臙脂紫
Today’s themes are love and sensuality. This post will be a very long one, it took me a lot of time but I was enthusiastic about these poems. All, except one, from a book that I haven’t talked about yet : Midaregami, a collection of 399 waka written by Yosano Akiko, published in 1901. Knowing the year is important to understand why this book had such a huge impact : the poetess talks about love, sex and the feminine body in a way that was quite unique at that time.
We find that image of the tangled hair throughout the whole compilation, those rebellious, beautiful, long black hair flowing on a young body. The metaphor of spring is also used a lot, from what I’ve understood it’s basically an image for youth, beauty, and sexuality. The colors are also important, like the one used for the name of the first chapter of the book : enji murasaki, a kind of red-purple which symbolizes passionate love. The other recurrent images are also beautiful, like the blood, the rainbow and the hot spring cure.
There are obviously a lot of other things to say about that book, this post has no intention to be exhaustive ; I just want to give some basic informations before diving into the poems. I think that the 6 waka that I’ve chosen are quite representative, they are some of my favorites.
It was difficult to select the music for this post but I finally decided to choose this one. Some people might not like it but I really love lo-fi. It’s a short track so if you like it and don’t want it to stop while reading, you can do a right-click on the video and select the loop option.
I also uploaded more paintings than usual because it’s one of my favorite artists and her paintings are not only gorgeous, but also perfectly synced with today’s themes. I put more links in the Notes section at the end.
I hope you will enjoy all these 和歌 as much as I enjoyed translating them.
古今集 0553 - 小野小町［おののこまち］
うたた寝に恋しき人を見てしより夢てふ物は頼み初めてき
Since I’ve met
the person I love so much
in my sleep – it’s now
on those things, named dreams,
that I’ve started to rely on.
みだれ髪 321 - 与謝野晶子 ［よさのあきこ］
春みじかし何に不滅の命ぞとちからある乳を手にさぐらせぬ
How ephemeral
springtime is ! but, in this life,
what is eternal anyways ?
I thought while allowing his hands
on my round, soft breasts
みだれ髪 260
くろ髪の千すぢの髪のみだれ髪かつおもひみだれおもひみだるる
My dark hair are
drawing lines, all confused all
disheveled – just like
my thoughts ; tangled mind
tangled hair, confused thoughts…
みだれ髪 039
湯浴みする泉の底の小百合花二十の夏をうつくしと見ぬ
As I take a bath
in the hot spring sources with
the lily flowers,
I contemplate its beauty –
my twenty years old summer.
みだれ髪 026
柔肌の熱き血潮に触れもみで寂しからずや道を説く君
My soft skin under which
is flowing a young, hot blood –
you never touched it,
didn’t you ? don’t you feel alone,
you who is teaching the Way ?
みだれ髪 006
その子二十櫛にながるる黒髪のおごりの春のうつくしきかな
Flowing under
the comb – the dark hair of a
twenty years old child
Ah, how arrogant
and beautiful youth is !
みだれ髪 077
湯浴みして泉を出でし柔肌に触るるはつらき人の世のきぬ
Leaving the comfort
of my bath, of the water –
they are painful on
my soft skin, these human clothes
that I need to wear again…
Source : all of these paintings come from the same artist, Miho Hirano. Here is a link towards her official website. There is also this article from a website that I knew for quite a long time (it’s useful for discovering new artists) and who provides here some interesting paragraphs for a better understanding of the paintings, and, indirectly, of the Midaregami poems. I strongly advice to read it because it’s really interesting and there is not a lot of text anyways.
Notes
As I’m looking back on my translating process I feel very happy with the progress I’ve made. Of course I’m still dependent on my grammar/vocabulary books and online dictionaries for a lot of things, but I’ve come a very long way since I started my learning journey. When I first discovered japanese poetry, which closely coincides with the moment I’ve started learning japanese, these waka could have been written in Egyptian hieroglyphs that it would have been the same, I literally had zero clue of what all of this meant. Now things are starting to make sense, and the more I translate the more I naturally memorize things, like ideshi that I’ve already seen in the poem of Abe no Nakamaro, koishiki being a rentaikei, the emphatic particle zo or the interrogative ya, for example.
Anyways, let’s jump into the vocabulary and grammar notes.
