Japanese Women in Tanka Poetry

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Japanese Women
in
Tanka Poetry
Hisashi Nakamura Ria Ulleri
Anglo-Japanese Tanka Society
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What is Tanka?Empress Iwa no Hime
(d.347)Ono no Komachi (ca. 850)Izumi
Shikibu (ca. 970 - 1030)Princess Shikishi
(1149 - 1201)

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Tanka ? ? Short Poem
5 7 5 7
5 7 5 7 7 syllabic units
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• The far meeting point
• Of the sea and the pale sky
• Trembles in the haze.
• The warm sleeping dunes exhale
• The remains of summer.

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• Stifled by the air
• Laden with the rusty dust
• Of the passing years
• The dead cranes in the shipyard
• Idly dangle their cables.

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Year No. of poems First Anthology
after 759 4,500
1st Imperial Anthology 905
1,111 8th Imperial Anthology 1205
1,978
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Influence of Tanka

• No Theatre
• The Tea Ceremony
• Ceramic Art
• Haiku
• British American Imagist Poets

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Yugen

• Subtle and profound atmosphere
• Infinite tranquil space with lingering
  suggestiveness
• Avoiding detailed description

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Monk Saigyo (1118 1190)

• Even a body without a heart
• Can feel this sad beauty
• Snipe take wing from the marsh
• In the autumn dusk.

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Monk Jakuren (1139? 1202)

• Cormorant fishing
• Maybe they are poling
• Through the shallows.
• Swinging and tangling
• The brazier flares.

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No Theatre
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The Traditional Sense of Beauty

• Cherry Blossoms
• Crimson Leaves

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Golden Tea Room (Hideyoshi 1537 1598)
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• As far as one can see,
• No cherry blossoms
• Or crimson leaves-
• A thatched hut by a bay
• In the autumn dusk.

Fujiwara no Teika (1162 1241)
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The Tea Ceremony

• Less is More

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Tea Bowl
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A bamboo vase for one flower
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Empress Iwa no Hime

• Wife of Emperor Nintoku
• Proclaimed Empress 314 AD
• Left Emperor Nintoku 342 AD
• Died 347 AD

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Burial Place of Empress Iwa no Hime
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Burial place of Iwa no Hime
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Burial place of Emperor Nintoku
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Burial place of Emperor Nintoku
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Exchanges of Poemsin January 334 AD

• Empress Iwa no Hime
• Emperor Nintoku

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Emperor Nintoku

• On my oath as a noble
• Id like to place
• A spare alongside
• In case my bowstring should snap.

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Empress Iwa no Hime

• If it were clothes
• It would be fine
• To put on one over another.
• But your idea is terrifying
• Of laying futon side by side.

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• Four Famous Tanka Poems
• By
• Empress Iwa no Hime

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• My Lord has departed
• And the days have passed.
• Shall I search the mountains,
• Going forth to meet him,
• Or wait and wait for him?

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• No! I would not live,
• Longing for you.
• Rather, high on the mountain,
• A rock for my pillow,
• I prefer to die.

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• Just as I am
• I shall wait for my lord
• Till on my black hair,
• Trailing unconfined,
• The frost shall fall.

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• As the morning mist trails
• Over the ears of rice
• In the autumn field,
• I know not when or where
• My love will clear away.

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21 September 342

• While Empress Iwa no Hime was away
• Emperor Nintoku brought Princess Yata
• into the palace as his consort.
• Empress Iwa no Hime left Emperor Nintoku in 342.
• She died in 347.
• Princess Yata became the Empress.

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Empress Iwa no Hime

• A jealous woman?
• A woman of pride?

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Ono no Komachi ( ca. 850 )
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Komachi
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• Was it because I went to sleep
• Thinking always of him
• That I caught a glimpse of him?
• Had I known it a dream
• I would not have awoken.

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• When I cannot meet him
• On a moonless night
• Passion rises within me
• A flame running through my breast
• Sets my heart on fire.

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• Without showing a change in colour
• The thing that fades
• In this world
• Is the flower
• Called the human heart.

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• The colour of the cherry blossom
• Has faded vainly
• In the long rain
• While in idle thoughts
• I have spent my life.

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• Alas!
• How sad to think
• That my body will end in pale green
• After all,
• A mist over the fields.

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Smoke by Catherine ScrivenYork St John
University College

• Alas!
• How sad to think
• That my body will end in pale green
• After all,
• A mist over the fields.
• 
  Ono no Komachi

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Gender Formation in PoetryThe First Imperial
Anthology 905

• Some flowering plants were indirectly compared to
  women
• Only male poets wrote poems which included these
  plants

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The Image of Komachi in the First Imperial
Anthology

• Beautiful
• Pitiable
• Not strong
• Like a noble lady who is suffering from a
  sickness

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Komachi

• The first female image created by male poets as
  part of the gender formation in Japanese poetry.

