白雪
Did you know that before the Meiji era [1868–1912], the calendar used in Japan was luni-solar ? The temporal division of the seasons didn’t exactly match with today’s one ; winter, for example, was included in a time span that began at today’s November 7 and ended at today’s February 3, from what I’ve read in the book of Haruo Shirane : Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons. I’m publishing this post on December 7, so, according to the luni-solar calendar we are already in winter ; but there are still two weeks to go for the Gregorian calendar. But anyways, for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere, we can definitely see how the trees have already lost so much leaves and we can feel how the days are becoming colder ; some people have already enjoyed some snow, Christmas movies are starting to appear on TV, and Christmas lights and trees are starting to pop up everywhere 
I don’t know if I would say that winter is my favorite season… but there is definitely something unique and magical about that atmosphere. Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the garlands and decorations, the soppy romantic TV-movies, the bittersweet sadness of impermanence and nostalgia with the end of the year, and the start of a new cycle ; and of course – the snow. In the place where I live, well, unfortunately it’s rare to have snow, and that’s honestly one of the main reasons that make me think about moving somewhere else in the future. I want to enjoy the beauty and elegance of the four full seasons, not live in some kind of overly urban two-seasons world… anyways, as we know, Japan is one of those countries where there are clear separations between the four, and it’s really interesting to read the relationship between climate and poetry in Shirane’s book.
The scholar explains that the description of winter we can find in waka, for example, is essentially centered around a precise geographical location : the Nara and Kyôtô basins. Winter here was clearly not as strong as in other areas, like on the Japan Sea side where the harsh, intense snowfall was a real threat.
But even then, in the Kokinshû, the Book 6 only has 29 poems for Winter, opposed to 134 for Spring, and 145 for Autumn. Fortunately, by the time of the Shinkokinshû, the poetic interest for the cold season had grown : 156 waka ; opposed to 174 for Spring, and 266 for Autumn. All today’s poems are from the Shinkokinshû.
新古今集 0620 – 中納言家持
かささぎの
In the firmament,
the bridge of the magpies
is covered by white frost –
when I see it, I suddenly realise
how late the night has grown
中納言 [家持] : ちゅうなごん [やかもち]
中納言 is the name of a title that was translated as “Middle Counselor” in L. R. Rodd’s book.
The part that I put in brackets is part of the poet’s real name :
大伴家持 : おうとものやかもち
This waka (also the number 6 in the Hyakunin Isshu) is referencing to the Tanabata legend［七夕］, the story of the Herdman (彦星, ひこぼし, the star Altair) and the Weaver Maid (織姫, おりひめ, the star Vega or Alpha Lyrae) who can only see each other one time a year. The magpies are the birds who are said to form a bridge in the Milky Way, for the two lovers to reunite.
I found this article about the legend. It was also a source of inspiration for the Moon 40 in Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s 月百姿 (which is not one of my favorites in the series but I thought that it would still be interesting to mention it).
In the Kokinshû, there are already waka who take inspiration from it, in the Autumn books. The SKKS 522, which takes inspiration from SKKS 620, is also in an Autumn book. I’ve read in Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons that the Star Festival was celebrated “at the beginning of autumn”, “the seventh day of the Seventh Month”. There is a difference with our modern time, where it’s celebrated in Summer, the 7th of July (which is keeping the two seven). But anyways ; I just remember that in the waka anthologies, it’s mainly an autumn topic (and also in the modern 歳時記 from what I’ve read in Shirane’s book, where he explains that there is still, today, a discrepancy between the Star Festival itself and the season to which it’s traditionally associated)… except apparently for this poem, the SKKS 620, which is in the Winter book 
This interpretation of the poem is the one I’ve read in L. R. Rodd’s book, but there is an other source that says there might be an ambiguity. Here is the article if you are curious, it’s in a paragraph below.
But anyways, just like it’s said here, even without being totally sure of the interpretation we can just read it as a poem about the Milky Way shining in the night like a modern Christmas garland, in the cold loneliness of winter.
かささぎ［鵲］: the magpie (scientific name : Pica pica).
