KKS Kanajo 6
Text
古よりかく伝はるうちにも、ならの御時よりぞ広まりにける。かの御世や、歌の心をしろしめしたりけん。かの御時に、おほき三つの位柿本人丸なん、歌の聖なりける。これは君も人も身をあはせたりといふなるべし。秋の夕べ、龍田河に流がるる紅葉をば、帝の御目に錦と見たまひ、春の朝、吉野の山の桜は人丸が心には雲かとのみなんおぼえける。また、山の辺の赤人といふ人ありけり。歌にあやしく妙なりけり。人丸は赤人が上に立たんことかたく、赤人は人丸が下に立たんことかたくなんありける。
- （ならの帝の御歌、「龍田川紅葉乱れて流るめり渡らば錦なかや絶えなん」、人丸、「梅花それとも見えず久方のあまぎる雪のなべて降れれば」、「ほのぼのと明石の浦の朝霧に島隠くれ行く舟をしぞ思ふ」、赤人、「春の野にすみれ積みにと来し我ぞ野をなつかしみ一夜寝にける」、「和歌の浦に潮満ちくれば潟をなみ芦辺をさして鶴鳴きわたる」）
この人々をおきて、またすぐれたる人も呉竹の世々に聞こえ、片糸のよりよりに絶えずぞありける。これより先の歌を集めてなん、万葉集と名づけられたりける。
Out of the history from old, it is in the Nara Reign that [poetry] spread widely. It seems that in that period, [the Emperor] understood the heart of poetry. In that period, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (of the third rank) was the sage of poetry. This should surely be described as the lord and subject being in harmony. On an autumn evening, the autumn leaves flowing on the Tatsuta River appeared as a brocade to the Emperor's eyes, and on a spring morning, the cherries of Yoshino Mountain were thought of as clouds in the heart of Hitomaro.
Also, there was a person named Yamanobe no Akahito. His poems are mysteriously excellent. It is difficult to place Hitomaro above Akahito, and it is difficult to place Akahito below Hitomaro.
Aside from these people, there are excellent people heard about in various ages, not ceasing. [Poems] were collected up to this point and [the collection] was given the name Man'yoshu.
Notes
- Nara Reign
- This phrase has been a point of difficulty since early commentary. The interpretation of the phrase depends to a large extent on how much the scholar trusts the kanajo to have historically accurate information. This will be discussed more in the Analysis, but Takeoka interprets this as referring widely to any Emperor who lived in Nara, whereas Katagiri interprets it specifically as Emperor Heizei.
- Hitomaro
- The claim that Hitomaro had the 3rd rank is historically doubtful, and contradicts even information elsewhere in the KKS (See KKS 1003). Various attempts have been made to interpret this as a posthumous promotion, a miscopying or misunderstanding, or a rank based on an older system. As with the "Nara Reign," much of the interpretation here depends on how historically accurate you think the preface is.
- On an autumn evening...
- This would seem to be a reference to KKS 283.
- On a spring morning...
- This forms a parallel structure, but there is no clearly identifiable Hitomaro poem that fits this description, even if we include apocryphal poems later attributed to him. Either there was some poem attributed to Hitomaro that is now lost, some poem like GSS 117 was once attributed to him, or Tsurayuki simply included this phrase to force the parallel.
- It is difficult to place...
- The phrasing of this is a bit odd, but the intent seems to be that they are equal to each other.
- Hitomaro
- The two poems attributed by the ancient commenter to Hitomaro are both "poet unknown," with a side note indicating that a "certain person" says they were by Hitomaro.
- up to this point
- Teika himself wrote a note on the manuscripts saying "This is unclear," and this is connected with the confusion over the "Nara period" at the beginning. Regardless of the specific time reference, the overall meaning is clear enough.
Analysis
The historical account of Japanese poetry continues from the vague historical origins and begins to mention and critique specific poets. As mentioned in the notes above, the information in this section is difficult to square with historical information about Hitomaro and the Man'yoshu, and the terms used are somewhat vague.
Katagiri's explanation is perhaps the simplest and most direct. He points to evidence from other contemporary sources to show that Hitomaro had become a semi-legendary figure by this point who had a lot of poems attributed to him that he did not write. It also seems to be the case that the MYS was not widely read in this period because of the difficulty of the script -- thus the establishment of the Bureau of Poetry in 951, who took on the important task of assigning glosses to the poems. Given this information, it may well be that Tsurayuki was simply relying on information about Hitomaro that had become tradition by his day, apart from the historical data. Katagiri does point to the increased use of narrative markers in this section such as namu, which could indicate some doubt in Tsurayuki's mind about the accuracy of the information.
The weakness of Katagiri's approach is that it requires a rather high level of ignorance about the Man'yoshu, not just in the details of individual poems but even just the larger structure -- so many of the poems in the collection are precisely dated to periods prior to the Heian period.
Takeoka refuses to accept that incorrect information would have been included in the kanajo. This reflects his overall view of the preface as a carefully worked out, polished piece of writing that was intended to stand as the authoritative preface to this new Imperial collection of poetry. But in order to interpret the preface's information as historically accurate, Takeoka engages in analysis so intricate and complex that it is difficult to trust that it is entirely correct.
As with the debate over the "six styles," it is likely that interpretation of this section will continue to elude a definitive answer.
