Choka Poetry (Japanese)
"I Loved Her Like the Leaves" – by Kakinomoto Hitomaro
As you read: how is the speaker
affected by the death of his wife?
I loved her like the leaves,
The lush green leaves of spring
That weighed the branches of the willows
Standing on the jutting bank
Where we two walked together
While she was of this world.
My life was built on her;
But man cannot flout
The laws of this world.
To the wide fields where the heat haze shimmers,
Hidden in a white cloud,
White as a white silk scarf,
She soared away like the morning bird
Hidden from our world like the setting sun.
The child she left as token
Whimpers, begs for food; but always
Finding nothing that I might give,
Like birds that gather rice-heads in their beaks,
I pick him up and clasp him in my arms.
By the pillows where we lay,
My wife and I, as one,
The daylight I pass lonely till the dusk,
The black night I lie sighing till the dawn.
I grieve, yet know no remedy;
I pine, yet have no way to meet her.
The one I love, men say,
Is in the hills of Hagai,
So I labor my way there,
Smashing rock-roots in my path,
How is “I loved her like the leaves” (line 1)
an appropriate image in this poem?
Yet get no joy from it.
For, as I knew her in this world,
I find not the dimmest trace.
Envoys
The autumn moon
We saw last year
Shines again; but she
Who was with me then
How do the envoys capture the events and
feelings described in the first 32 lines?
The years separate forever.
On the road to Fusuma
Could the envoys stand by themselves
In the Hikite Hills,
I dug my love’s grave.
I trudge the mountain path
And think: “Am I living still?”
as poems?
What does this question infer (mean)?
Choka poetic form – alternate lines of 5 and 7 syllables, no limit to the number of lines
Envoy – summary of theme: form is 5 lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables (in Japanese, not the translation)
Japanese Literature: poems of remembrance comforted the dead, assuring them they would
not be forgotten; enabled the spirits of the dead to rest peacefully
White – the color of mourning in Japan
Moon – symbol of autumn in traditional Japanese literature
Vocabulary:
Lush – luxurious growth
Flout – show contempt for; jeer, scoff
Remedy – something that corrects or removes and evil or wrong
Pine – to have an intense longing or desire; yearn
Trudge – to walk wearily