渡せる［わたせる］: izenkei of watasu (in Shirane’s Reader, one of the meanings is “to lay down a bridge”) + I think it is the rentaikei of the auxiliary ri indicating that the action has been done and that the result of it is still pursuing (the bridge is still visible).
置く［おく］: for the frost of the poem, “to form” (on something ; here, the sky).
見れば : izenkei of miru (to see, look at) + conjunctive particle ba (when).
ぞ : emphasis particle.
更けにける : ren’yôkei of fuku (“to get late”, “to grow late” for the night here but it can also be for a season) + ren’yôkei of the auxiliary verb nu indicating the completion of the action + rentaikei of the auxiliary verb keri when the writer suddenly realises something.
新古今集 0661 – 紫式部
思ふこと
When she was worried about something, the day of the first snowfall
ふればかく
How much it blooms
with the passing of time – sadness,
in this world that she still
doesn’t know, the first snow falling
on the wild abandoned garden
紫式部 : むらさきしきぶ
It doesn’t always happen but when there is an introduction before the waka, I usually don’t take the time to translate it from the original Japanese text because it doesn’t seem that useful sometimes. But here, I wanted to understand everything, and I thought that it would be a good exercice anyways ; same thing for the two following.
I asked ChatGPT about the official name of these, and then I looked up the word in the kobun dictionary and in Shirane’s Reader to be sure. From what I’ve seen these headnotes are called ことばがき［詞書］: their role is to identify the topic of the poem, or to just explain the circumstances in which the poem was written. Sometimes when the topic is unknown it’s just 題知らず［だいしらず］.
思ふ［おもふ］: when we read the poem, we can understand that it’s the meaning “to worry/lament about something” here, not just a neutral “to think about whatever”.
こと : I think it just means “thing, something, event” (that she was worried about).
侍りける［はべりける］: ren’yôkei of 侍り［はべり］which has I think the function here of a polite way to say “to be, to exist”, just like ございます in modern Japanese + rentaikei of the recollective auxiliary verb keri which is expressing here “hearsay past”.
頃［ころ］: just a noun indicating a time, a moment.
初雪 ［はつゆき］: first snow.
降り侍りける［ふりはべりける］: ren’yôkei of 降る (to fall) + ren’yôkei of 侍り ［はべり］; it seems to me that here it’s the function of a “polite supplementary verb” just like –ます in modern Japanese + rentaikei of the auxiliary keri.
日［ひ］: day.
Now, the poem itself :
ふれば : we have here a kakekotoba［掛詞］that we’ve already read in a similar way in Ono no Komachi’s waka, the 113th of the Kokinshû 
When I wrote the post for Komachi’s poem (the 46th of this thread), I remember being a little bit confused by 経 ; I’ve seen in Shirane’s Reader that it has 3 definitions : “to spend, pass time/to pass by a place /to experience”. I wrote in my post that I took it as “to pass by a place (the world)” but that in the article that I had linked, it was taken in the sense “to spend time” (for this poem it’s close in meaning anyways ; she passed by the world, living here and spending time). I also wrote that there was a third meaning (besides 降る) : 旧る, to get old.
Anyways, all of that to say : here, for Murasaki Shikibu’s poem, it’s 2 meanings, not 3 : to fall (for the snow) and to pass (for the time). At least, L. R. Rodd says in her book that it’s only these two. But now that I think about it, since the time has passed and is still passing, the poetess is also aging anyways ; but it’s not important here, she was probably still young when she wrote it and there is no focus here on the physical beauty and youth like in Komachi’s poem.
– 経れば : izenkei of 経 + conjunctive particle ba (when).
– 降れば : izenkei of 降る + conjunctive particle ba (when).
The post-izenkei ba can means “when” or “because” ; I think it’s only “when” here, even if it can probably be both for the passing of time (not for the snow ; it would make no sense). So basically I understand the meaning as : “while the snow is falling and the days and months are passing, pain and melancholy are increasing”.
It’s interesting though that we can only understand the kakekotoba once we have read the very end of the poem (hatsu yuki). I’ve read that ふれば and 初雪 are 縁語［えんご］, “associated words”.
