KKS 39
Text
暗部山やまにてよめる
Read at Mount Kurabu
貫之
梅の花匂ふ春べは暗部山闇に越れどしるくぞありける
|
mume no hana |
In the time of spring |
Notes
- Mount Kurabu
- The exact location is unknown, with a number of possibilities offered in both ancient and modern sources. The main function in this poem is to play on the word kurashi ("dark").
- Fragrant
- The word niou can refer either to the brilliance of blossoms or their scent. Which meaning is intended in any particular poem can often be difficult to tell (possibly both meanings are meant). Almost everyone who provides a comment on this poem says it means "scent" here, with Takeoka offering a detailed analysis of Tsurayuki’s own use of the term.
Other sources:
Analysis
The next three poems are on the scent of plums at night. A direct reading of the preface would place Tsurayuki on the mountain, crossing over at night, still able to smell the plum blossoms despite not being able to see them. Katagiri’s analyses tend to focus more on poetic topics and screen paintings, and his reading here is that these are plums that have been planted in people’s gardens – even at night we can find our way to these houses by following the scent.
The theme of flowers at night was borrowed from Chinese poetry, particularly that of the middle Tang period (see the Shintaikei commentary). This borrowing of Chinese imagery and technique, common in all eras of Japanese poetry, may have served to increase the prestige of Japanese poetry at a time when Chinese poetry was still regarded as the pinnacle of art. McCullough’s analysis is especially detailed: "[Tsurayuki] puns, but makes the device unobtrusive by relegating it to a subordinate claus...The wordplay...supplies the wit demanded of a formal seasonal poem...[it is a] better poem than [it] seems in translation. The diction is polished and elegant, the wordplays are effortless" and "Tsurayuki’s efforts to incorporate traditional rhetorical devices…sprang from the conviction that the seasonal waka was to be regarded as the quintessential hare no uta, the most important Japanese poetic genre and the one most capable of competing on equal terms with the shi." (Brocade by Night, 229 and 412)
Katagiri provides an additional comment on the use of place names in the KKS: although they may seem trite, their ability to immediately call up certain associations and imagery focuses the attention of the poem.
