Gosenshu 6

Gosen wakashu Volume 6: Autumn 2 後撰和歌集巻第六　秋中

271

延喜御時に秋の歌めしければ、たてまつりける

In the Engi period, [the Emperor] asked for an autumn poem, and [Tsurayuki] provided these.

紀貫之

Ki no Tsurayuki

秋霧の立ちぬる時はくらぶ山おぼつかなくぞ見え渡りける

akigiri no                When the autumn mist
tati-nuru toki ha         Has risen up to enwrap
kurabuyama                Kurabu Mountain,
obotukanaku zo            Looking across the whole place
mie-watari-keru           It is difficult to see.

Autumn mist

There's no clear indication whether this should be akigiri or akikiri; I've gone with the majority, but Takeoka reads it akikiri on the basis of other compounds like harukasumi that are unvoiced.

Kurabu Mountain

A mountain in old Yamashiro province; used in poetry for its association with kurasi (dark), and thus hard to see or navigate.

--

The second volume of autumn poems begins with two public poems by Tsurayuki in response to Imperial request, which introduce two major autumn themes. The first one is autumn mist, a major theme in KKS autumn poetry as well. The difference between the spring kasumi and autumn kiri is difficult to represent in English translation; there's a tradition of translating kasumi as "haze" and kiri as "mist".

This poem is a fairly simple evocation of the scene of a mountain wrapped in mist, with the pun on the mountain's name.

272

花見にといでにしものを秋の野の霧に迷ひてけふはくらしつ

hanami ni to              Although I went out
ide-ni-si mono wo         Thinking to view the flowers,
aki no no no              In the autumn field
kiri ni madohi-te         I've gotten lost in the mist
kehu ha kurasi-tu         And wasted the whole day through.

--

The second of Tsurayuki's poems introduces the general idea of autumn flowers. Specific flowers will soon begin to show up in the poems; a few of the flowering plants appeared in the first volume but the flowers in particular were not mentioned.

Kigin praised these two poems as skilled and elegant, and a perfect example of Tsurayuki's poetry. Kifune praised the evocation of a dream/fantasy world; the poet wandering lost in the mist, imagining the beautiful flowers he came out to see.

A similar poem appears in the Kokin waka rokujo:

音に聞く花見にくれば秋霧の道さまたげに立ち渡りつつ

I came to see the flowers I heard rumor of, and mist kept rising up to block the path.

Katagiri draws attention to another poem by Tsurayuki, KKS 116:

春の野に若菜つまむと来しものをちりかふ花に道はまどひぬ

I went to the spring fields to pick young shoots, but the scattering cherry blossoms made me lose my way.

273

寛平御時后宮の歌合せに

Read at the Empress' Poetry Competition in the Kampyo era

よみ人しらず

Poet unknown

浦ちかくたつ秋きりはもしほやく煙とのみぞ見えわたりける

ura tikaku                The mist of autumn
tatu akikiri ha           Rising down there near the bay:
mosiho yaku               As smoke that rises
keburi to nomi zo         From seaweed burned for its salt
mie-watari-keru           That is all I see it as.

--

The public group of poems continue, this time with a poem from a competition. Although the author is not listed here, it's found in the Okikaze Collection with a slightly different final line (ayamatarikeru, "I mistake it for..."). The image is fairly clear; the smoke from burning seaweed is often found in love poetry to show the smoldering of the poet's heart. A similar poem to this appears in the Nakatsukasa collection but with spring haze instead of autumn mist. SIS 1096 is also similar, written for a screen painting:

藻塩焼く煙に馴るる須磨の海人は秋立つ霧も分かずやあるらん

I wonder if the saltmakers at Suma, so used to the smoke from the burning seaweed, can tell it apart from autumn mist?

274

同じ御時の女郎花合はせに

In the same [Kampyo] era, at a patrinia flower contest

藤原興風

Fujiwara no Okikaze

をるからにわがなはたちぬ女郎花いざおなじくははなばなに見む

woru kara ni              I plucked the flower
waga na ha tati-nu        Rumors started right away,
wominahesi                The patrinia,
iza onajiku ha            Well then, if it's all the same,
hanabana ni mi-mu         I'll just look at all of them!

In the same era

According to other records, this was actually in 898, the first year of the Shōtai era.