かく : as we know, Japanese has a lot of homophones… it also doesn’t help that a lot of my sources for the original text have either romaji or few kanji. But from what I’ve seen in Shirane’s Reader, the only “kaku” that makes sense here is this one : 斯く, an adverb meaning “like this”, “in this way”, “thus”.
憂さ［うさ］ : pain, bitterness, sorrow ; I wrote it with the larger idea of “sadness”.
のみ : an adverbial particle indicating an idea of restriction (“only”) or an emphasis on something (“especially”). So, here, is it only 憂さ that is increasing, or particularly but not just 憂さ ? I guess it’s open to interpretation ? Laurel Rasplica Rodd chose “only” ; I preferred the other option.
まさる［増さる］: to increase, to grow. The word “blooms” is purely a creative choice I’ve made in my translation, I also like the fact that it is in the lexical field of the garden.
知らで［しらで］: mizenkei of shiru (to know) + negative de.
荒れたる［あれたる］ : ren’yôkei of 荒る (to become neglected, to fall into ruin, to become wild) + rentaikei of the auxiliary verb tari ; from what I’ve understood, this auxiliary basically expresses either the idea that an action has been completed or the idea that an action has taken place and that this action, or the result of it, is continuing. So here I think it’s basically : “the garden became desolate/ruined/wild and it’s still like this at the moment I’m writing this poem”.
つもる［積もる］: to accumulate, to pile up.
The honka［本歌］of this poem is the KKS 951. 本歌 is a little bit hard to translate but when we look at the kanji it’s easier to understand : the origin-poem, the poem that was the source of inspiration for a new one. The honkadori［本歌取り］is a variation in the new poem that makes allusion to the ancient one. It’s a technique that is often used in the Shinkokinshû, and it really shows how implicit this poetry can be. As readers we are “supposed” to know it, just like we are supposed to know that the bridge of the magpies has a very high probability to be a reference to the Milky Way of the Tanabata legend, or that the dew can sometimes means the tears and that the autumn is sometimes more than just the autumn
I’ve also read that there were not only allusions to ancient poems but also honzetsu (I think it’s written 本説) which is an allusion to the ancient important stories and tales, like the 源氏物語.
So to be able to fully enjoy and understand the waka anthologies, ideally the goal is to be at the same level of literacy as all these aristocrats and other poets who all shared a common culture, a common “matrix” if I can say it like that, and who knew all the implicit codes and associations (autumn and the lonely deer, for example). Step by step, we will get there… 
I didn’t translate it but here is the honka if you want to look at it.
Kokin wakashû 951 – Unknown author.
世に古れば憂さこそ増され、み吉野の岩の架け道踏み均してむ
新古今集 0664 – 皇太后宮大夫俊成（藤原俊成）
雪の
Poem sent on a snowy morning, to the residence of the Go-Tokudaiji Minister of the Left
今日はもし君もや
Will you come
to see me today, I wonder –
looking at the snow
of my garden, where there are still
no footprints to be seen
I honestly know nothing at this point about all the different titles of the court ; it seems quite complicated from what I’ve seen, same thing for all the different clans and families and branches of these families. But here there are 2 parts :
皇太后宮大夫 [俊成] : こうたいごうぐうのだいぶ［しゅんぜい］; in L. R. Rodd’s book, the title part was translated as “Master of the Palace Quarters of the Empress Dowager”. I looked it up and from what I’ve seen,
– 皇太后［こうたいごう］is “Empress Dowager” ;
– one of the meanings of 宮［ぐう］is “palace/imperial residence” ;
– and finally 大夫［だいぶ］means something like “grand master”.
The part in brackets is part of the poet’s real name :
藤原俊成 : ふじわらのしゅんぜい
後徳大寺左大臣 : in one of the appendices of L. R. Rodd’s book, it was translated as “Latter Tokudaiji Minister of the Left”. I did a quick Internet research about “Tokudaiji” and it seems to me that this is a branch of the Fujiwara clan, something that seems confirmed by the real name of the poet (cf. the notes of the next waka).
