The 101st Poem of the Hyakunin Isshu

While watching competitive karuta online, and in person, I noticed that there is a certain poem that is read at the outset of a match, but what’s interesting is that this is a poem that is not actually part of the Hyakunin Isshu.

This poem is called the joka (序歌), or preliminary poem, and reads:

Japanese	Romanization	Translation
難波津に	Naniwazu ni	In Naniwa Bay,
咲くやこの花	Sakuya kono hana	now the flowers are blossoming.
冬ごもり	Fuyugomori	After lying dormant all winter,
いまを春べと	Ima o harubé to	now the spring has come
咲くやこの花	Sakuya kono hana	and the flowers are blossoming.

What’s interesting from a historical standpoint is that this poem was composed by a 3rd century immigrant to Japan named Wani (王仁), who came from the Korean kingdom of Baekje¹ and is credited with introducing the Analects of Confucius and the Thousand-Character Classic to Japan at a time when it was actively trying to import knowledge and culture from the mainland.

The poem by Wani was so highly-praised it was felt in antiquity that if you were going to know any Waka poem, you had to at least know this one. Hence over time it became the opening poem for karuta competitions. Like many poems of the Hyakunin Isshu, it was originally preserved in the official Imperial anthology, the Kokinshū.

In karuta matches, the poem is always read before the match begins. My guess is that reciting this poem helps to calibrate or warm-up the players before the match actually begins. Apparently, the last two verses, the shimo no ku (下の句) in karuta, are repeated twice. Once it’s read twice, the match begins.

It’s fascinating to note that this poem has been in existence for 1,700 years, and is still going strong!

P.S. Photo is Osaka (Naniwa) Bay at sunset, Quelgar’s photos, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

¹ A time when the Korean peninsula was divided into three warring kingdoms. Baekje probably had the closest relationship with the early Yamato Court of Japan due to proximity and mutually beneficial relations.