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A review by sherwoodreads
One Hundred People, One Poem Each by Fujiwara no Teika
The back of this elegant little booklet says: Around 1235, Japanese poet and scholar Fujiwara no Teika compiled for his son's father-in-law a collection of 100 poems by 100 poets.
Within its chronological summary of six centuries of Japanese literature, Teika arranged a poetic conversation that ebbs and flows through a variety of subjects and styles. The collection became the exemplar of the genre--a mini-manual of classical poetry, taught in the standard school curriculum and used in a memory card game still played during New Year's.
Larry Hammer, the translator, not only gives alternate meanings for phrases, but he furnishes clues to meanings otherwise hidden to the Westerner ignorant of the subtleties of the various styles through these six centuries of Japanese history.
Here's one that I liked:
80. Empress Haiken's Horikawa
Whether his feelings
will also last, I don't know,
and my black hair is
disordered as, this morning,
my thoughts certainly are.
The image of the lover with long, ruffled hair is so evocative and romantic! About it, Hammer says, An attendant of the imperial court . . .the origin of the use-name Horikawa ("moat-river") is uknown, but it seems unrelated to the earlier emperor of that name. Again, the "mono" thought about is clearly the other person.
How about this one?
92. Sanuki
My sleeve is like
a rock in the open sea
unseen at low tide,
for no one knows about it
and so it never dries out.
That's evocative enough, right there--and then Hammer furnishes the hidden clues: A lady-in-waiting to retired emperor Nijo and later to a consort of Go-Toba, her use-name is from Sanuki Province (now Kagawa Prefecture) but her connection to it is obscure.
Written on "love compared to a stone." The original can be read as that it's either people in general or a particular person who does not know her sleeves are wet. Sleeves were normally all that a modest court lady showed of herself in public, so the implication is she's hiding hers to avoid revealing they're damp from crying over a broken heart, keeping them from drying.
The poems do ebb and flow, furnishing an elliptical, or elusive, conversation, if one reads them in order. But I found equal pleasure in opening the book anywhere, and picking one to read and think about.
Within its chronological summary of six centuries of Japanese literature, Teika arranged a poetic conversation that ebbs and flows through a variety of subjects and styles. The collection became the exemplar of the genre--a mini-manual of classical poetry, taught in the standard school curriculum and used in a memory card game still played during New Year's.
Larry Hammer, the translator, not only gives alternate meanings for phrases, but he furnishes clues to meanings otherwise hidden to the Westerner ignorant of the subtleties of the various styles through these six centuries of Japanese history.
Here's one that I liked:
80. Empress Haiken's Horikawa
Whether his feelings
will also last, I don't know,
and my black hair is
disordered as, this morning,
my thoughts certainly are.
The image of the lover with long, ruffled hair is so evocative and romantic! About it, Hammer says, An attendant of the imperial court . . .the origin of the use-name Horikawa ("moat-river") is uknown, but it seems unrelated to the earlier emperor of that name. Again, the "mono" thought about is clearly the other person.
How about this one?
92. Sanuki
My sleeve is like
a rock in the open sea
unseen at low tide,
for no one knows about it
and so it never dries out.
That's evocative enough, right there--and then Hammer furnishes the hidden clues: A lady-in-waiting to retired emperor Nijo and later to a consort of Go-Toba, her use-name is from Sanuki Province (now Kagawa Prefecture) but her connection to it is obscure.
Written on "love compared to a stone." The original can be read as that it's either people in general or a particular person who does not know her sleeves are wet. Sleeves were normally all that a modest court lady showed of herself in public, so the implication is she's hiding hers to avoid revealing they're damp from crying over a broken heart, keeping them from drying.
The poems do ebb and flow, furnishing an elliptical, or elusive, conversation, if one reads them in order. But I found equal pleasure in opening the book anywhere, and picking one to read and think about.