Patrinia flower contest

The Heian nobility engaged in a great deal of "matching contests", where teams each presented a particular item and a judge decided on which one was better. Poetry contests stem from this practice. The patrinia appears in KKS 226-238, showing the importance of the flower. The frequency of use in poetry is partly connected to the name wominaesi, since the first three syllables suggest "woman".

Plucked the flower

Plucking a flower is often used in love poetry as a metaphor for a romantic encounter with a woman.

--

This poem, recited at an event where patrinia were being matched, is a humorous poem declaring that Okikaze will look at all the flowers. The other meaning of the poem is that if he's going to get a bad name from sleeping with one woman, he might as well sleep with as many as he can. Hanabana ni may suggest the word hana ni which is used in a few poems to indicate entering a romantic relationship without serious intent.

As noted above, 226-238 in the KKS all feature the patrinia, and several (226 for example) use the idea of picking the flower, and then getting a bad name for being a playboy.

The next three poems are from this contest, serving as a transition between the rigidly artificial poems of the beginning of the book, to the private exchanges that follow.

275

よみ人しらず

Poet unknown

秋の野の露におかるる女郎花はらふ人なみぬれつつやふる

aki no no no            In the autumn fields
tuyu ni oka-ruru        They are covered in dew,
wominaesi               The patrinias
harahu hito nami        There are none to brush it away
nure-tutu ya huru       And so, drenched, they pass the time.

--

As with the previous poem, this has a secondary meaning -- the women cry because the men do not visit them, and so they pass their time in tears. Kifune notes the "elegant sorrow" paired with an actual scene of the flowers in the field. The Shinsho also seems to indicate this is an actual view of a field, but the judging contest would have been done in a building of the capital. Some older commentaries suggested the imagery of the second line is the dew being married to the flower; such a reading is found in other Heian poetry (like SIS 160) and is possible here.

276

をみなえし花の心のあだなれば秋にのみこそあひわたりけれ

wominaesi                The patrinias
hana no kokoro no        Have flighty natures in their
ada nare-ba              Flower hearts, and so
aki ni nomi koso         It is only in autumn
ahi-watari-kere          That I can come to see them.

--

The final poem in the sequence has the same comic tone as the other poems. In this case, the poet is explaining why patrinias only bloom in the autumn -- because they have flighty or romantic natures, and so the only time they appear is in the autumn. Some commentators take aki ni nomi koso ahu here to be a play on "only meet in autumn" and "only meet when they are tired of me." Katagiri rejects this view.

Kigin identifies this as a moral lesson to women. Such explanations arise out of a continuing uneasiness with the morality of romantic poetry.

Most texts follow this poem with KKS 1015; there is no particular reason why that poem should be placed here (the autumn imagery is generic), and perhaps Teika eventually excised it from his later manuscripts for that reason.

277

母の服にて里に侍りけるに、先帝の御文たまへりける御返りごとに

When she was at home wearing mourning clothes for her mother, she wrote this response to a letter from the former Emperor.

近江更衣

The Omi Intimate

さみだれにぬれにし袖にいとどしくつゆおきそふる秋のわびしさ

samidare ni                   In the fifth month rains
nure ni si sode ni            These sleeves became sopping wet;
idodosiku                     Now even more so
tuyu oki-sohuru               Dew lays heavy upon them
aki no wabisisa               The sorrowing of autumn

Prose preface and author

The Omi Intimate was a woman in Emperor Daigo's court. An Intimate (koi) is an unofficial rank below that of the Consorts (nyogo); her name would come from either her birthplace, or perhaps her father was connected to Omi in some way. Her identity is uncertain. The rites in effect at the time required a year and 50 days of mourning for a parent, and she would have been away from the palace for at least some of that time. While she was there, Daigo (the "Former Emperor") would have sent her letters, and this poem represents one of her responses. There are other poem exchanges between Omi and Daigo later in this collection, and in some of the later collections.

Fifth month rains

This suggests when her mother died.

--

After the three comic poems at the patrinia festival, we take a sharp turn into a mourning poem. The dew which was used humorously to suggest the tears of the patrinia flowers now becomes the tears of the Omi Intimate who has lost her mother. She uses both a summer and an autumn image as metaphors for tears to show her grief. The Kansho says that the poem contains no new imagery or innovative construction, but the poem shows her sorrow well. Kifune tries to read the aki of the last line as meaning "you have forgotten me" but construes that as an expression of thanks. I do not understand this interpretation.

