KKS 21
Text
仁和の帝、皇子におましましける時に、人に若菜賜ひける御歌
When the Ninwa Emperor was a prince, an honorable poem when he gave young shoots to someone.
君がため春の野に出でて若菜摘む我が衣でに雪は降つつ
|
kimi ga tame |
For your sake |
Notes
The prose preface follows the pattern of KKS 4 in putting the author's name within the preface rather than separately.
- was a prince
- Emperor Kōkō took the throne when he was 54, so he was a prince for a long time.
Other sources:
Analysis
This poem follows well off the previous one, which was talking about the possibility of going to pick shoots tomorrow if the rain let up. Now, the person goes out to pick shoots but snow is falling. It follows a common pattern of a poem accompanying a gift.
The person who Kōkō gives the shoots to is not specified. The Bishamon tendo chū said it was Bishop Henjō. While there is no evidence for this, poems 347 and 348 show the Emperor giving gifts or poems to Henjō or his family members. Katagiri wonders if this was originally a similar celebratory poem, but that the detailed information was concealed in order to make this a spring poem rather than one of celebration.
Nevertheless, some have had a problem with the idea that the Emperor would pick shoots and give them to someone. It seems generally accepted that he would have sent someone else. But commentators like Keichū and Gyōe (Engoki) see this as primarily a metaphorical poem about the Emperor's beneficence towards the realm. They seem to be following similar explanations of Emperor Tenji's poem that appears as the first poem in the Hyakunin isshu. But most scholars are content to see this as a literal situation, and there's nothing in Heian custom to suggest that it would have been inappropriate for a prince to give spring shoots to someone, particularly a respected person for a celebratory occasion.
Katagiri and Takeoka both think this is written in the voice of a woman. Katagiri cites various sources to indicate that picking shoots was typically associated with women. So this poem may have not been intended so literally as the situation and poem suggest -- Miura(1943) saw this as a partially joking poem, and perhaps he was picking up on this idea that the "effort" the prince went through in the poem is exaggerated.
Many scholars note the similarity between this poem and one from the Man'yōshū (10.1839):
君がため山田の沢にゑぐ摘むと雪消の水に裳の裾濡れぬ
For your sake I go to the mountain fields and marshes to pick egu, and the sleeves of my clothes have become drenched with melted snow.
Kubota thinks that the Emperor's poem, which is from a time in between the MYS and KKS, shows the development of waka in that period.
This poem was favored by Teika, and appears in several of his collections Hyakunin isshu. Kaneko(1927) called it an excellent poem, and Kubota(1937) praised the delicate construction of the 4th and 5th lines. Takeoka notes the progressive narrowing of the focus of the poem from spring down to the delicate snow on the sleeves.
