waga koi wa
mono ya omou to
hito no tou made
41
Koi su chō
waga na wa madaki
tachinikeri
hito shirezu koso
omoisomeshika
42
Chigirikina
katami ni sode o
shiboritsutsu
Sue-no-matsuyama
nami kosaji to wa
43
Aimite no
nochi no kokoro ni
kurabureba
mukashi wa mono o
omowazarikeri
44
Au koto no
taete shi naku wa
nakanakani
hito o mo mi o mo
uramizaramashi
45
Aware to mo
iubeki hito wa
omōede
mi no itazurani
narinubeki kana
46
Yura no to o
wataru funabito
kaji o tae
yukue mo shiranu
koi no michi kana
47
Yaemugura
shigereru yado no
sabishiki ni
hito koso miene
aki wa kinikeri
48
Kaze o itami
iwa utsu nami no
onore nomi
kudakete mono o
omou koro kana
49
Mikakimori
eji no taku hi no
yoru wa moe
hiru wa kietsutsu
mono o koso omoe
50
Kimi ga tame
oshikarazarishi
inochi sae
nagaku mogana to
omoikeru kana
51
Kaku to dani
e yawa Ibuki no
sashimogusa
sashimo shiraji na
moyuru omoi o
52
Akenureba
kururu mono to wa
shirinagara
nao urameshiki
asaborake kana
53
Nagekitsutsu
hitori nuru yo no
akuru ma wa
ikani hisashiki
mono to ka wa shiru
54
Wasureji no
yukusue made wa
katakereba
kyō o kagiri no
inochi to mogana
55
Taki no oto wa
taete hisashiku
narinuredo
na koso nagarete
nao kikoekere
56
Arazaran
kono yo no hoka no
omoiide ni
ima hitotabi no
au koto mogana
57
Meguri-aite
mishi ya sore tomo
wakanu ma ni
kumogakurenishi
yowa no tsuki kana
58
Arimayama
Ina no sasahara
kaze fukeba
ide soyo hito o
wasure ya wa suru
59
Yasurawade
nenamashi mono o
sayo fukete
katabuku made no
tsuki o mishi kana
60
Ōeyama
Ikuno no michi no
tōkereba
mada fumi mo mizu
Ama no Hashidate
61
Inishie no
Nara no miyako no
yaezakura
kyō kokonoe ni
nioinuru kana
62
Yo o komete
tori no sorane wa
hakaru tomo
yo ni Ōsaka no
seki wa yurusaji
63
Ima wa tada
omoitaenan
to bakari o
hitozute narade
iu yoshi mogana
64
Asaborake
Uji no kawagiri
taedaeni
arawarewataru
se-ze no ajirogi
65
Uramiwabi
hosanu sode dani
aru mono o
koi ni kuchinan
na koso oshikere
66
Morotomoni
aware to omoe
yamazakura
hana yori hoka ni
shiru hito mo nashi
67
Haru no yo no
yume bakari naru
tamakura ni
kainaku tatan
na koso oshikere
68
Kokoro ni mo
arade ukiyo ni
nagaraeba
koishikarubeki
yowa no tsuki kana
69
Arashi fuku
Mimuro no yama no
momijiba wa
Tatsuta no kawa no
nishiki narikeri
70
Sabishisa ni
yado o tachiidete
nagamureba
izuko mo onaji
aki no yuugure
71
Yū sareba
kadota no inaba
otozurete
ashi no maroya ni
akikaze zo fuku
72
Oto ni kiku
Takashi no hama no
adanami wa
kakeji ya sode no
nure mokoso sure
73
Takasago no
onoe no sakura
sakinikeri
toyama no kasumi
tatazu mo aranan
74
Ukarikeru
hito o Hatsuse no
yamaoroshi
hageshikare to wa
inoranu mono-o
75
Chigiri-okishi
sasemo ga tsuyu o
inochi nite
aki mo inumeri
76
Wata no hara
kogiidete mireba
hisakata no
kumoi ni magau
oki tsu shiranami
77
Se o hayami
iwa ni sekaruru
takigawa no
warete mo sue ni
awan to zo omou
78
Awaji shima
kayou chidori no
naku koe ni
iku yo nezamenu
Suma no sekimori
79
Akikaze ni
tanabiku kumo no
taema yori
more-izuru tsuki no
kage no sayakesa
80
Nagakaran
kokoro mo shirazu
kurokami no
midarete kesa wa
mono o koso omoe
81
Hototogisu
nakitsuru kata o
nagamureba
tada ariake no
tsuki zo nokoreru
82
Omoiwabi
sate mo inochi wa
aru mono-o
uki ni taenu wa
namida nari keri
83
Yo no naka yo
michi koso nakere
omoiiru
yama no oku ni mo
shika zo nakunaru
84
Nagaraeba
mata kono goro ya
shinobaren
ushi to mishi yo zo
ima wa koishiki
85
Yomosugara
monoomou koro wa
akeyarade
neya no hima sae
tsurenakarikeri
86
Nageke tote
tsuki ya wa mono o
omowasuru
kakochigao naru
waga namida kana
87
Murasame no
tsuyu mo mada hinu
maki no ha ni
kiri t
achinoboru
aki no yūgure
88
Naniwa-e no
ashi no karine no
hitoyo yue
miotsukushite ya
koiwatarubeki
89
Tama no o yo
taenaba taene
nagaraeba
shinoburu koto no
yowari mo zo suru
90
Misebayana
Ojima no ama no
sode dani mo
nure ni zo nureshi
iro wa kawarazu
91
Kirigirisu
naku ya shimoyo no
samushiro ni
koromo katashiki
hitori ka mo nen
92
Waga sode wa
shiohi ni mienu
oki no ishi no
hito koso shirane
kawaku ma mo nashi
93
tsune ni mogamo na
nagisa kogu
ama no obune no
tsunade kanashi mo
94
Miyoshino no
yama no akikaze
sayo fukete
furusato samuku
koromo utsunari
95
Ōkenaku
uki yo no tami ni
ōu kana
waga tatsu soma ni
sumizome no sode
96
Hana sasou
arashi no niwa no
yuki narade
furiyuku mono wa
waga mi narikeri
97
Konu hito o
Matsuho no ura no
yūnagi ni
yaku ya moshio no
mi mo kogaretsutsu
98
Kaze soyogu
Nara no ogawa no
yūgure wa
misogi zo natsu no
shirushi narikeru
99
Hito mo oshi
hito mo urameshi
ajikinaku
yo o omou yue ni
mono-omou mi wa
100
Momoshiki ya
furuki noki-ba no
shinobu ni mo
nao amari aru
mukashi narikeri
Maps
1. Famous Locations (Utamakura) in the One Hundred Poets: Heiankyo (Kyoto) and Environs
2. Famous Locations (Utamakura) in the One Hundred Poets: Regions Beyond Heiankyo (Kyoto)
Further Reading
Under ‘Works in Japanese’, names appear in the Japanese order of family name followed by personal name.
