Yozei's Love Poem
May 6th 2010 02:10
Yozei's Love Poem
in the Hyakunin Isshu
is very strange!
There's a famous anthology of 100 Japanese Heian era waka that features poems from various people. One of the poems No. 13 by the Emperor Yozei is actually rather dark and scary although descirbed as a love poem.
Why do I say this?
Go and take a quick look at the Wikipedia entry on this emperor!
This guy definitely had mental health issues!
Now read by someone unaware of Yozei's violent vices the poem seems quite romantic.
Here's the text in Romaji and English.
The poem also appears in the GSS anthology X:776
Tsukubane no / mine yori otsuru / mina no gawa / koi zo tsumorite / fuchi to narikeri
Tsukubane from peak comes falling all of river love ! heaps up deep pool becomes
From Tsukubane's high peaks comes falling all of the streams
Love accumulates becoming a deep pool.
This is described as being addressed to one of his cousins who became a consort and was also a shrine maiden.
Now Mt. Tsukubane is the site of a Shinto shrine up near its peak..
Otsuru is the bungo form of Modern Japanese ochiru.
There is a river Mina(no) but mina also means all or every.
There is currently no major waterfall or deep pool that I have been able to find any info on or images on but there is still a stream that flows south south west from the mountain slopes.
Koi zo tsumorite Loves like those mountian waters heaps up into a fuchi a deep pool but fuchi read aloud also sounds like edge or rim.
Edge of what?
Did you read the Wikipedia entry which cites original Japanees sources?
Yozei's hobbies included torturing animals and servants and while he was said to have written this poem during a lucid sane moment perhaps while on a pilgrimage since Mt. Tsukubane is fairly distant from Kyoto I rather pity that cousin of his. He also tried to garrotte female servants.
How did he treat his wives and consorts? If he treated his servants so badly it made the history books one shudders to think?
I like Heian poetry but when reading it one should be aware some of these aristos were not saints in any sense of the word.
Was Yozei's deep pool one of obsessive love?
I am aware of two translations into English of the Hyaku nin isshu and there are several excellent web sites dedicated to this anthology and other Japanese Waka Verse.
in the Hyakunin Isshu
is very strange!
There's a famous anthology of 100 Japanese Heian era waka that features poems from various people. One of the poems No. 13 by the Emperor Yozei is actually rather dark and scary although descirbed as a love poem.
Why do I say this?
Go and take a quick look at the Wikipedia entry on this emperor!
This guy definitely had mental health issues!
Now read by someone unaware of Yozei's violent vices the poem seems quite romantic.
Here's the text in Romaji and English.
The poem also appears in the GSS anthology X:776
Tsukubane no / mine yori otsuru / mina no gawa / koi zo tsumorite / fuchi to narikeri
Tsukubane from peak comes falling all of river love ! heaps up deep pool becomes
From Tsukubane's high peaks comes falling all of the streams
Love accumulates becoming a deep pool.
This is described as being addressed to one of his cousins who became a consort and was also a shrine maiden.
Now Mt. Tsukubane is the site of a Shinto shrine up near its peak..
Otsuru is the bungo form of Modern Japanese ochiru.
There is a river Mina(no) but mina also means all or every.
There is currently no major waterfall or deep pool that I have been able to find any info on or images on but there is still a stream that flows south south west from the mountain slopes.
Koi zo tsumorite Loves like those mountian waters heaps up into a fuchi a deep pool but fuchi read aloud also sounds like edge or rim.
Edge of what?
Did you read the Wikipedia entry which cites original Japanees sources?
Yozei's hobbies included torturing animals and servants and while he was said to have written this poem during a lucid sane moment perhaps while on a pilgrimage since Mt. Tsukubane is fairly distant from Kyoto I rather pity that cousin of his. He also tried to garrotte female servants.
How did he treat his wives and consorts? If he treated his servants so badly it made the history books one shudders to think?
I like Heian poetry but when reading it one should be aware some of these aristos were not saints in any sense of the word.
Was Yozei's deep pool one of obsessive love?
I am aware of two translations into English of the Hyaku nin isshu and there are several excellent web sites dedicated to this anthology and other Japanese Waka Verse.
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