This poem is drawn on several times in the Tale of Genji; most notably in the first chapter when the Emperor (who is based partly on Daigo) sends a messenger to his beloved Kiritsubo's mother. Her response poem is similar to this one but the situation is flipped, with a mother mourning for her child.

The next 12 poems are exchanges, many of them involving the highest ranking men in the court.

278

御返し

Honorable response

延喜御製

The Engi Emperor [Daigo]

おほかたも秋はわびしき時なれどつゆけかるらん袖をしぞ思ふ

ohokata mo                 Normally it's true
aki ha wabisiki            That autumn is a season
toki nare-do               Of sorrow, and yet
tuyu kekaru-ran            I can only think of your
sode wo si zo omohu        Sleeves wet with the dew of tears.

--

Daigo's response uses the same imagery as Omi's poem; the emphasis of the last line shows his care and thought for her. He suggests that even though everyone is sorrowful and crying in autumn, her sorrow is even greater.

279

亭子院の御前に花のいとおもしろく朝露の置けるをめして見せさせ給ひて

In the front garden of the Teiji Mansion, there were very beautiful flowers with morning dew laying upon them; he took them and showed them to [Ise].

法皇御製

An Honorable Composition of His Cloistered Eminence [Retired Emperor Uda]

白露のかはるもなにかをしからんありてののちもややうきものを

siratuyu no                  Why should we lament
kaharu mo nani ka            When the transient white dew
wosika-ran                   Vanishes away?
arite no noti mo             It is living forever
yaya ukimono wo              That's more and more uncertain.

--

We move from Daigo to his father Uda, in an exchange with Ise. The autumn imagery here is the dew. The poem is difficult to interpret; the last two lines are variously interpreted as "Living after the dew" or "If the dew lived longer" -- I have translated Katagiri's suggestion that arite no noti is an idiom from MYS times that means living forever. Katigiri also interprets yaya as "slightly"; I have used the more common interpretation of "gradually".

Some commentators see this as an allusion to Uda's abdication, which Kifune disagrees with. One of Norinaga's disciples wondered if this was an allusion to Ise changing her heart, but Norinaga disagreed with that. The most direct meaning is a reflection on the transience of life and the suffering of the world; perhaps with allusions to actual events.

One possible indication of a reference to Uda's abdication is this poem from when Uda was about to step down:

白露のおきしかはればももしきのうつろふ秋はものぞかなしき

When the white dew laid here vanishes, the fading autumn of the palace is quite sad.

In the Ise Collection 279 and 280 are swapped, making this a response to the next poem.

280

御返し

Honorable Response

伊勢

Ise

うゑたてて君がしめゆふ花なれば玉と見えてやつゆもおくらん

uwe-tate-te                  You planted with care
kimi ga simeyuhu             And then marked them as your own
hana nare-ba                 These flowers, and so,
tama to mie-te ya            Perhaps you can see the dew
tuyu mo oku-ran              Lying as white shining gems.

--

Ise's response takes Daigo's sorrow and turns it into a more positive light, perhaps alluding to the lotuses of the pure land (Kifune), or the Emperor's virtue (Katagiri).

This poem is reused in the SIS (167), where the prose preface says that Ise composed this poem when asked to by Daigo. The Ise Collection treats this exchange differently in different manuscripts. Some have it like the GSS, while others have this as a poem in response to an Imperial command, with 279 as Daigo's own response.

281

大輔が後涼殿に侍りけるに、藤壺より女郎花を折りてつかはしける

When Taifu was in the Koroden, he sent this from the Fujitsubo along with a patrinia he broke off.

右大臣

The Minister of the Right [Fujiwara no Morosuke]

折りて見る袖さへぬるるをみなへしつゆけき物と今やしるらん

ori-te miru               I broke it and looked,
sode sahe nururu          And even these sleeves are wet,
wominahesi                The patrinia
tuyu-keki mono to         Now you surely understand
ima ya siru-ran           What a dew soaked thing it is.

Prose Preface

Taifu was a gentlewoman in the service of Empress Anshi, Morosuke's daughter. The Fujitsubo was near the Koroden, and Morosuke would have had many chances to become acquainted with his daughter's gentlewomen.

