IMG_1160 on Flickr.I really should include the chōka for these two, but I find these two hanka quite

IMG_1160 on Flickr.I really should include the chōka for these two, but I find these two hanka quite powerful on their own: 樂浪之 思賀乃辛碕 雖幸有 大宮人之 船麻知兼津 楽浪の志賀の辛崎幸くあれど大宮人の舟待ちかねつ Karasaki landing in Shiga, of the rippling waves, is the same as it ever was–but I cannot keep waiting for the ships of the great courtiers of the past (for they will never come). 左散難弥乃 志我能 大和太 與杼六友 昔人二 亦母相目八毛 楽浪の志賀の 大わだ淀むとも昔の人にまたも逢はめやも Although a calm once again settles over the great cove at Shiga, of the rippling waves, could it ever hope to see those of the past once more? These two hanka belong to Hitomaro’s famous chōka on the Ōmi capital, which I may include separately. Since these two verses deal specifically with the scenery of Lake Biwa, I wanted to pair them with a photo of the lake (although I unfortunately did not really get any great ones from near the Ōmi capital site that day, this will have to do). Both of these hanka focus on the people of the past, however, while the chōka is more interested in the architectural features - the site of the grand palace, not the people who inhabited/worked in it. Here, however, the perspective shifts to a more personal one (as if often the case with hanka) where Hitomaro looks out over the lake, and connects the landscape with the past (it is the same as before) but notes the lack of the people of the past within that landscape. This is a familiar contrast of the cyclical renewal and thus somewhat “permanent” quality of nature vs. the impermanence of human life/society. The Karasaki landing is unchanged, except for the courtiers who no longer draw their boats up to its shore (this is interesting actually - was this a way people commuted to Ōmi? It makes sense, to be sure, since it was right on the lake, but I never really thought about the logistics of it before…). The waters in the cove of Shiga once again stagnate - but they cannot hope to once again welcome those courtiers of the past into the harbor. The two hanka thus are very similar thematically, contrasting unchanging landscape vs. changing human history, highlighting the pathos arising out of the irreversibility of time, as I mentioned in the previous Ōmi post. In terms of language, there is a certain ambiguity here which merges the speaking subject/poet with the landscape, so that both are left waiting for the boats that never come, and both are left wondering if they could ever see the people of the past again. In the latter case, annotated versions seem to take the “mata” and assume the landscape is the subject of “could ever meet again” (ahame ya mo), but Hitomaro could have been around at that time - and even if he wasn’t, “mata” could really just be an emphatic. Given the ambiguity of the subject of “wait” (machi) in the previous hanka, I prefer to also accept it as being ambiguous here, with both poet and landscape being disappointed in their inability to expect a cyclical renewal on the human “side of things.” The resignation implicit in the endings of both “kanetsu” (could not continue) and “ahameyamo” (could ever meet), which both rhetorically imply the opposite, amplifies the pathos of the scene by suggesting, and then quickly negating, a return to/recovery of the lost past. What we are left with is loss and longing, pure nostalgia, as we focus on the landscape that would have been the backdrop for the efflorescence of the Ōmi court, which now has returned to merely “rippling waves.” -- source link
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