Tag: Winter

Winter Isolation: Poem Number 28

Winter’s always a quiet, lonely time (just ask Sei Shonagon):

JapaneseRomanizationTranslation
山里はYamazato waIn the mountain village,
冬ぞさびしさFuyu zo sabishisait is in winter that my loneliness
まさりけるMasari-keruincreases most,
人めも草もHitome mo kusa mowhen I think how both have dried up,
かれぬと思へえばKarenu to omoebathe grasses and people’s visits.
Translation by Dr Joshua Mostow

According to Mostow, this poem was composed in answer to the question of whether Fall or Winter was the lonelier season. Obviously the author, Minamoto no Muneyuki Ason (源宗于朝臣, ? – 939), “Sir Minamoto no Muneyuki”, favored winter. Minamoto no Muneyuki was the grandson of Emperor Kōkō (poem 15) and had a large portfolio of poems published in official anthologies, and earned himself a place among the Thirty Six Immortals of Poetry as well.

To me at least, the poem reminds me also of nobleman from the Heian Court who were required to do at least one tour of duty in remote provinces as a provincial governor for 4 years. The more remote the province, the more menial and degrading the task. Very well-to-do men could usually get themselves out of this obligation but most middle and lower ranking officials could not. Being cut off from the Heian Court was often a lonely affair as evinced in the writings of men like Sugawara no Michizane and others so imagine the author was also conveying this familiar sense of the time of loneliness officials stuck in a remote mountain village away from the Court in winter and from friends.

A Cold Winter’s Night: Poem Number 6

This poem has over the years stuck with me every July as the Japanese festival of Tanabata approaches, but also in the deep of winter too.

JapaneseRomanizationTranslation
かささぎのKasasagi noWhen I see the whiteness
わたせる橋にWataseru hashi niof the frost that lies
置く霜のOku shimo noon the bridge the
magpies spread,
白きを見ればShiroki wo mirebathen do I know, indeed,
夜ぞふけにけるYo zo fuke ni keruthat the night has deepened.
Translation by Dr Joshua Mostow

This poem was composed by Chūnagon Yakamochi (中納言家持, 718 – 785), or “Middle Councillor Yakamochi”. He is also known as Ōtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持). Yakamochi was from a prestigious but declining family at the time, and is credited with compiling the Manyoshu, the earliest extant poetry anthology we have today. Yakamochi also contributed many of his own poems to the Manyoshu (compiler’s privilege?), and is considered one of the Thirty Six Immortals of Poetry.

Unfortunately, Yakamochi later got caught up in a series political intrigues, and after achieving the rank of Middle Counselor, he was first sidelined to a remote post, and later after drowning in a river. Worse, just after his death in 785, a powerful noble named Fujiwara no Tanetsugu was assassinated, and Yakamochi was implicated as part of the plot, despite being dead. Thus the Otomo family name was disgraced until 806 when Yakamochi was posthumously pardoned and his rank restored.

Anyhow, this poem’s reference to the Magpie’s Bridge comes from two places: the Imperial Palace at the time had a set of stairs called the Magpie’s Bridge, but also in later generations, this also referred to the famous legend of Tanabata. On the night when Orihime and Hikoboshi would meet every year, they could cross a bridge made of magpies whose wings were extended end to end.

In both ways, the poem expresses a lonely, long, and cold winter’s night.