KKS 1
Text
ふるとしに春たちける日よめる
Read on the day when spring began in the old year.
在原元方
年の内に春は来にけり 一年を去年とやいはむ 今年とやいはむ
toshi no uchi ni Within the year haru wa ki-ni-keri I see that spring has arrived! hitotose wo One year: kozo to ya iwa-mu Shall we call it last year? kotoshi to ya iwa-mu Shall we call it this year?
Notes
- spring began in the old year
- This refers to the interaction of the solar and lunar calendars. The start of the season was determined by counting lunar months, with "intercalary" months inserted every so often to bring the 360-day lunar year and the 365 day solar year into alignment. But the "first month" of the lunar calendar could (and often did) start before the solar year had begun, thus resulting in the situation described in this poem.
- I see that
- The suffix keri, when used in poetry, indicates a realization or surprise.
- One year
- Although hitotose means "one year," it's not entirely clear what the reference is, and there is a surprising amount of disagreement as to exactly what period of time is referred to here. Takeoka and Katagiri both explain the meaning in this way: Spring, which should only come once in a year, has come twice. So do I refer to this entire year as "this year" or "last year" (since a new spring has come). On the other hand, the newer Kokinshū commentary in the Waka bungaku taikei series interprets the "one year" as the period up to the previous day (before the start of this spring).
Analysis
The Kokinshū begins with a poem that does not contain any explicit spring imagery, but simply comments on the conflict between the lunar and solar calendars. This theme had already appeared in the Man'yoshū, poem 4492 by Ōtomo no Yakamochi:
- 月数めばいまだ冬なりしかすがに霞たなびく春立ちぬとか
- When we count the months, it is still winter. And yet the mist is rising, and spring has come.
Matsuda (Shinshaku) sees the MYS poem as simplistic, in contrast to Motokata's "complex and splendid" poem.
There have been varied reactions to the poem. One of the most famous is Masaoka Shiki’s attack on the Kokinshu in 1898, where he wrote that this poem was “disgustingly insipid” and “so silly that it fails to rise even to the level of vulgar wit.” McCullough also describes the poem as having “sterile wit” and agrees with some other commenters that his poetry is not especially good but served a useful purpose in the structure of the Kokinshu’s organization.
In contrast, pre-modern reception of the poem was generally positive. It is included in a number of “good poetry” collections, and Fujiwara no Shunzei wrote “This poem has strong logic, is pleasant to the ear, and is a splendidly composed poem.” Some of the fulsome praise it received may have been simply out of respect for its place as the first poem in the most prestigious waka collection.
But some modern commenters also see value in the poem. It may be that the question at the end of the poem is arising out of the longing for the warmth of spring – the poet hopes that we can say it’s “this year” (i.e. the year of the new spring) rather than “last year” (i.e. the year of the cold winter we are moving away from). In this sense we are not dealing with a simple witty comment about the lunar vs. solar calendars. Another possibility is that the poem seeks to contrast the human-created calendar with the movement of time in the natural world. A number of KKS poems have the contrast between humans and nature, and it is possible to see that theme here too.
Why was Motokata’s poem chosen as the first one? Early scholars who were still active poets in the Heian court assumed that there must be some deep reason for this. One explanation was that Motokata was being honored as Ariwara no Narihira’s grandson. Another was found in the Kokin denju teachings which explained that this poem contains “old” (in “last year”) and “new” (in “this year”) and thus linked to the title of the collection itself.
However, it is not certain that the KKS compilers had such deep consideration for their choice – in the end it may simply be that because this poem is about the coming of the new year, it made sense for it to be placed first in the collection, before all the poetry about specific early spring images.
Opinions on this poem's quality have varied through the ages. Template:Oldest wrote "This poem has strong logic, is pleasant to the ear, and is a splendidly composed poem." The "logic" perhaps refers to question at the end about which year to call it. The pseudo-Teika writings Template:Teika and Template:Teika assign the poem to the 麗歌 category, as a "pine style" poem [add definition], and another pseudo-Teika writing Template:Teika includes the poem as an example of a style the reader should imitate. Teika himself included it in his Template:Teika collection of good poems.
The Meiji period includes the poet Masaoka Shiki's famous criticism of this poem, which he calls (in McCullough's translation) "disgustingly insipid" and "silly." However, we must remember that Shiki was trying to go against the received wisdom that all waka had to follow the Kokinshu. McCullough herself describes Motokata's poetry in general as containing "sterile wit," and seems to implicitly accept that the poem is not very good, but that it works very well in its position in the anthology. But these criticisms seem to come from a surface reading of the poem, where the only purpose of the poem is a witty question about what term to use.
But many other commenters see the power of this poem in its implied longing for the coming spring (Template:Modern, Template:Modern, Katagiri). Kubota considers the poem dry except for the anticipation of spring that lies behind it. Template:Modern explains the poet's confusion as childish (although not necessarily in a deprecating way), but it's no more childish than other feigned confusions (e.g. between plum blossoms and snow) found in the collection. Takeoka notes that the poem contains no seasonal imagery, and thus functions largely as a "prelude" to the spring volume and the collection as a whole. He praises the construction of the poem, noting the "strength" of the first two lines contrasted with the weakness and doubt of the remainder. The poem progresses from a "scene" to a "reason." He finds the poem in stark contrast to both the kanshi style as well as that of the MY. However, he quotes another scholar, Kojima Noriyuki, who considers this a mediocre poem by a mediocre poet, but one that served its purpose at the start of the volume.
The question of why this poem was placed first is one that has also been addressed throughout the history of Kokinshu criticism. Later Imperial collections assigned the first poem of the collection typically to a high-ranking or prestigious person, and it seems to have been an honor to be placed first in a collection, or first in a book. It's not clear at all that the KKS compilers intended this by their choice of the first poem, but many early commenters assumed that there had to be some reason why Motokata was chosen. One explanation wast that Motokata was the grandson of Ariawara no Narihira. Other commenters tried to read the poem as a summing up of the title of the collection: Template:Denju thought the poem contained both 古 (implicitly in "last year") and 今, thus reinforcing the title of 古今和歌集. He was following the teachings of To no Tsuneyori, the force behind the Kokin Denju secret teachings. The suggestion is that the 古 and 今 are somehow representative of heaven and earth, and thus good government. In this he was following Chinese precedent, which connected poetry to virtuous living.
The Confucian-inspired readings were rejected by Keichu and commentators after him. Modern commentators see this as simply the best place to put this poem about the calendar vs. nature, and that there is no particular honor to Motokata. Matsuda sees the poem as providing a keynote to the "start of spring" poems, which commonly evoke the difference between spring on the calendar, and what the world actually looks like.
Man'yoshu 4492, by Otomo no Yakamochi, is a precursor to this poem. Matsuda sees the MY poem as simplistic, in contrast to Motokata's "complex and splendid" poem.
- 月数めばいまだ冬なりしかすがに霞たなびく春立ちぬとか
- When we count the months, it is still winter. And yet the mist is rising, and spring has come.
Other poems clearly borrow Motokata's language, such as GSS 1100, by Mitsune:
- 昼なれや見ぞまがへつる月影を今日とや言はむ昨日とや言はむ
- The brightness of the moon looks like daytime; is it today, or yesterday?
Finally, this poem appears in an anecdote in the 1283 setsuwa collection Shasekishū (沙石集). A monk who knows nothing about poetry is presented with this poem by his disciples. His only takeaway is that it reflects the fleeting nature of life as in Buddhism -- thus showing that people like him view everything as a Buddhist lesson.