古今集 0553
読み方 : うたたねに / こいしきひとを / みてしより / ゆめちょうものわ / たのみそめてき
Another beautiful waka by Ono no Komachi ; this idea that love can be more satisfied in the world of dreams than in reality can be read in several other poems, in the Love books of the Kokinshû.
うたた寝 : doze, nap, a kind of light sleep ; I didn’t really express that nuance in my translation because I preferred writing “in my sleep” instead of “in my nap” or something else like that.
恋しき : rentaikei of the shiku-adjective 恋し : loved, missed, yearned for.
見てし : ren’yôkei of miru + ren’yôkei of the auxiliary verb tsu indicating the completion/realization of the action + rentaikei of the auxiliary verb ki for personal past.
より : since.
てふ : be careful of the historical kana system → you don’t read this as てふ but as ちょう. It’s a compound word ; the equivalent in modern japanese is と言う.
頼み初めてき : ren’yôkei of tanomu (to rely on) + ren’yôkei of somu (to start, to begin) + ren’yôkei of the auxiliary verb tsu + shûshikei of the auxiliary verb ki.
It is clearly implied that the poetess is talking about dreams in opposition of the real world, which is not as satisfying as the oniric one. In her translation, Helen McCullough explicitly wrote “dreams, not real life” ; I like the way she wrote it but I also like keeping it implicit.
Since the word ひと can means both a man or a woman, I simply chose to formulate things in a way that only the word “person” would appear in the translation. I know very few things about her life so I don’t know if there is a probability that she was talking about a woman, but anyways ; in doubt it seemed better to write it like that.
In my translation, I was not sure if the correct way to write was “it’s now those things, named dreams, that I’ve started to rely on” or “it’s now on those things, named dreams, that I’ve started to rely on”. But it seemed to me that the repetition of “on” sounded a little weird. To verify it I found a very useful tool, QuillBot, it’s basically a “Grammar Checker”, it’s free and you don’t have to create an account to use it. It seems pretty good, I hope the bot was right when he adviced me to delete the first “on” 
みだれ髪 321
読み方 : はるみじかし / なににふめつの / いのちぞと / ちからあるちお / てにさぐらせぬ
みじかし : short, temporary, ephemeral.
不滅 (ふめつ) : immortal.
と : that part is more tricky. In some of the other translations that I’ve read, there were always something like “I’ve said to him”, and I was wondering first where is the verb “to say”. But then I remembered that the writer can ommit that verb after the particle “to”. So here that と, just after the emphatic ぞ, is a quotation particle if I’m not mistaken, and we can’t be sure that the poetess thought or said out loud the 3 first lines to her lover (and here we are sure that it is a man since she was married with Yosano Tekkan).
ちからある乳 : “powerful breasts”, but writing it like that didn’t really sounded right to me, just like “vigorous breasts” ; it took me a little time before finally deciding to write “round, soft breasts”.
I really loved that other translation that I’ve read where it was written “young full breasts”, I never thought of the word “full” but it’s a very clever way to describe them, along with “young”. This waka made me realize how difficult it is to describe breasts in an erotic way without making it sounds vulgar or ridiculous 
But I’m happy with the words I’ve chosen.
さぐらせぬ : again a difficult part, but I think that sagura is the mizenkei of saguru which can be broadly defined by “to touch, to explore with the fingers”, that se is the ren’yôkei of su which is a causative auxiliary verb meaning here “to allow”, and that nu is the shûshikei of the auxiliary verb nu indicating the completion of the action.
When I first translated it, I wrote in the third line “is there anything eternal ?”. But then I realised that there was maybe a nuance that wasn’t exprimed here. When she says in the beginning “spring is short” and then “what is eternal in life ?” just before the sex scene, I understood it as “ah, spring is short (just like the beauty of the young body) BUT, anyways, what is eternal in life ? nothing, so it’s better to try to just enjoy the moment, the fleeting beauty, without spending too much time lamenting the passing of things”. So I rewrote my translation with “what is eternal anyways ?”.
I voluntarily didn’t put a full stop at the end, because when I was reading it in my head I didn’t like how it sounded with.
みだれ髪 260
読み方 : くろかみの / ちすじのかみの / みだれがみかつ / おもいみだれ / おもいみだるる
千すぢ (千筋 : ちすじ) : in the context of the poem it’s basically meaning “a large number of lines (hair)”.
