KKS 62+63

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Text

桜の花の盛りに、久しく訪はざりける人の来たりける時によみける

Read when, amidst the full bloom of the cherry blossoms, someone who had not visited for a long time came

よみ人しらず

Poet unknown

あだなりと名にこそたてれ桜花年にまれなる人も待ちけり

ada nari to na ni koso tatere sakurabana toshi ni mare naru hito mo machi-keri

Inconstant and flighty Is their reputation, but The cherry blossoms They seem to have waited For one who rarely comes.

返し

Response

業平朝臣

Lord Ariwara no Narihira

けふこずはあすは雪とぞ降なましきえずは有とも花とみましや

kyō ko-zu wa asu ha yuki to zo furi-na-mashi kiezu wa ari tomo hana to mi-mashi ya

If I'd not come today Tomorrow they'd have fallen As if they were snow. Though they would not have melted, I wouldn't see them as flowers.

Notes

someone who had not visited

Since the subsequent poem identifies this person as Narihira, some commentators have suggested textual corruption or that someone added Narihira's name later to what was originally an entirely anonymous exchange. GSS contains a number of poetry exchanges that are written just like this one, so it may simply be that this was a standard way to set up such an exchange.

Other sources:

• 61:
  • Teika hachidaishō
• 62:
  • Kokin waka rokujō
  • Teika hachidaishō

Analysis

The basic idea of these poems is that the house owner expresses their own feeling of annoyance at Narihira's long absence by personifying the flowers. Narihira's response indicates that he has come at the perfect time to enjoy the flowers (and the person's house).

This is the first poem exchange in KKS. Exchanges are comparatively rare in this collection, with only 18 in the entire compilation. This is possibly because KKS was attempting to focus on "public" poetry for reasons of prestige. It is notable that 7 of the 18 exchanges involve Narihira, with 5 of those being in the love volumes. This may indicate that some version of the Tales of Ise was already circulating and had garnered some prestige by the time KKS was compiled.

This exchange is the single example in the seasonal volumes, and much of the annotation about the poem is concerned with whether this should be read with a love meaning or not. Like a number of Narihira's poems, this exchange also occurs in the Tales of Ise, (section 17), but the prose setting there is simply a rewording of the KKS setting and does not provide any additional information.

The primary motivation for reading this without a love meaning is the belief that the compilers would not have included a love exchange in the seasonal volumes. Under this theory, the anonymous writer of 62 is most likely a man. The focus then is mostly on the beauty of the blossoms, with the feelings of the people in the background. The imagery that seems like love imagery is simply homosocial jesting between friends, or purely personifying the cherry tree as an abandoned woman. This theory goes back to the 15th century Ryōdō kikigaki. It is possible that the initial rejection of the love idea was going against the medieval commentaries that (as usual) attempted to identify exactly when this event happened in Narihira's life and who the woman was. It became the standard theory through the pre-modern period, though later it was connected more with the division of the poems into books.

It was not until the modern period that commenters again began to admit the possibility that this is actually a love poem. Katagiri was particularly firm in his insistence -- the first poem uses words like ada (flighty) and na ni tatsu (get a reputation) that are extremely common in love poetry, and he thought it was silly to deny that this was a love exchange. He and Kagawa Kageki (Seigi) noted that there are other love poems in the seasonal volumes, and there are contemporary examples of seasonal screen paintings having love poems associated with them.

Narihira's response (which was greatly praised in pre-modern commentary) is easiest to interpret as a love response. Often this kind of exchange involves an accusation of insincerity which is then countered with another similar accusation. Thus with the response, Narihira is saying "I had to come today, because if I came tomorrow who knows if you would still be interested in me?"

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