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Akita
Akita
Tokyo
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Komachi Festival
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Komachi
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Izumi Shikibu ( ca. 970 1030 )
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Izumi Shikibu

• one of the ladies-in-waiting of Empress Akiko
• notorious for her love affairs
• the author of The Diary of Izumi Shikibu
• considered to be the finest poet of the time

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• First marriage First child
• An affair with Prince Tametaka starts
• June 1002 Prince Tametaka dies at the age of 26
• April 1003 An affair with Prince Atsumichi
  starts
• 1007 Prince Atsumichi dies at the age of 27
• Writes the Diary of Izumi Shikibu
• Second marriage
• Loss of her first child

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The Diary of Izumi Shikibu

• based on her affair with Prince Atsumichi between
  April 1003 and January 1004
• depicts
• the inner solitude and aching void
• of a female heart

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• Without a thought
• For my black hairs disarray
• I throw myself down,
• Already longing for the one
• Who ran his fingers through it.

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• Since even my pillow does not know,
• I shall not speak.
• Tell no one
• What you truly saw-
• A spring nights dream.

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• On the bamboo leaves
• A fine ice fall
• Patters and patters.
• How bitter
• To try to sleep alone!

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• From one dark path
• Into another
• Again I may stray.
• Light the long way,
• Moon on the mountain rim.

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• In the evening,
• Just glimpsing the lonely clouds,
• The feeling rises in me
• Never to gaze
• For too long.

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• Tormented by my thoughts
• My soul struggles
• And escapes
• A firefly
• Over the marsh.

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• Although Ive heard
• The dead return tonight,
• You are not here.
• Is the place where I live
• A homeland without a soul?

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• In my loneliness,
• Not to let even the smoke die down
• I break twigs
• And feed the flames
• In this winter mountain home.

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Laura Morgan York St John University College
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Izumi Shikibu

• A highly professional career woman
• Respected by both men and women as the finest
  poet of the time
• Taken into Empress Akikos confidence

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Izumi Shikibu
Life
Tanka
Love
To write
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Princess Shikishi 1149 - 1201
Art Work Susan Kruse York St John
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Princess Shikishi1149 - 1201

• A daughter of Emperor Goshirakawa
• Sent to Kamo Shrine in Kyoto to serve as a
  virgin, consecrated for 10 years till she was 21
  years old
• Remained unmarried all though her life
• Became a nun in 1190
• Died at the age of 53

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Political Social Background

• Princess Shikishi was born in 1149
• 1156 Civil War
• 1159 Civil War
• 1192 Samurai Government was established
• Princess Shikishi died in 1201

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The Transient Nature of Human Existence

• Civil wars
• Earthquakes
• Huge fires
• Devastating storms
• Starvation

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Beating ClothesClothes were made soft or shiny
by beating them on a wooden or stone block.
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Boxwood PillowBoxwood was often used to make a
support on which a small pillow was placed
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Cord of my soul

• It was believed that a cord tied the soul
• to the body.
• Therefore, cord of my soul in effect
• means life itself since the separation of
• the soul and body means death.

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The long nights sleep

• In Buddhist teaching
• the long nights sleep
• is the same as
• the long nights darkness
• which is a spiritual darkness caused by
  earthly desires.

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Deep in the mountains The pine branch door Does
not feel the coming of spring Only the slow
dropping of gems From the melting snow.
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• From somewhere in the clouds,
• A voice-
• The cuckoo is sobbing.
• Are his tears still falling?
• A passing shower in the early evening.

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• The night has worn away.
• The clear moon shines cold
• Near the mountain edge.
• And faintly from the far village of Toochi,
• Someone beating clothes.

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• As the wind blows cold
• Leafy shadows clear up
• Night by night.
• There is no corner left unlit
• The moonlight in the garden.

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• When this day
• Spent gazing at your blossoms
• Is long past,
• You, at least, do not forget me,
• Plum tree by the eaves.

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• Of this love of mine
• Theres not one who knows.
• Do not let my pent up tears overflow
• As I lie here,
• My dear boxwood pillow.

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• Guide me over
• As I row my boat,
• Not knowing where I am bound,
• For there is no wake to follow,
• Breeze on the boundless ocean.

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• Forgetting that the days are passing
• With my heart concealed,
• Unaware, I sigh
• As the night falls.

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• Cord of my soul!
• If you must break, break now.
• For if I live on
• My power to keep this hidden
• May not endure.

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• I know I cannot live
• Until tomorrow
• Grieving that you are cold-hearted.
• If you come, let it be
• Before this night falls.

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• The crowing of the rooster at dawn
• Pierces me to the heart,
• Here on my pillow,
• Heavy with thoughts
• Of the long nights sleep.

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• Looking afar
• In the stillness of each dawn
• I am filled with sadness
• That the world has not awoken
• From the long nights sleep.

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Broken by the sound of the breeze That plays on
the bamboo leaves Near the window, A dream even
shorter Than my fleeting sleep.
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The TempestShakespeare 1611

• We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
• And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

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Anglo-Japanese Tanka Society
http//www.tankasociety.com