So 後 is the “Latter” part, 徳大寺 is a proper noun, and 左大臣 is the title “Minister of the Left”. He was the “Latter” one because he was the grandson of Fujiwara no Saneyoshi whose title was 徳大寺左大臣.
In modern Japanese, 大臣 still has the meaning “minister” ; it’s interesting to see that 臣 (meaning something like “servant”) is a part of the kanij 姫 meaning “princess” (literally a woman with a servant). I’ve read somewhere that the more kanji we learn, the easier it becomes to memorize them, and I guess it’s really true ; just like for the kanji 儚 of the word 儚い meaning “ephemeral, fleeting”… like a dream.
もと : residence, house, home.
遣はしける : ren’yôkei of the yodan verb 遣はす［つかはす］(this is actually pronounced tsukawasu) which means “to send” something like a letter or someone like a messenger (it actually makes me curious about the exact way the poem was sent, and if it was written on colored paper according to the season) + rentaikei of the auxiliary keri.
Would you believe me if I said that these damn particles were the hardest part of the poem ? 
They are SO annoying, because I feel so often uncertain about them. Syntax and particles, those are the two hardest parts for me right now.
もし : if by chance, perhaps, in the case of.
君も : I think this mo just puts emphasis on kimi (you).
や : interrogative particle.
問ふ［とふ］: to visit.
と : I think it’s just a basic quotation particle, but the verb that should be (in theory) just after it is actually omitted. After と we can have verbs like 思ふ, and besides the usual “to think” meaning, one of the other meanings of that verb is “to hope/wish for”, which is probably the case here, instead of just a neutral “to think”. The poet hopes that the person to whom he sends this poem will come to visit him, but he doesn’t say it explicitly. That’s what is making the most sense to me, from what I’ve searched in my books and talked about with ChatGPT.
ながむれど［眺むれど］: izenkei of nagamu (to look at something in the distance, to gaze at, to stare at) + conjunctive particle do meaning “but”, “although”. Always interesting to remember that the second meaning of this verb is “to be lost in melancholic thoughts”.
まだ : still.
跡も［あとも］: from what I’ve read in Helen McCullough’s book, it’s probably the adverbial particle mo following a substantive here (trace, mark, footprint) and putting emphasis on it, just like for kimi. This nuance is not really included in my translation.
無き［なき］: rentaikei of the ku-adjective 無し (nonexistent).
新古今集 0665 – 後徳大寺左大臣（藤原実定）
Answer
今ぞ聞く心は跡も無かりけり雪かき
Today I learned
that the mind does not leave
any sign behind, despite
my thoughts being sent to you
through the falling snow
藤原実定 : ふじわらのさねさだ
今［いま］: literally “now” ; or just today, the present time.
聞く［きく］: when we see this word the first meaning that comes to mind is obviously “to hear” something like a sound, literally ; but it’s a little different here. When we look at the kobun dictionary, we see that there is this meaning : “聞いて、知る。伝え聞く。”. So basically, here the poet is “learning” that the mind/heart does not leave any trace, despite his thoughts being sent. There is this same meaning in modern Japanese, and in many other languages too.
心［こころ］: the heart or the mind, it’s just a translation choice to make.
跡も : I hesitated about the translation : footprints ? marks ? traces ? finally I chose the word “sign”, I thought the line was more smooth like that when I repeated it in my head. I strongly hesitated with “footprints” but then, I thought maybe it looks a little bit grotesque, to imagine a mind or a thought with legs and feet walking in the snow… 
I wanted to keep it a little bit abstract. And I think the mo is probably just here to put a light emphasis on the word before.
無かりけり : the ren’yôkei of 無し［なし］(nonexistent) with the kari conjugation of the ku-adjectives + I think it is again the auxiliary verb keri when the writer suddenly realises something, but here it is the shûshikei this time.
かき分けて［かきわけて］: I think the word with the full kanji is : 搔き分けて. If we divide it in two, we have first 搔き, which is a prefix that can be attached to verbs to strengthen/emphasize the meaning of it (if I understand correctly what is written here) + the ren’yôkei of the shimo-nidan 分く which can means basically “to make a way through something”, “to push what is blocking the way to advance” + I think て is just a conjunctive particle making a link with the rest of the poem.
