Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  Still, it is not without reason that scholars devote themselves to poetry. I say this because even though Japan has been the country of countless generations of our ancestors, it was late in developing a culture and thus used Chinese characters for writing. Japan has nothing, from ceremonies and laws down to court dress and utensils, that did not originate in a foreign country. Only poetry uses the natural sounds of our country, without mixing in Chinese words at all. Furthermore, epithets,3 phrases in which words shift in meaning,4 and other such devices cannot be expressed in the Chinese language. Scholars simply take joy in the fact that poetry is something purely of our country. But the court nobles, who have been idle since governance of the realm passed to military families in the medieval period, devote themselves entirely to poetry and end up calling it the “Way of Japan” [waga shikishima no michi]. Not only does this fail to recognize the nature of poetry, but it is an absurdity that comes from not understanding the meaning of the term “Way.”5 This is not even worth refuting.

  ON CHOOSING WORDS

  If, as I just said, scholars take pleasure in poetry because it is something purely of our country, then what should we think of those who disregard the fact that the style of poetry has changed greatly as the times have changed, ignoring what others do and instead composing poetry using the words of antiquity? If they did this, then we could perhaps say that the ancient words would be passed on forever and would not die out, and this does make a certain amount of sense. But poetry was originally meant to be sung. In the past, adults could sing and clear their hearts, but today only children can take pleasure in singing. Even if we composed the words of a song ourselves, what kind of melody could we use to sing these words, from among the many types of elegant and vulgar music that please the ear today, that would be sufficient to clear our heart? It is best, then, to set aside for the moment the original nature of poetry and instead take pleasure, as everyone else does, in refined expression. And in regard to refined expression, we must take care with both the expression of the entire poem and the continuity of the lines. But ancient words are simple and unsophisticated, so they include words that do not go well together, words that are strained and words that are choppy. Therefore, if we use ancient words indiscriminately, our poetry will not be refined, and thus since the time of Emperor Tenji [r. 668–671] and Emperor Jitō [r. 690–697], they gradually changed these words and moved toward elegance [ga].

  [Karonshū, NKBZ 50: 540–543, introduction and translation by Peter Flueckiger]

  TAYASU MUNETAKE

  MY VIEWS ON THE EIGHT POINTS OF JAPANESE POETRY (KOKKA HACHIRON YOGEN, 1742)

  It is truly the Way of poetry [uta]6 that placates the heart. For this reason, in the reigns of the ancient sage-kings7 they valued rites and music. Song [uta], dance, string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments all are part of music. Noble poetry aids people, and base poetry harms people. Still, when one recognizes base poetry as bad, it can serve as an admonition. Even after the decline of proper music, the sage Confucius compiled the Book of Songs in order to guide people. He did this because even though this poetry was not sung in later ages, it was superior to ordinary language [tsune no kotoba] in placating people’s hearts. By the Tang dynasty [618–907], poetry had not entirely lost this purpose, but in many ways it had become only decorative and did not help the people at all. The poetry of our country does not have as deep a meaning as that of other countries, but it is gentle and appeals to people’s hearts. It should not be expected to be equal to that of other countries, but now, when it is composed without any meaning at all, with people simply taking pleasure in composing something unusual or decorative, it cannot be used as a basis for matters of good and evil and even encourages licentiousness. Therefore we should follow the manner of ancient poetry and learn from that of other countries, so that it can become something that truly helps people.

  [NKT 7: 99–100, translated by Peter Flueckiger]

  KAMO NO MABUCHI

  ANOTHER REPLY TO TAYASU MUNETAKE (FUTATABI KINGO NO KIMI NI KOTAEMATSURU NO SHO, 1744)

  It is difficult for the ruler to govern if he does not understand human emotions. In general, it is hard for people of high position to understand human emotions, and even more so for the one at the very top. It is poetry that allows us to know of human emotions and the customs of a country. . . .

  The Song Confucians discussed poetry only in terms of rational principle [ri] and claimed that the sole purpose of poetry was to encourage good and punish evil.8 Although rational principle may generally apply in the world, one cannot govern solely by reason. Poetry expresses the true nature of people, and true emotions expressed just as they are felt do not necessarily follow reason. In Japanese we refer to those unbearable emotions that go above and beyond reason as “irrepressible yearnings.”. . . But if such irrepressible feelings are just flatly declared, then who would sympathize? It is by singing, using gentle words and with pathos [awaré] in our voice, that we express those human emotions that exist outside the realm of reason. This is why in the Book of Songs the songs of Zheng and Wei are not discarded, nor are the songs of maidens among the mulberry bushes edited out.9

  [NKT 7: 154–155, translated by Peter Flueckiger]

