Kokinshu 18
Text
み山には 松の雪だに きえなくに 宮こはのべの わかなつみけり
Translation
[Topic unknown] [Poet unknown]
On the mountain / even the snow on the pines / has not melted / but in the capital / they are picking young shoots (of the fields (4)).
Notes
In almost all texts, this poem and poem 19 are switched.
- み山
- The み can be simply honorific, but it's more likely here that it means "deep mountain".
- 松の雪だに
- だに indicates "even." Various explanations have been offered for why the poet says that "even" the snow in the pines has not vanished -- clearly this means that the snow on pines is expected to vanish first, but is it simply that the needles are small and don't hold much snow? I think it may just be that pine trees are being used for the scenery the poet sees, and that he simply means the snow on the trees melts quicker than the snow on the ground.
- Some commenters such as Teika cited Chinese poetry that mentioned snow on pines.
- きえなくに
- なくに is a holdover from OJ; a combination of the なく nominal form of the negative ず, plus the conjunctive に. "Even though it hasn't..."
- のべのわかな
- Many alternate texts read のべにわかな, which means "they are picking young shoots in the fields."
Analysis
Fujiwara no Kinto, in the Shinsen zuino, identified a potential poetic fault in this poem, in that the first and fourth lines begin with the same sounds (みや). He noted that this is not truly a fault because みやま and みやこ are different words. Later commenters noted this potential fault as well, although some of them disagreed that this wasn't a fault -- only that because of the antiquity of this poem the fault is excusable. Takeoka felt that this repetition of sounds was actually a strength of the poem, emphasizing the contrast between the two parts of the poem.
Fujiwara no Shunzei included this poem in his Korai futeisho selection of poems.
The biggest interpretive question is who the poet is and where they are reading the poem. Teika and Sogi felt that this poem was by someone from the capital, gazing out at the far off pine trees which still had snow. Miura agrees based on the sequence of poems.
The Seigi disagrees, saying that this is being read from a mountain village. Miura thought that the feeling of the poem (rather than the sequence in the KKS) supported this view, and Takeoka and Katagiri both agree as well. But the older commenters seemed to think that the poet was looking down on the fields from the village and seeing the shoots being picked. Takeoka and Katagiri, with perhaps too literal a view, didn't think this could be seen from the mountain. Takeoka thought the villager was receiving a gift of shoots from the capital, while Katagiri said the villager was coming down to the capital for some purpose and sees the shoots being picked.
Kaneko is an outlier; he thinks that the logistical difficulties with the poem make it more likely this is a screen painting. Katagiri thought that this poem from the "詠み人知らず era" was too old to be a screen painting.
I think there are strengths and weaknesses to each of these approaches. I don't know if the poets had such a literal view of the poetry that they were considering whether the fields could actually be seen from the village, or whether there was enough time for the shoots to be delivered. I also don't know if they required a specific hypothetical person in a specific place -- Katagiri seems to agree with this in some of his commentary on other poems, but here he takes a particularly literal view of the situation.
Other sources
- 新撰髄脳 俊頼髄脳 和歌童蒙抄 奥儀抄 古来風体抄 簸河上 悦目抄 井蛙抄 定家八代抄 八十浦之玉 和歌灌頂次第秘密抄 歌林良材
- 伊勢物語注
- 源氏注・末摘花