やれども : izenkei of 遣る［やる］(to send) + conjunctive particle ども which means “but”, “though”, “despite”.
新古今集 0683 – 後鳥羽天皇
この
On these cold days
cherry blossoms and maple leaves
are nowhere to be seen –
so… could you stay ? just a little
on the pines, white snow
後鳥羽天皇 : ごとばてんのう ; 天皇 means “Emperor”.
頃［ごろ］: it just means the time, a period of time ; it can also means a season. From there it seems to me that this is just a translation choice, I could have written “on this (cold) season”.
も…も : these two particles are for emuneration.
暫し［しばし］: an adverb meaning “for a brief moment”, “for a short period”.
な消えそ［なきえそ］: it was a great feeling to recognise immediately this grammatical structure from a poem that I’ve already translated a long time ago. I will just do a copy-paste from what I’ve already written in this thread :
I’ve read in the book of Helen McCullough that the na…so is a form that basically expresses a negative imperative but not in the sense of a brutal order, more like in a sense of “please don’t do this”. Between na and so, the general rule says that there is the ren’yôkei of a verb. We have here the ren’yôkei of 消ゆ, “to disappear”.
Here is the honka of the poem.
Gosen wakashû 494 – Unknown author.
降る雪はきえでもしばしとまらなむ花も紅葉も枝になき頃
新古今集 0693 – 俊成卿女
It’s the end of the year –
the memories of the past
are moving away
from me, dark and imprecise
in the cold falling snow
俊成卿女 : しゅんぜいきょうのむすめ (Daughter of Shunzei)
隔てゆく < 隔つ［へだつ］+ 行く［ゆく］: I think that hedate is the ren’yôkei of the shimo-nidan へだつ which basically means “to separate”, “to isolate”, “to have a space between A and B” ; and I think yuku works here as an auxiliary, on the page of the kobun online dictionary it’s the part at the bottom I think : it seems to me that it is attached here to the ren’yôkei of the verb hedatsu to give a meaning of “だんだんと…する”. “Little by little… they are separating from me”. At least that’s how I understand it.
世々［よよ］: when we know that one of the meanings of this kanji is “generation”, it’s easier to understand. It basically means “several years”.
面影［おもかげ］: interesting word, it can means “image” (the face of someone or even a landscape) but also “illusion”. Here, with yoyo just before, it’s basically “the images/memories” (or illusions…? The memories never stay perfectly still in the human brain, they are mutable in a sense, which is exactly the theme of the waka) of the past.
かきくらし : ren’yôkei of the yodan verb 搔き暗す ; this is the same kaki prefix that we’ve seen in SKKS 665. From what I’ve understood here, the verb basically means “to get dark (in a literal or emotional sense)” and “to be overcome with sadness”.
と : with (the snow).
ふりぬる : ren’yôkei of furu (to fall [for the snow]) + rentaikei of the auxiliary verb nu indicating the completion of the action. It’s a kakekotoba : 降りぬる and 旧りぬる/古りぬる (for the year that passed).
新古今集 0824 – 大江匡衡
These memories
of you and me, I spent all night
remembering them
Did we really speak ? was it real,
that world ? or just a dream
大江匡衡 : おうえのまさひら
This poem was written after the death of Emperor Ichijô ; the author was apparently close to him, he saw him for a brief moment in a dream, and was inspired to write this waka. This one and SKKS 693 are some of my favorites, I really love in general all the poems with that sad nostalgia feeling, and the dreamlike aspect of life, how fleeting and mutable the “reality” is, and how similar it is to the world of dreams. Sometimes the past seems so far away and different from today that it really do feels like a dream, like a friendship that seemed so strong back in the day, but is now completely gone.
This waka is not in the Winter book ; it’s in the book 8, “Laments”. But it is similar to SKKS 693 and I thought it would be interesting to put it here. And winter is also associated in a way to this idea of mortality anyways.