  KAMO NO MABUCHI

  Kamo no Mabuchi (1697–1769) was one of the most prominent figures of eighteenth-century Japanese literary culture, revolutionizing the waka genre with his Man‘yōshū-style poetry and producing interpretations of ancient Japanese texts that formed the basis for much of the later kokugaku (nativist learning) scholarship. Mabuchi was born in Hamamatsu into a collateral branch of the family that served as hereditary priests at the Kamo Shrine in Kyoto, so he had an early association with Shintō. In his youth he studied waka under Sugiura Kuniakira (1678–1740), a disciple of the kokugaku scholar Kada no Azumamaro, and was introduced to the teachings of Ogyū Sorai’s Ancient Rhetoric school through his Chinese studies teacher Watanabe Mōan (1687–1776). Mabuchi had met Azumamaro when he stopped in Hamamatsu en route from Kyoto to Edo on the Tōkaidō, and in 1728 he registered in Azumamaro’s school, eventually moving to Kyoto to study with him more intensively. After Azumamaro’s death in 1736, Mabuchi moved to Edo and joined an intellectual circle that included Kada no Arimaro, Azumamaro’s nephew and adopted son, and Tayasu Munetake. In Edo, Mabuchi established his Agatai waka school, which cultivated many of the most important poets and scholars of the late eighteenth century. Between 1746 and 1760 he served Munetake as a classical studies assistant, during which time he was active as a waka poet and produced some of his best scholarly work. After his retirement from official service, Mabuchi continued to write commentaries and treatises until his death in 1769.

  Mabuchi’s thought centered on the notion of the ancient Way (kodō), a term he used to refer to an all-encompassing principle underlying ancient Japanese religion, government, and literature. In the medieval period, Shintō (Way of the gods), the study of poetry (kagaku), and the study of ancient court practices (yūshiki) had been separate fields of study, but for Mabuchi they were inseparable, as each offered a different manifestation of the “ancient Way.” He believed that this ancient Way had been lost over time, obscured by the corruptive influence of foreign thought. In Thoughts on the Nation (Kokui kō, 1765), for example, he describes how even though such Confucian virtues as benevolence (jin) and righteousness (gi) appear to bring moral order to the world, they in fact are evidence of a decline in society, because in ancient Japan such virtues were practiced so automatically that there was no need even to give them names.

  Despite his negative view of contemporary society, Mabuchi was ultimately optimistic about the ability of the people of his own time to recover the ancient Way. He believed that it could be reached by assimilating the spirit of the ancients, or the “ancient heart” (inishie no kokoro). Following a methodology similar to that of Sorai’s Ancient Rhetoric school, he also saw ancient language as the means by which the ancient heart and the ancient Way coul
d be conveyed. This concern for ancient language, specifically the ancient Japanese language, is reflected in Mabuchi’s linguistic philosophy, as presented in Thoughts on Language (Goi kō, 1769) and in a number of studies he wrote about the Japanese language and literature of the ancient period, such as his commentaries on the Man‘yōshū (Man ‘yō kai, 1749, and Man‘yōshū kō, 1768), on makurakotoba, or poetic epithets (Kanji kō, 1757), and on norito, or Shintō prayers (Norito kō, 1768).

  Mabuchi especially valued the composition of poetry and prose in the ancient style, viewing this literary practice as a means of embodying ancient language and thus recovering the ancient heart and the ancient Way. In texts like Thoughts on Poetry (Ka’i kō, 1764), selections from which are translated here, and New Learning (Niimanabi, 1765), he advocates learning waka by imitating the Man‘yōshū (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, 759), the ancient-period Japanese poetry anthology, stressing its “sincerity” (makoto), “rhythm” (shirabé), and “masculine style” (masuraoburi). By contrast, he criticizes the waka from the Heian-period Kokinshū (Collection of Old and New Japanese Poems, 905) onward as weak, artificial, and in the “feminine style” (taoyameburi). Mabuchi’s ideological concern with ancient literature is reflected in how he actually tried to compose poetry in the style of the Man‘yōshū, going beyond earlier Tokugawa period scholars who had taken up the Man‘yōshū as an object of study while continuing to compose their own poetry in later styles.

  The following poem, composed on the topic of “storm” (arashi), has a rich melody and a sweeping vista typical of Mabuchi’s mature style. Here Mabuchi combines a series of “strong” images: the eagles (washi), the wild fields at Suga, and the strong winds. Like Munetake, Mabuchi draws on the Man‘yōshū, specifically number 3352: When I hear the calls of the cuckoos crying out on the rugged moor of Suga in Shinano, I realize time has passed. The poem also is reminiscent of the Man‘yōshū in focusing on a single image rather than, as was the tendency in Heian poetry, contrasting two or more separate images.

  shinano naru A storm rages,

  suga no arano o straining even the wings

  tobu washi no of the eagles that soar

  tsubasa mo tawani over the rugged moor

  fuku arashi kana of Suga in Shinano10

  THOUGHTS ON POETRY (KA’I KŌ, 1764)

  In ancient times, people’s hearts were direct and straightforward. Because their hearts were direct, their actions were simple, and because things were simple, the words they spoke also were uncomplicated. When emotions rose up in their hearts, they would put them into words and would sing, and they called this “poetry” [uta]. When they sang, they did so directly and with a single heart. Their words were in ordinary, straightforward language, so they flowed and were well ordered without any conscious effort to make them so. Poetry was simply the expression of a single heart, so in the past there was no particular differentiation between those who were poets and those who were not. The august reigns of those distant gods, our emperors, continued without end, and they governed for countless generations.