--

The next four poems are an exchange between Fujiwara no Morosuke and Taifu. The poems are difficult to interpret; Norinaga was asked by two of his disciples about them and he declared them incomprehensible. The Shinsho also notes that every time you think you understand them it's not quite right, and puts off discussion of them. The modern commenters don't take this line, but they come up with completely different interpretations.

For this poem, I think one of the sticking points is the use of the patrinia flower. Some commenters have insisted on this being a metaphor for Taifu (or even Anshi, according to Kifune). If the patrinia is Taifu, the poem must mean "After just seeing you (patrinia) once, my sleeves are wet; do you understand now what a dew-soaked creature I am?" My issue with this interpretation is that it seems odd to have the symbol for Taifu be drenched in Morosuke's tears, and the poem doesn't make sense if Taifu is the one that's crying. On the other hand, Taifu's response makes the most sense if she is the one crying.

A more direct way to read the poem is that the patrinia is not a symbol for anything; it's simply used as an appropriate seasonal flower, and for its association with dew. this seems to be the interpretation of Kudo. In this case, the poem simply means "Look at the dew on this patrinia just from me picking it; do you now see how much I'm crying over you?"

As a final possibility, if this exchange were included primarily to showcase Taifu's poems, perhaps Morosuke's poem is not especially skillful. He has 13 poems in the GSS and 2 in the SIS, which is not a huge sampling.

282

返し

Response

大輔

Taifu

よろづ世にかからむつゆををみなへしなに思ふとかまだきぬるらん

yoroduyo ni               The patrinia
kakara-mu tuyu wo         Will be covered with the dew
wominahesi                For eternity;
nani omohu to ka          Then what could you be thinking
madaki nuru-ran           That would make you cry so fast?

--

Of course the interpretation of this response depends on what 281 means. With the interpretation I went with above, that Morosuke is the one crying, the meaning of this poem would seem to be that she is mocking his pose of crying. Since he's going to be "crying" all the time, what's he thinking that makes him cry now? She certainly isn't ending the relationship...

However, this is a rather unusual meaning for such a poem -- the more direct meaning would be to apply the crying to her. Morosuke will eventually leave her or forget her, making her cry for eternity. But that hasn't happened yet, so why should she be crying now? A pointed question -- is Morosuke already leaving her? However, this also seems like an odd poem. Perhaps Norinaga and Yamanaka had the right idea in begging off interpretation of these poems.

283

又

Another [poem]

右大臣

Minister of the Right

をきあかすつゆのよなよなへにければまだきぬるともおもはざりけり

woki-akasu                 I wake each morning
tuyu no yonayona           Bathed in dew night after night
he ni kere-ba              Passing the time, so
madaki nuru tomo           You really shouldn't think that
omoha-zari-keri            It's too early to be wet.

--

As with the previous two poems, this poem depends on the interpretation of the previous one. Many commenters see a play on nuru meaning "wet" but also "sleep [together]", turning Taifu's word into a sexual play on words. Katagiri disagrees, saying that he didn't think she would go to sleep so early given that he's awake with tears.

284

返し

Response

大輔

Taifu

今ははや打ちとけぬべき白露の心おくまでよをやへにける

ima ha haya              It should already
uti-toke-nu beki         Have melted and opened up
siratuyu no              The white dew of your
kokoro oku made          Heart, which remains far from me;
yo wo ya he-ni-keru      The nights, like the dew, pile up.

kokoro oku made

This is a play on kokorooku (be emotionally apart from, show restraint), and oku (the dew laying on something). Kifune emended made to mama (in that way), which does read better but has no manuscript support.

--

The final poem, as the others, has various interpretations. Kifune reads this as "I should have opened my heart, but you stay away".

285

逢ひ知りて侍りける女の、あだ名立ちて侍りければ、久しく訪はざりけり。八月ばかりに、女のもとより、「などかいとつれなき」といひおこせて侍りければ

A woman he had spent time with got a bad name, and so he stopped seeing her. In the 8th month, the woman sent a message saying "Why are you so cold?"

よみ人しらず

Poet unknown.

