Nijō Yoshimoto: The Grand Father of Renga

Nijō Yoshimoto

My last post was about Takayama Sōzei, and I wrongly referred to him as “one of the founding fathers” of renga. I made this mistake because in my most trusted source, “Traditional Japanese Poetry” by Steven Carter, Steven neglected to mention that Nijō Yoshimoto (1320-1388 A.D.) was actually the first poet to compile a collection of renga.

He probably didn’t feel the need to mention it because of his disdain for the Nijō faction which dominated Japanese poetry after the death of Fujiwara no Teika. Japanese poetry in the medieval period can be described as pre-Teika and post-Teika. He was a very important figure, and after his death there was much discord among his followers. Two main factions emerged: the Nijō school and Kyōgoku Tamekane’s school. According to Steven, the majority of scholars nowadays consider Kyōgoku Tamekane’s school to have produced better poetry, however, the Nijō school had the edge in terms of political power. Therefore, almost all the poetry anthologies of this period were compiled by those from the Nijō school. The major difference between the two was the Nijō school was more conservative and its followers thought that Teika’s later years were what they should emulate. The Kyōgoku Tamekane school on the other hand, thought that Teika’s younger, rebellious years were of more importance.

Nijō Yoshimoto was a scholar and a poet from a privileged background. It seems that he had a passion for renga, but also wrote tanka. The first couple tanka I translated below are from the Shingoshūiwakashū which was an imperial anthology compiled in the 14^th century. After that I translated an excerpt from the Tsukubashū which he edited himself, and is the first renga anthology ever compiled (officially...that we know of...).

春といへばやがて霞のなかにおつる妹背の川も氷とくらし

二条良基

When spring’s upon us,

Haze will float down the center

Of Imose river.

It seems that the winter’s ice

Has begun to melt away.

Nijō Yoshimoto

The Imose river did confuse me a bit and after further research, thanks to the investigation of Mootori Norinaga who investigated this back in the 18^th century, I found out that there is no Imose river. It comes from a poem in the Man’yōshū, which is one of the oldest poetry compilations in the Japanese tradition. The poem goes: “I crossed Mt. Imo and Mt. Se”, so we can infer that Imose river is the river that lies in between these two mountains. Nijō could be merely referencing the older poem to show off how learned he is.

Imose could also be a play on words. The first kanji is  妹(imo) which means young girl, but I think could also be an archaic way to say “wife”. The second kanji is 背(se) which can mean height or stature, but could also mean “husband”. So it could be the river that runs between “Mt. Husband” and “Mt. Wife” which add some sexual innuendo to the poem.

Can be found here

降りかかる梢の雪の朝あけにくれなゐうすき梅のはつ花

二条良基

In the early dawn,

Clouds dwelling in the treetops,

Descend upon us,

The first plum blossoms this year

Glimmer with subtle crimson.

Nijō Yoshimoto

のどかなる春のまつりの花しづめ風をさまれとなほ祈るらし

二条良基

On a bright, calm day

During a spring festival,

Blossoms shine bright, and

When the wind is at peace

I will bow my head and pray.

Nijō Yoshimoto

Aside from the poem’s religiosity, it has a some nice wordplay. I like the line “kaze wo samare to” because samare comes from the verb osamaru which means “to be at peace” or “lessen”. I assume that the obvious translation would be “when the wind lessens”, but considering how inclusive the Shinto religion is with nature, I thought I would personify the wind.

-Note: This poem comes from Shinshūiwakashū.

The following is an excerpt from the Tsukubashū. It’s also spring themed.

山かげしるき雪のむら消え

For those who dwell in the shade

Of the mountain, vanish snow!

あらたまの年の越えくる道なれや

Joy to the new spring!

Another year has come and gone,

That’s the way things.

Asama Mountain

たえぬ煙と立ちのぼるかな

Smoke rises high in the sky

Even though the fire went out.

春はまだ淺間の岳のうす霞

Spring’s yet to arrive,

There is only a light haze

At Asama Mountain.

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山の梶井坊にて百韻連歌侍りけるに

In the mountain dwelling of Kajii, they begin a new renga sequence:

なほもこほるは志賀のうら波

The wave breakers at Shiga

Still now, are frozen over.