みだれ髪 : this poem is playing on the sounds, with the repetitions of 乱れる (to be disheveled, disarranged, disordered) along with omohi. It creates an alliteration.
かつ : while. It’s basically an adverb indicating that two things are happening in the same time.
おもひ : thoughts. In some translations, it was written as “love thoughts” ; I hesitated a little before deciding to just keep it like that.
みだれ髪 039
読み方 : ゆあみする / いずみのそこの / さゆりばな / はたちのなつを / うつくしとみぬ
湯浴み - する (ゆあみ - する) : to bath in the hot spring cure, to take a bath.
泉の底 (いずみのそこ) : the bottom of the source. I didn’t include the 底 in the translation because I didn’t have enough syllables and it didn’t seemed important anyways.
小百合花 (さゆりばな ) : lilies.
二十 (はたち) : twenty years old. That part, with natsu, was a little difficult, I thought writing “my twenty years old body” at the last line but finally I prefer keeping it implicit.
見ぬ : ren’yôkei of miru + shûshikei of the auxiliary verb nu.
みだれ髪 026
読み方 : やわはだの / あつきちしおに / ふれもみで / さびしからずや / みちをとくきみ
柔肌 (やわはだ) : soft skin.
熱き (あつき) : rentaikei of atsui, hot.
血潮 (ちしお) : hot blood.
触れもみで (ふれもみで) : ren’yôkei of fureru (to touch) + binding particle mo + ren’yôkei of the auxiliary verb miru which meaning here is “to try, to experience” + negative particle de.
寂しからず - や (さびしからずや) : mizenkei of the shiku-adjective sabishi (alone, lonely) + negative zu + interrogative ya.
道を説く君 (みちをとくきみ) : you who is teaching (or preaching) the Buddhist Way.
みだれ髪 006
読み方 : そのこはたち / くしにながるる / くろかみの / おごりのはるの / うつくしきかな
櫛 (くし) : a comb.
流るる (ながるる) : rentaikei of nagaru : to flow.
おごり : arrogance, but it can also means extravagance/luxury.
The absence of full stop at the third line is voluntary.
I just love how nagaruru rolls on the tongue, the sound really gives that idea of flowing like water.
みだれ髪 077
読み方 : ゆあみして / いずみをいでし / やわはだに / ふるるわつらき / ひとのよのきぬ
して : the most logical to me is that, here, して is a conjunctive particle linking yuami with izumi.
出でし (いでし) : I think it’s the same that for the KKS 406, so I will just copy-paste what I already wrote for it : いで comes from the verb いづ (to come out, to go out) ; し is the rentaikei of the auxiliary verb ki for personal past.
触るる (ふるる) : rentaikei of the shimo-nidan verb furu : to touch, to come into contact with something.
つらき : I think it comes from 辛い, which basically means painful/cold/harsh.
人の世のきぬ (ひとのよのきぬ) : the clothes/dress/robes of the human world/the world of the humans.
The word “comfort” doesn’t actually exist in the poem. The fifth line neither, I just took some freedom in the translation since I needed a 5th line and that it was clearly implied anyway.
Like always please correct me if I made any mistake. My brain is really tired right now
The more I read 和歌 and 俳句, the more I feel like it’s difficult for me to come back to the other forms of poetry. An excellent short poem is like an arrow hitting a petal or a leaf falling in the air, or a sword cutting it in half ; when you get used to that feeling, I feel like it’s hard to come back to longer ones. But I still like the poems who are in “free verse”, like some written by Lenore Kandel, a writer from the Beat Generation that is quite unknown but wrote a lot of love poems which, by the way, are much, much more explicit that the ones in Midaregami, like really. It’s a different style, I also love the fact that everything is quite subtle, elegant and implicit in the waka of Yosano Akiko.
If you want to expand your reading about Tangled Hair, I found this 93-pages thesis that looks very interesting and is basically free, in open-access.
What a long post it was, I think it might be the longer since I’ve started this thread. I’m quite proud of it actually ! I know I said in the precedent post that I wouldn’t have the time to make another one because of the work I have to do but I actually procrastined I really need to get back to it, the next post will be in autumn I think.