白露のうへはつれなくおきゐつつ萩のしたばの色をこそ見れ

siratuyu no                The white dew on top
uhe ha turenaku            As if unaware, lays there,
oki-wi-tutu                On the unchanged leaves,
hagi no sitaba no          But it's the leaves underneath
iro wo koso mire           On the bush clover I see.

--

This poem is based on the idea (mentioned earlier) that dew colors autumn leaves, and that the bottoms of the leaves color before the tops. There are two opposite interpretations of this poem. Either "You act like you don't know what's going on, but I know you're sleeping with other men" (Norinaga, Kudo), or "I may have pretended not to know that you're sleeping with other men, but I actually do." (Katagiri, Kifune). The poem continues the dew imagery of the previous exchange.

From the next poem we see the woman is Ise, although this poem does not appear in the Ise Collection. More about this in the commentary to the next poem.

286

返し

Response

伊勢

Ise

心なき身は草葉にもあらなくに秋くる風にうたがはるらん

kokoronaki                 My unfeeling heart
mi ha kusaba ni mo         Does not color like that of
ara-naku ni                The trees and grasses,
aki kuru kaze ni           So when the autumn wind comes,
utagaha-ru-ran             Why am I now suspected?

unfeeling heart

The meaning of kokoronaki in this poem is unclear. Kigin had this describing the plants, but that's not grammatically tenable. The Shinsho cites a Kamemaro[?] as saying this means "without guile", but Nakayama notes this definition has no proof. Kifune agrees with it anyway. Kudo and Katagiri both interpret as humble for Ise, meaning that she lacks the ability to feel elegant or cultured things.

--

The overall intent of the poem seems clear enough, although the meaning of kokoronaki is not certain. It doesn't quite work as a response to 285, however. In the Ise Collection this poem is a response to GSS 933, which uses the wind and does not specify that the woman is cheating. Strangely, this poem and GSS 933 reappear as GSS 1272 and 1273, whereas GSS 933 is given its own new response. Why these poems should appear in such a disordered fashion is not clear -- the Tales of Yamato and Tales of Ise are known for taking standalone poems and putting them into poem tales, and perhaps this was one such effort. This may be evidence that the GSS never received definitive editing. The Ise Collection itself has parts that seem to be invented poem-tales around Ise's poetry. In any case, this poem works better as a response to 933/1272 than to 285.

287

男のもとにつかはしける

Sent to a man

よみ人しらず

Poet unknown

人はいざ事ぞともなきながめにぞ我はつゆけき秋もしらるる

hito ha iza              You I'm not sure of,
koto zo to mo naki       When I gaze into the rain
nagame ni zo             For no real reason
ware ha tuyu-keki        I come to know that for me
aki mo sira-ruru         The dew soaked autumn has come.

Gaze into the rain

The pun is on nagame (gaze and long rains).

--

This poem uses stock cliched puns, and the repetition of zo in the second and third lines is not especially good. Kigin's Hachidaishusho text has mo instead in the second line, but there is no prior manuscript evidence for this.

288

人のもとに尾花のいと高きをつかはしたりければ、返事に忍草を加へて

[Ise] sent a very tall obana grass, and this response was sent with a shinobu fern.

中宮宣旨

Imperial Handmaid

花すすきほにいづる事もなきやどは昔忍ぶの草をこそ見れ

hanasusuki              Though the susuki
ho ni iduru koto mo     Grows tall with seeds, I do not
naki yado ha            At this lonely house
mukasi sinobu no        The only thing I look at
kusa wo koso mire       Are the old shinobu ferns.

Imperial Handmaid

Perhaps this is the same person as in poem 1127, a handmaid in the court of Empress Onshi. Ise also served in Onshi's court. Some texts specify "Former". Other texts read "Shosho no Naishi", the author of 944.

obana

This is another name for the susuki; the word shows up in only one love poem in the KKS.

shinobu fern

The shinobugusa is another name for the nokinoshinobu, a type of fern. The term shinobu in the plant name suggests the creeping growth like ivy, but it also puns on shinobu "to remember fondly" or "to long for".

--

We don't know why Ise sent a susuki grass, although it may have been intended as an invitation (see the next poem). The handmaid returns a fern -- perhaps this is after Onshi's death, and now her time of public prestige is past. All she can do is sit in her house, remembering the old days. In other words, the shinobu fern is more suitable for her situation than a susuki stalk. Usually the susuki grass is used in poetry to show that one's feeling for a lover has not been shared. Here it seems to only mean that the handmaid no longer goes out in public, although Nakayama in the Shinsho wondered if this might also refer to a lack of lovers.