  But then the ideas and words of babbling China and of India were blended together and introduced into our country, where they were mixed in with our own ideas and words. Things became complex, so the hearts of those here who used to be straightforward were blown by a wind from the shadows and turned wicked. Their words became disordered like dust on the road and grew extremely diverse. Thus in recent times, the feelings and words of poetry have become different from ordinary feelings and words. In poetry, people distort their proper heart and seek words to describe this distortion. They use worn out methods11 and now compose with a heart that is not their own. Just as a reflection in a dusty mirror12 always is clouded and the pistils of flowers13 that grow among rubbish always are filthy, how could the words chosen and uttered by the clouded and filthy hearts of people of later times fail to be soiled?

  Still, this does not mean we should just complain and give up. We have forgotten that the form of the mirror made by Ishikoritobe14 and the flowers of the trees planted by Itakeru no Mikoto15 have been passed down to this day.16 Because people have become accustomed to dirt and rubbish, they do not even recognize them as filth, and they do not realize that it is possible for things to be otherwise.

  When we remember that heaven and earth are unchanging and that all the birds, beasts, plants, and trees are the same as in they were the past, why should only humans be different now from how they used to be? Well, when people’s hearts became more clever, they began to quarrel with one another, so naturally they learned wicked ways, causing society to decline as well. Why would a person who realized this was bad not want to return to the better ways of the past? We should create in ourselves a desire to return to the past, each morning face the sacred mirror of old, combine with it a thousand treasured flowers, and strive to compose poetry and prose in a way reminiscent of their earlier form and beauty. Because the people of today are by nature the same as the people of the past, when they carry out such practices their hearts become polished mirrors and their words move past the overgrown moor to become flawless mountain flowers. The return to the past in all matters is valued even in China, where the rulers constantly change. But in this country, governed by an unbroken line from heaven, why should we cling to times that have fallen like a mountain stream rather than return to the style of reigns as lofty as the clouds in heaven, ruled over by the glorious imperial ancestors?

  Those who say that poetry should be composed in the style of later times have extremely small hearts. Despite their decline, the ways of our country from the time of the awesome distant gods are still evident, and those who long for the past are not few. Still, when we read the writings of ages as lofty as the skies, sometimes it seems as if the perilous road of the high mountain is cut off, the awesome depths of the blue sea cannot be known, the spring moon is obscured by haze, and the autumn wind mixes in leaves from other trees.17 Many people of later ages have been confused by this haze and go in the wrong direction or are captured by the ways of babbling foreign lands and forget the original ways of their own land.

  In ancient poetry, though, the feelings and words composed by people a thousand years ago remain completely unchanged with the passage of time, just as autumn leaves and cherry blossoms are the same now as in the past. If we follow the courtly style [miyaburi] of the renowned Fujiwara18 of the deep purple19 and of Nara, leave behind the inferior acorn-dyed gray of the woods-man,20 and strive over time to compose poetry, the ancient style will naturally be absorbed into our hearts. Then we will surely grasp the lofty and manly spirit of the ancients, whose straightforward hearts and courtly words had not a speck of filth or dust. When we go on to read various ancient texts, it will be as if having crossed over the deep mountains we came out into a village, or having traversed the distant sea we arrived at our country of destination. We will realize that the world was originally without human artifice and recognize the vanity of a heart that pursues such artifice. We will learn about the reigns of the gods, who with the ancient and tranquil great Way of this peaceful country governed in accordance with heaven and earth and without regulation, fabrication, force, or instruction. The poetry of the ancients makes this clear, and our own poetry should be the same. . . .

  . . . We should be careful, though, about poetry by women. The anonymous poems in the Kokinshū21 include some that begin with those Nara-period poets who came after the Man‘yōshū and continue until the early years of the present capital.22 If we recite these poems and compare them with those of the Engi period [901–923],23 we will see that the former imitate the Man‘yōshū in that they have a wide range of subject matter and a rich and courtly spirit. They also are smooth and refined, though, so they are truly poems appropriate to women. In ancient times men were brave and manly, and so was poetry. But by the time of the Kokinshū, even men were composing in an effeminate style, so women’s and men’s poems were indistinguishable. So while one could say that it is enough for women
to study the Kokinshū, this collection is from an age that had declined somewhat. People’s hearts were full of artifice; their words no longer were sincere [makoto]; and their poems were crafted deliberately, so their poetry was naturally poor and cumbersome in conception.

  We should grasp the ancients’ straightforward, lofty-minded, and courtly qualities from the Man‘yōshū and, only after that, study the Kokinshū. Generations of people have forgotten this principle and have studied the Kokinshū as the basis for poetic composition, so no one is able to compose poems like those in the Kokinshū.24 And no one really understands the spirit of the Kokinshū. When we look up at things from below, they are blocked by clouds and haze and are unclear. But if we find a ladder, we can immediately climb up it, see what is at the top, and then look at what is below. As I have said before, we can see everything in a single glance, as when we look out across the land from on top of a high mountain. It is the same with people’s hearts. Although it is difficult for those below to fathom the hearts of those above, it is easy for those above to know the hearts of those below.25 For this reason the Chinese, also, have said that we should study by beginning at the top and climbing down from there.