about the little “one text says” parts of this verse, because I think they are remarkably informative and striking “alternatives,” but for now I think I’ve gone on long enough about these verses.
The photo is from when I climbed Yongmunsan in Kyǒnggido back in October during the height of the foliage. I figured, mountain road, crimson leaves, it sort of works. One thing I do miss about being in Korea – mountain climbing on demand, any time, any where.
