Table Of Content11^1 SHUl
CA Collection of Poems
CAncient and CYiodem
Translated and Annotated by LcUTTcl JLciSpliCCl JLodd
JVlarij Catherine Henkenlns
wfth
XQhLl ‘NSHUt
Translated and Annotated by
Laurel Rasplica Rodd
with
Mary Catherine Henkenius
Including a study of Chinese Influences
on the Kokinshu Prefaces
by John Timothy Wixted
and
an Annotated Translation of
the Chinese Preface
by Leonard Grzanka
JAN © 8 2007
Copyright © 1996 by Laurel Rasplica Rodd
2004 Printing
First Paperback Edition 1996
Based on original clothbound edition
published by Princeton University Press 1984
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
scanning, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
Cheng & Tsui Company
25 West Street
Boston, MA 02111 -1213 USA
Fax (617) 426-3669
www. cheng-tsui. com
“Bringing Asia to the World”1”
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 96-085412
ISBN 0-88727-249-5
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
The texts used for this translation are the one found in Kokinwakashu edited
by Ozawa Masao (a copy of the Teika line of texts by Nij5 Tameyo with a
colophon by Fujiwara Teika dated the twentieth of the Eleventh Month of
1222, supplemented by the Teika texts edited by Ikeda Kikan and Nishishita
Kyoichi now in the Momozono Library and the Hatsunokari Library
respectively) and the edition by Kubota Utsubo in Kokinwakashu hyoshaku,
also based on the Teika texts.
In the Heian period (794—1185), when the Kokinshu was compiled, Japan
used the lunar calendar. Thus the new year began in late January or early
February with the blossoming of the plum, the song of the mountain thrush,
the appearance of green shoots through blankets of snow. The first three
lunar months were considered spring, the next three summer, and so on.
Occasionally an extra month, an intercalary month, had to be added to a
year in order to bring the lunar calendar into accord with the solar cycle.
The names of the lunar months in pre-Heian Japan evoke the changing
seasons, and when the names are used imagistically in the poems, they have
been translated literally. By the Heian period, however, it was becoming
more common to call the months First, Second, etc., as is done today, and
generally this has been done in the translation as well as the Introduction. To
feel in tune with the seasonal references, the reader need only keep in mind
that these are lunar months. The First Month usually begins in February, our
second month, and the lunar numbers continue to fall one or two behind
our solar months.
Years were generally named in terms of year-periods, which were des¬
ignated by the Japanese government beginning in the eighth century and
which often corresponded with the reign of tennfi (that is, the sovereign or
Mikado, sometimes erroneously termed “Emperor”). The year-period des¬
ignation could be changed in the course of a calendar year. The reigns and
year-periods which figure most often in the Kokinshu or in discussion of the
work include the following:
iii
Kokinshu
Reigns Year-periods
Kanmu tenno 781-806 Ten-5 began 781
Enryaku 782
Heizei 806-809 Daido 806
Saga 809-823 Konin 810
Junna OO to 1 OO Go Tencho 824
Ninmyo 833-850 Showa 834
Kajo 848
Montoku 850-858 Ninju 851
Saiko 854
Tennan 857
Seiwa 858-876 Jogan 859
Yozei 876(8771-884 Genkei 877
Koko 884-887 Ninna 885
Uda 887-897 Kanpyo 889
Daigo 897-930 Shotai 898
Engi 901
Encho
923
The Heian aristocracy were enormously status conscious, and their status
was minutely graded by rank and office designations. The numerous re¬
ferences to rank and title in the headnotes to the poems are clarified to some
extent in the notes following the poems. The reader wishing to delve into
the intricacies of the system is referred to the superb notes and appendices in
A Tale of Flowering Fortunes by William H. and Helen Craig McCullough.
In the translations in this volume, we have tried to strike a balance
between literalness and pleasure for the reader of English. The only formal
criterion we established for ourselves was the use of the sljlsfrh syllable
pattern ofjapanese waka. Whenever possible we have tried to maintain the
order of the images in the original and to convey the use of pivot words,
pillow words, and other rhetorical devices. The notes following many of the
poems explicate rhetoric and vocabulary, comment on the circumstances of
composition as described in the original headnotes, and indicate other works
in which these poems occur. The annotations are based on those provided by
Ozawa Masao and Kubota Utsubo in the editions mentioned above and
those in Kokinwakashu edited by Okumura Tsuneya. The reader should refer
to the Author Index for biographical information about the poets.
The Introduction, surveying the origins of the anthology, the society that
produced it, the types of poetry it contains, and its overall design, is
addressed to the general reader. Those who wish more than an overview are
directed to the monumental study,Japanese Court Poetry, by Robert Brower
and Earl Miner, and to other works in the Bibliography listed under
Western-language sources.
The translations and studies of the two prefaces to the Kokinshu will
IV
Preface
interest scholars: much valuable information about the influence of Chinese
poetics on Japanese criticism is found in them. I thank John Timothy Wixted
and Leonard Grzanka for their contributions.
Many people have helped me during the years I have been working on
this book. Robert Brower awakened my interest in waka. Mary Catherine
Henkenius, my collaborator, was also the instigator of this project and the
motivating force in carrying it to completion. Many students and friends
have commented on translations and helped me in my thinking about the
problems of translating from ninth-century Japanese into twentieth-century
English. I wish particularly to thank Katsumura Yuko, Miyahara Ry5ko,
Saegusa Kyoko, and Doreen Maesaka for their assistance in checking and
proofreading; and Julia Lin and Roy B. Teele, among many others, for
reading portions of the translation and making suggestions. Earl Miner and
the anonymous readers of Princeton University Press were particularly
helpful. I have made use of the advice of all these people and more, and I
gratefully acknowledge their assistance.
L.R.R.
P.S. I am grateful to Susan Gately, my editor at Cheng & Tsui Company,
and to Jill Cheng for helping to make this paperback edition a reality.
Boulder, Colorado
1996
v
“Laurel Rodd has accomplished what I had always supposed to be an
impossibility: her translation of the Kokinshu, with its grace and elegance
unimpaired, enables the Western reader to appreciate a poetry collection
that was long the central pillar of Japanese literature.”
— Donald Keene
Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature, Emeritus
Columbia University
CONTENTS
Preface iii
Introduction 3
By Laurel Rasplica Rodd
Kanajo, the Japanese Preface, by Ki no Tsurayuki 35
Translated and annotated by Laurel Rasplica Rodd
Translation of the Kokinshu 49
By Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius
Manajo, the Chinese Preface, by Ki no Yoshimochi 379
Translated and annotated by Leonard Grzanka
Chinese Influences on the Kokinshu Prefaces 387
By John Timothy Wixted
Appendix: Texts of the Kokinshu 401
Western-language Sources 403
Japanese and Chinese References 405
Author Index and Brief Biographies of Kokinshu Poets 407
Index of First Lines 420
Subject Index 434
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