This is another prose preface that avoids mentioning Ise's name -- there are a curious number of these associated with Ise, and Norinaga felt that this was a result of copying the prefaces directly from the Ise Collection, where the subject would have been obvious. This could be the result of hasty editing, or it could be a deliberate decision by the compilers to preserve a vaguer, "poem-tale" like feeling.

289

返し

Response

伊勢

Ise

やどもせにうゑなめつつぞ我は見るまねくをばなに人やとまると

yado mo se ni             My garden is filled
uwe-name-tutu zo          With them all planted in rows
ware ha miru              And I look at them.
maneku wobana ni          The obana will invite
hito ya tomaru to         Someone to come by, I hope.

--

Ise's response explains why she sent the susuki -- to invite the handmaid to come visit her. The original poem suggested that the susuki was a symbol of thriving, but Ise calls on KKS 243:

秋の野の草のたもとか花薄ほにいでてまねく袖と見ゆらん

Are the susuki the sleeves of the autumn field grass? The emerging stalks look like inviting sleeves.

Rather than a symbol of her thriving, they are meant as an invitation. If Ise and the handmaid were both in Onshi's court, she may want to meet an old friend.

290

題知らず

Topic unknown

よみ人も

Also the poet

秋の夜をいたづらにのみおきあかす露はわが身のうへにぞ有りける

aki no yo wo                   On the autumn nights
itadura ni nomi                It only for no reason
oki-akasu                      Rests and waits for dawn
tuyu ha waga mi no             The dew is on my body
uhe ni zo ari-keru             Uselessly I spend the night.

Rests

oki is a play on the dew lying atop something, and the person being awake during the night.

--

The string of love exchanges comes to an end. The autumn night has appeared in a few poems before this, but it is used more often in the remainder of this volume. This seems to be another love poem, although it could be a miscellaneous poem about the impermanent world. If it is a love poem, it is someone (man or woman) lamenting that they cannot mean their lover, with the dew as tears.

In all of the non-Teika manuscripts, and the Kokin waka rokujo version of the poem, the last line is different: na ni koso ari-kere (the dew is the name of my body), which leans more towards the "impermanent world" meaning.

291

おほかたにおく白露も今よりは心してこそ見るべかりけれ

ohokata ni                 The dew which I view
oku siratuyu mo            As unrelated to me
ima yori ha                Starting from today
kokoro site koso           I should with the greatest care
miru bekari-kere           Look upon it and reflect

--

This is a somewhat unclear poem. Several manuscripts give this as a response to poem 290, but all modern commentators agree that there is a close relation between 290 and 291. If 290 is a love poem by a woman lamenting the lack of a visit by the man, this poem may be the man assuring her that he will pay more attention to her in the future (Kifune). If 290 is about the impermanence of the world, this could be another poem by the same person (or a response) suggesting that from now on, the person reflect on the impermanence of the dew and stop wasting time during the waking hours (Shinsho).

292

[Topic unknown]

右大臣

Minister of the Right [Fujiwara no Morosuke]

露ならぬわが身と思へど秋の夜をかくこそあかせおきゐながらに

tuyu nara-nu                   My body is not
waga mi to omohe-do            The quickly fading dew, but
aki no yo wo                   The long autumn nights
kaku koso akase                I spend in this exact way
oki-wi-naraga ni               Awake, just as the dew lies.

Awake

As in previous poems, the pun on oki is with "lie [as dew]" and "waken".

--

The set of poems on dew continue. As with the previous one, this could be a miscellaneous poem on the impermanence of life. However, in the poetry collection of Morosuke, it says this was sent to a gentlewoman named Hyogo, and gives her response. The response playfully mocks Morosuke's affected pose of tears and pained wakefulness.

秋を浅みまだ深からぬ夜をさへやさのみは人のおきあかすらん

It's still early in autumn and the night is still young; how can there be that much dew on you [/how can you have been awake for so long?]

293

秋のころほひ、ある所に女どものあまた簾の内に侍りけるに、男の歌のもとを言ひ入れて侍りければ、末は内より

In autumn, at a certain place there were several women behind a screen, and a man wrote the first part of a poem and passed it in; the women wrote the rest.

