Shikishimano hauminishite hiroishitamawa migakarenikeri

English Translation

Of Shikishima
the leaves became a sea,
and from that water
the jewels that were gathered up
have all been polished bright

Meaning

The leaves of Shikishima became a sea, and the jewels gathered from it have been polished to a shine.

Commentary

Book One: Odoro no Shita

Go-Toba, the eighty-second sovereign, was the fourth son of Takakura. After the Taira fled west with the child emperor Antoku, the Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa summoned his grandsons to look at them; the third prince wept and would not go near him, but the fourth prince climbed at once onto his knee and seemed fond of him, so the Cloistered Emperor exclaimed that here was a true grandson, and in the eighth month of Juei 2 set him on the throne at the age of four. The sacred sword had gone down into the sea with the former emperor, so that for the first time an accession took place without the three regalia. After the Cloistered Emperor's death Go-Toba ruled in his own right; the realm was at peace and the way of poetry flourished. In Kenkyu 9, at nineteen, he abdicated to Tsuchimikado and began his cloistered rule, building a villa at Minase where he spent himself on the pleasures of the seasons. He held the poetry contest in fifteen hundred rounds, established the Bureau of Poetry, had the Shinkokinshu compiled, and held its celebratory banquet in Genkyu 2. In Jogen 4 he set Tsuchimikado aside and raised Juntoku to the throne, and Juntoku too gave himself to poetry. At Minase the retired emperor played go and small archery, explained the old precedent of the stakes, and had a guardsman prepare the dish described by Murasaki Shikibu—in everything he showed the range of his gifts. At the selected poetry contest of Kempo 2, Fujiwara no Hideyoshi of the Northern Guard was called on for nine poems; the Yoshimizu bishop Jien offered the retired emperor a long poem, and Teika wrote a long poem in reply on the spot. The new retired emperor Tsuchimikado composed a hundred poems privately, showed them to Ietaka and Teika, and exchanged poems with Teika.
Go-Toba's personal name was Takahira; he was the fourth son of Takakura, and his mother was Shichijoin, daughter of Nobutaka, Master of the Office of Palace Repairs. Tsuchimikado's personal name was Tamehito, and his mother was Shomeimon'in, daughter of the priest Noen and adopted daughter of the Inner Minister Michichika. Juntoku's personal name was Morinari, and his mother was Shumeimon'in. The regent Kujo Yoshitsune was called a saint of poetry, and the compilers of the Shinkokinshu were Michitomo, Ariie, Teika, Ietaka and Masatsune. The Middle Counselor Kanemitsu, Fujiwara no Kanemitsu, and the Middle Counselor Sukezane, Fujiwara no Sukezane, were each called on for screen poems at an accession thanksgiving. Kunaikyo was descended from Emperor Murakami through the Minister of the Left Toshifusa, and was the daughter of a man who died holding only the fourth rank. Fujiwara no Hideyoshi served in the retired emperor's Northern Guard, and the Yoshimizu bishop Jien was a poet-monk who long held the office of Tendai abbot.
The collection then compiled is called the Shinkokinshu. On the twenty-sixth day of the third month of Genkyu 2 the celebratory banquet was held at the Kasuga hall, and it was much talked of in the world.
After the retired emperor's poem recalling the days of the Kokinshu, the regent Lord Yoshitsune composed this. In the text used here the poem has come down with a phrase missing.
Other poems followed one after another, but the narrator passes over them as too tedious to record, and moves on to the events of Jogen 2.

The first word is a pillow word leading to Yamato and by extension standing for Japanese poetry itself. The leaves that follow are leaves of words, that is poems, and calling them a sea likens the breadth of the gathered verse to the ocean. The gathered jewels are both stones picked up on a shore and the fine poems chosen for the collection, and the jewel belongs to the imagery of the sea. At the close the auxiliary of completion and the exclamatory particle together marvel that what was picked up has been polished. In a single unbroken figure of sea and jewel the poem states the actual work of the Shinkokinshu: the compilers chose, and the retired emperor himself refined and ordered what they chose. Where the imperial poem before it, "Isonokami furukioimani narabekoshi mukashinoatoo matatazunetsutsu", gives the occasion of the compiling, this one praises the quality of what was compiled, and the two make a pair sung at the banquet.

Author

Fujiwara no Yoshitsune

Source

Masukagami

Other