KKS 15

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Text

[寛平御時后の宮の歌合の歌]

在原棟梁

春たてど花もにほはぬ山ざとはものうかるねに鶯ぞなく　　

Translation

[A poem at the Empress' Poetry Collection in the Kampei era]

Ariwara no Muneyama

Though spring has come / In mountain villages (3) / where flowers do not bloom (2) / with a sad voice / the warbler cries.

Detailed Notes

にほはぬ

A constant problem in interpreting poetry from this era is the word にほふ, which seems to have originally meant "beautiful" and later developed the "good scent" meaning it has in MJ. Since both meanings are used with flowers in the Heian period, it can be difficult to know which meaning was meant, or if possibly both meanings were meant in some cases.

The consensus seems to be that here it means "beauty", although Katagiri allows that the scent meaning is possible since these flowers are plums. Takeoka takes the idiosyncratic interpretation of "unopened flowers", but Katigiri rejects this interpretation.

やまざとは

The は here contrasts with the capital.

ものうかるね

Earlier commentaries interpreted this literally as うし (sad), and Template:Modern and Takeoka echo this. But Template:Nativist thought it meant a weak or occasional cry, and this is the position Katagiri takes. Interestingly, Kaneko and Katagiri both cite the same Bai Juyi poem in support of their differing opinions.

鴬ぞなく

The Shinsen man'yoshu version of the poem reads 鶯やなく. Takeoka thought the ぞ reading was better because it puts the focus on the bird rather than the scenery before it. Older commentators like Template:Nativist thought there was something wrong with this ぞ, suggesting の as a better reading -- Norinaga tried to apply the ぞ to the ものうかるね rather than the warbler, but there seems to be no linguistic justification for doing this.

Analysis

The earliest comment on this poem is from Template:Oldest, who says that this is a 述懐 poem -- that is, the sad cry of the warbler is reflecting the sad heart of the poet at the lack of flowers. Some commentaries (Template:Teika, Template:Denju) go further than this and say that this was written while the poet was in exile, but this is a minority position. There is no proof for these exiles, and Katagiri categorizes these theories as a strong feeling that poetry must reflect the heart and conditions of the poet.

Several commentators note that this poem seems to echo lines of Bai Juyi, for instance:

花寒懶発鳥慵啼

The flowers, cold, open sadly, and the birds are sadly crying.

As mentioned above, the word ものうし is often applied to the poet instead. Some of this seems to be discomfort with applying the word to the bird, since a bird's cry cannot truly be "sad". Template:Modern contrasts it with the full throated crying in the next poem. Kaneko also feels the poet is located in the mountains, which Katagiri suggests as a possible reading. Katagiri also sees this poem as hinting towards poem 17, when the plums first appear.

Kaneko also disparages the poem as overly logical and lacking feeling.

Other sources

• 新撰万葉集１９. Line 1 春立砥(ハルタテド), Line 5 鶯哉鳴(ウグヒスヤナク)
• 古今和歌六帖９７５・山里. Line 1 はるくれど
• 寛平御時后宮歌合１７. Line 1 はるなれど. (vs. 咲く花は千種ながらにあだなれど誰かは春をうらみはてたる)
• 新時代不同歌合４９
• 六百番陳状

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