よみ人しらず

Poet unknown

白露のおくにあまたの声すれば花の色々有りとしらなん

siratuyu no                 Where the white dew rests
oku ni amata no             I hear from within voices
kowe sure-ba                Many crying out
hana no iroiro              And so we wish you to know
ari to sira-nan             That there are many flowers.

within

Here, oku plays on "lie [as dew]" and "within [the screen]".

--

This seems to be a fictional poem tale. The first three lines (by the man) use the image of insects crying in a dew-laden field to suggest hearing the voices of women within the screen -- perhaps he is implying that they're interested in him. The last two lines on the surface mean that the insect cries suggest the many flowers they are drawn to. The other meaning is that beautiful women are within. Kifune thinks the last two lines mean "We're not chattering about you; we're beautiful and don't care that you've come."

Fujiwara no Toshiyori and several other ancient commentators note that this is the first appearance of a renga (linked verse) in an Imperial collection.

294

八月なかの十日ばかりに、雨のそぼふりける日、女郎花掘りに藤原師尹を野辺に出して、遅く帰りければつかはしける

On the 10th day of the 8th month, it was lightly raining, and he dispatched Fujiwara no Morotada to dig up patrinias, and Morotada was late returning so [Saneyori] sent this.

左大臣

The Minister of the Left [Fujiwara no Saneyori]

くれはてば月も待つべし女郎花雨やめてとは思はざらなん

kure-hate-ba              If it becomes dark
tuki mo matu besi         We'll have to wait for the moon.
wominahesi                O patrinias,
ame yame-te to ha         I would not have you think that
omoha-zara-nan            We wait for the rain to stop.

Fujiwara no Morotada

This is the much younger half brother of Saneyori.

--

The translation above is a bit uncertain; this is a tricky poem to untangle. It's not entirely clear what the situation for the poem is; Morotada is being asked to dig up patrinias for some sort of court activity, but whether or not that activity involves the moon affects the reading of the poem. Some commentators think that the goal is to enjoy the patrinias under the moonlight, which can be a reading of the first two lines. But it may be also that he's simply saying "If you wait for the rain to stop, it will be so dark you'll have to wait for the moon to come out." Kifune's reading is that if he comes back too late, they'll no longer be able to enjoy the patrinias with the moonlight.

The second problem is the third line, which has an unclear grammatical relationship to the rest of the poem. Most commentators read this part as "I don't want you to think that you should wait until the rain stops to dig up the patrinias." But as Katagiri points out, this would be an unusual reading of the lines. He interprets the third line to be an address to the patrinias themselves, a form of personification that is common in Heian poetry. In that case this can be read as a playful comparison of the patrinias to women -- we wouldn't want them to think we're ignoring them, or that we can't get a little wet for them.

295

題知らず

Topic unknown

よみ人も

Also the author

秋の田のかりほのやどのにほふまでさける秋はぎ見れどあかぬかも

aki no ta no                In the autumn field
kariho no yado no           My temporary lodging
nihohu made                 Is made beautiful
sake-ru akihagi             By blooming autumn clover
mire-do akanu ka mo         I look but never grow tired.

Temporary lodging

This is a hut made in the field when the crops are getting ready for harvest, to prevent theft.

--

This is a simple poem which is a slight variant of MYS 10.2100. The imagery of the first lines recalls the much more famous poem 302. The poem is simple but still has the Heian-era elegance and appropriate topic that is typical of many of these anonymous poems in the KKS and GSS.

296

あきのよをまどろまずのみあかす身は夢路とだにぞたのまざりける

aki no yo wo                Through the autumn nights
madoroma-zu nomi            Without even dozing off
akasu mi ha                 I greet the sunrise
yumedi to da ni zo          And even the path of dreams
tanoma-zari-keru            I cannot trust for comfort.

Path of dreams

The idea is that if you go to sleep thinking of your lover, you will see them in your dreams. The term yumedi is found in 5 KKS love poems.

--

This sounds like a poem written by a woman. It is the opposite feeling of KKS 553 by Ono no Komachi:

うたたねに恋しき人を見てしより夢てふ物は頼みそめてき

Since I saw my lover after falling asleep, I have started to put my trust in those things called dreams.