雪間より道ある山となりぬるに

Patches of grass in the snow

Seem a more suitable path,

Than the icy mountain road.

Takayama Sōzei: Renga from the Ashes

By the time of the Ashikaga Shogunate (1336-1573 A.D.), Japanese poetry was in a period of regression. Composition of tanka (5-7-5-7-7), akin to what we saw from the Heian period and the Kamakura Shogunate was not being genuinely pursued. There were aristocrats still producing poetry that was reminiscent of this period, but, with the exception of Shōtetsu and perhaps a few others, the poetry was mediocre.

Can be found here

During this dearth of creativity arose a new form of composing poetry: renga. To one who is unfamiliar with all this jargon renga actually looks a lot like tanka. Renga is “linked verse” and consist of two parts. The first part is called a hokku and has a 5-7-5 syllable structure and it is followed by a 7-7 couplet. When read it all together it looks exactly like a tanka. For those of you paying attention, the hokku is the same as a haiku. The art of haiku came from renga, but was not popularized until a few hundred years later.

The reason why renga was novel and interesting was that people would compose poetry together. No longer were poems static pieces of text attributable to only one person, but instead they became a cooperative work of literary art. One person would write a hokku and then another would cap it with a couplet. And then somebody else could stick another hokku after the couplet so that the couplet worked with both, and so on, and so on. There were all kinds of rules about what kind of language can be used, and how often a topic can be repeated. But most important rule was that the poetic sequence had coherence. Sometimes people would take previously used hokku and attach a completely different couplet to it; changing the meaning entirely.

Can be found here

People interested in this kind of thing would get together for poetry gatherings and have a blast. It seems to me that most of the poets of this time were either samurai sensitive to aesthetics, or Buddhist monks who probably had nothing better to do.

The guy I want to talk about today is Takayama Sōzei (d. 1455 A.D.). He was a military man who studied under Shōtetsu and was one of the founding fathers of medieval renga (there was another guy by the name of Nijō Yoshimoto who could probably be considered the founding father, I will address him later). After the death of Nijō Yoshimoto renga fell into decline. Sōzei revitalized the art. He was a versatile poet who could write with a sense of miyabi (courtly charm), ushin (unapologetic pathos), and the Buddhist concept of sabi (loneliness). Most importantly, he was renga poet, which means he was adept at adding depth to someone else’s poetic fragment.

Unfortunately, I could not find much of his poetry, and what I found was already put together like a tanka. I am not even sure if he wrote both parts. Soon I will translate some transcripts for the more famous poetic gatherings.

Japanese Pampas Grass

野里の秋の暮れの寂しき

招くとも薄がもとは誰かこん

高山宗砌

Autumn in the countryside,

How lonely is the sunset!

Patches of pampas grass,

You beckon all to you, yet

Who’ll come and visit?

Takayama Sōzei

As you can see form this poem, the 7-7 couplet comes before the 5-7-5 hokku. The initial couplet has a strong element of sabi combined with the feeling of being in a new places, which makes me think of Saigyō, since he was always travelling. The hokku utilizes the kigo (seasonal word) of pampas grass, susuki in Japanese. Susuki is always associated with autumn so there is an obvious convergence between the couplet and hokku.

Can be found here

見れば雪降り月ぞ残れる

あけにけりきのうの夢は蹟もなし

高山宗砌

I can see the snow falling,

The moon remains in the sky,

A new day has come,

There’s not a trace in my mind

Of yesterday’s dreams.

Takayama Sōzei

I like this poem a lot because I think it creates a nice scene.

This last poem is just the hokku, so in essence, it is a haiku.

散音は時雨に返す紅葉かな

高山宗砌

Bright rustling leaves

Contrast the dreary showers

Of waning autumn.

Takayama Sōzei

This hokku was difficult to translate and I am not sure I got the main verb “kaesu” right. I do like the juxtaposition of shigure (late autumnal showers) and momiji (leaves changing to their fall color). He used seasonal words from the beginning and end of autumn. It’s a nice contrast.

Secretary Shotetsu: Diamond in the Rough

Shōtetsu, or Secretary Shōtetsu, lived from 1381-1459 A.D. By this time, traditional tanka (poems with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure) were in the muck of creative stagnation. The great visionaries of Ki no Tsurayuki and Fujiwara no Teika seemed like ancient history. Most tanka poets of this time were pretty uninspiring.