夜もすがら : all night long.
見つる : ren’yôkei of miru (to see/look at something/someone, here I guess we could say it’s the meaning “I was looking/thinking in my mind about all the memories/things of the past”) + rentaikei of the auxiliary verb tsu (completion of the action).
や…や : interrogative particles.
うつつ [現] : reality.
ありし : I think it is the ren’yôkei of ari (to be, to exist) + the rentaikei of the auxiliary ki for personal past. Since it is the rentaikei, we know that it applies to a noun ; I think it applies to 世. It seems the most logical to me. The syntax of the two last lines is confusing, it’s something I feel very often with waka… Sometimes there are some lines that look a little bit to me like puzzle pieces that I managed to assemble together in an image I can understand, but the pieces don’t click at 100% with absolute certainty. If I do a really basic word-by-word model the two last lines looked to me like this :
語る – や – うつつ – ありし世 – や – 夢
speak – ? – reality – world that I experienced in my past – ? – dream (– ?)
verb – ? – noun – verb applied to a noun – ? – noun (– ?)
After talking about it with ChatGPT, he suggested me that utsutsu could also be linked to kataru ya ; if I understood what he said to me, the basic model I’ve made would probably look like this :
語る – や <– うつつ –> ありし世 – や – 夢
It seems plausible to me (but it has nothing to do with the word “really” I used before “speak”, that was just a personal translation choice).
- The ice lake entered a dream – Raymond -hanhao
- 下雪 – . JuanLiu
- Garden of snow – do〜ra *
- 雪 – XILMO xxxl
- Snowy Forest – Gavryl Tampil
I think it might be the longest post since I’ve started this thread. My Wordpad file is something like 10 pages. Difficult translations and analysis, took me several days of work but I’m happy with the final result.
You have maybe noticed that I didn’t put any full stop at the end of the translations ; this is voluntary, I took inspiration from the way L. R. Rodd translates, she uses zero punctuation mark and zero capital letter either. There is still punctuation in my translations, but I like how it sounds when I read it in my head with no full stop at the end.
I’ve also decided finally to change a little bit the structure of the usual posts ; mitrac if you’re reading this, since you have appreciated having the notes in the tabs just under the poems in my precedent one I think that the reading comfort is quite optimized now, with this + the furigana.
There are many other poems that I could have chosen, I really love the Winter book of the Shinkokinshû. Aside from that feeling of impermanence, loneliness, nostalgia and sadness, one of the reasons for it is obviously the snow ; winter wouldn’t be winter without it. The epithets to describe snow are the same that I would apply to Japanese poetry : beautiful and sad, melancholic and elegant (but snow also has a joyful, innocent child-like feeling of course).
If you are like me and that you don’t have right now the luck to enjoy the snowy forests and mountains, there are cool ambient videos that you can listen and watch to have at least some semblance of it.
Like always please take my notes with a grain of salt, I do them alone with mostly my books and sometimes online researches and discussions with ChatGPT, mistakes are possible even though I’m doing my best. Writing these posts is also a learning exercice for me, but I am not in a university where I could ask an expert like Haruo Shirane when I have a doubt about something.
Talking about AI, once I have published this I will update the first post of the thread with two interesting GPT that I have found. Of course we all know that AI can be wrong and that we should always be careful with the things it says, but I think that it’s still an interesting tool when you want to discuss about something that you have a hard time to understand.
I will take a break from all this translation stuff for a few months I think, my next post will be probably in April with the cherry blossoms but I can’t say for sure. I really really enjoy this, but I feel like sometimes I do my translation work as a way to procrastinate but to still feel productive in some way. I have a lot of things to fix, health, personal life, all kind of stuff. I am in a lot of confusion right now. But of course this thread is still open to anyone wishing to share Japanese poetry.
By the way this thread is now 1+ year old ! How far it has come since the first post, I learned so much, and it makes me really happy to share all of this here. I will never stop being in awe of the elegance and beauty of this culture
With all that said… I hope anyone reading this will be enjoying the last weeks of the year ; the snow for the luckiest, and the overall atmosphere of the holiday season 