Can be found here

The beginning of the Kamakura Shogunate and the collapse of the Heian aristocracy was a period of transition, and the strife inspired great creativity, most notably, Teika and Saigyō. After the new shogun fully established his power, traditional literary arts degenerated because of mediocre, factional discord by aristocrats lost in existential anxiety, trying harder to ingratiate themselves with the new samurai authority rather than producing real works of art. After the Kamakura Shogunate collapsed due to infighting among the samurai clans, the Ashikaga Shogunate arose. It was a short-lived feudal system in which the shoguns further weakened the aristocracy and royal family in Kyoto.

Shōtetsu was a diamond in the rough. He was classically trained and considered Teika to be the best of the best (I would agree). "In this art of poetry, those who speak ill of Teika should be denied the protection of the gods and Buddhas and condemned to the punishments of hell.", he went as far to say. He composed thousands of poems which contained rhetorical complexity as well as the poetic concepts yūgen (deep, subtle profundity) and ushin (less subtle, but more heartfelt). Shōtetsu can be easily overlooked because his style of waka was dated in his time. However, his students Takayama Sōzei and Bishop Shinkei set the stage for the next evolution in the Japanese poetic tradition: renga (linked verse).

色に吹け草木も春を知らぬまの人の心の花の初風

正徹

Let the wind blow

With color and vibrancy!

So the grass may know,

That the hearts of men can feel

Spring’s first perfumed breeze.

Shōtetsu

This poem has some nice, fantastical imagery, such as the wind blowing with color. In the last line Shōtetsu writes “hana no hatsukaze” which literally means the “flower’s first wind”. In this case, since spring is mentioned before, I assume he is referring to the scent of newly bloomed flowers carried by the wind that marks the beginning of spring.

I think most people can relate to this. When winter is coming to an end (if you live in temperate place) there is usually one day when you hear the birds chirping again or catch the scent of a flower, and you realize that spring is finally here.

咲けば散る夜の間の花の夢の家に軈てまぎれぬ峰の白雲

Can be found here

正徹

Blossoms at morning

Scattering amid moonlight.

In the realm of dreams

One may mistakenly see

Silver clouds floating on high.

 Shōtetsu

This poem’s dreamy setting harks back to the old poetry of the of the Heian Period and before. Dream images and the dream world were used frequently by earlier poets to express anxiety or passion in regards to romance. In this case, Shōtetsu created a witty conundrum. Do the blossoms that fall from the trees at night enter people’s dream as beautiful clouds?  

The next three poems are set in a place called Kumano which is Wakayama prefecture. It is a mountainous region on Kii peninsula, south of Osaka and Kyoto. It is considered a holy place and there are three very famous shrines there called the Kumano Sanzan. They all correspond to different mountains. This all very in tune with Shinto religion putting special emphasis on natural phenomena and land formations.

I had some trouble with the next few poems but I think they turned out alright. They were relatively simple.

我が心乱れし果やみくまのの苔地くるしき露を分くらん

正徹

Kumano

My heart, in disarray,

Vexations within myself

Make the moss feel rough,

I tread only on the dew,

In the peaks of Kumano.

Shōtetsu

雲のみぞとふとも余所にみくまのの峰の苔路をはらふ嵐に

正徹

Clouds betwixt the peaks,

Long ago resided elsewhere.

The moss covered path

Cleared by a spring tempest,

The mountains of Kumano.

Shōtetsu

御熊野や浜ゆふならぬしめ縄もいくへにかけて君を祈らん

正徹

Crinum Japnonicum

There’re no crinum left

On the shore at Kumano.

Yet, the sacred rope

Will remain, everlasting,

For you let us pray.

Shōtetsu

Crinum is a flower that blooms by the sea. It is supposedly very sensitive and will only bloom if the exact prerequisites are met. It can go years without blooming, so it was perhaps kind of rare to see it.

The “sacred rope” the poem mentions (in Japanese: “shimenawa”) which my dictionary translates to “rope used to cordon off consecrated areas as a talisman against evil” which was hard to fit into a poem of only 31 syllables, so I translated it as “sacred rope”.

Whether the “you” is referring to a person or shrine is unclear, but I think he’s talking about a Shinto shrine due to the natural imagery.