Works in English
Atkins, Paul S., Teika: The Life and Works of a Medieval Japanese Poet (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2017)
Bly, Robert, The Eight Stages of Translation (Boston, MA: Rowan Tree Press, 1986)
Bundy, Roselee, ‘Solo Poetry Contest as Poetic Self-Portrait: The One-Hundred-Round Contest of Lord Teika’s Own Poems’: part 1, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 61, no. 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 1–58; part 2, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 61, no. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 131–92
Cranston, Edwin A. (trans.), A Waka Anthology, vol. 2: Grasses of Remembrance, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006)
Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara Teika’s ‘Superior Poems of Our Time’: A Thirteenth-Century Poetic Treatise and Sequence, trans. Robert H. Brower and Earl Miner (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967)
——, Maigetsushō, trans. Toshihiko and Toyo Izutsu, in their The Theory of Beauty in the Classical Aesthetics of Japan (The Hague, Boston and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), pp. 79–96
Kato, Eileen (trans.), ‘Pilgrimage to Dazaifu: Sōgi’s Tsukushi no Michi no Ki’, Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 34, no. 3 (Autumn 1979), pp. 333–67
Keene, Donald, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1977)
——, The Pleasures of Japanese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)
——, Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century (New York: Henry Holt, 1993)
Kenko, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō, trans. Donald Keene (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967)
Konishi Jin’ichi, A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 3: The High Middle Ages, trans. Aileen Gatten and Mark Harbison (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 214–16
MacMillan, Peter (trans. and ed.), The Tales of Ise (London: Penguin Books, 2016)
McCullough, Helen Craig, Brocade by Night: ‘Kokin Wakashū’ and the Court Style in Japanese Classical Poetry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985)
——(trans. and ed.), Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry: With ‘Tosa Nikki’ and ‘Shinsen Waka’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985)
Miner, Earl, An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968)
——, Hiroko Odagiri and Robert E. Morrell, The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958)
Mostow, Joshua, Pictures of the Heart (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1996)
Rexroth, Kenneth, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (New York: New Directions, 1964)
Works in Japanese
Ariyoshi Tamotsu, Hyakunin isshu (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1983)
Harashima Hiroshi, Hyakunin isshu konjaku sanpo (Tokyo: Chukei Shuppan, 2012)
Inoue Muneo, Hyakunin isshu o tanoshiku yomu (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2002)
——, Hyakunin isshu: Ōchō waka kara chūsei sekai e (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2004)
Katagiri Yōichi, Utamakura utakotoba jiten (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 1999)
Kubota Jun and Baba Akiko (eds), Utakotoba utamakura daijiten (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1999)
Nakanishi Susumu, Nakanishi Susumu to aruku Hyakunin isshu no Kyoto (Kyoto: Kyoto Shinbun, 2007)
Oka Makoto, Hyakunin isshu (Tokyo: Sekai Bunkasha, 2005)
Shimaoka Shin, Hyakunin isshu o aruku (Tokyo: Kōfūsha, 1995)
Shimazu Tadao, Hyakunin isshu, 2nd edn (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1999)
——and Kamijo Shoji (eds), Hyakunin isshu kochū shō (Osaka: Izumi Shoin, 1982)
Shirasu Masako, Watashi no Hyakunin isshu (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2005)
Shogaku Tosho Gengo Kenkyujo (eds), Hyakunin isshu no techō: Kōrin karuta de yomu Hyakunin isshu (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1984)
Suzuki Hideo, Yamaguchi Shin’ichi and Yoda Yasushi, Genshoku Ogura hyakunin isshu (Tokyo: Bun’eidō, 2004)
Tani Tomoko, Karā-ban Hyakunin isshu (Tokyo: Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan, 2013)
Glossary
chōka: A poem of variable length made up of alternating lines of five and seven syllables and ending with a couplet of two seven-syllable lines.
engo (associative words): Clusters of semantically related words may be embedded within a poem and highlighted through punning or another rhetorical device to give supplementary meanings and as a show of verbal artistry intended to surprise and delight the reader. One example is poem 19, where the word yo – both a ‘node’ on a bamboo stalk or reed and ‘life’, ‘the world’ – is an associative word for ashi (reed). Another example can be found in poem 27, where wakite (to spring) is an associative word for izumi (spring). Such words assist in creating complex layers of meaning in a poem, fusing the external landscape and internal state of mind into one. In a similar vein, editors of poetry collections (kashū) would arrange poems in sequences so that they resonated lexically in some way, creating unified clusters of poems that were originally discrete. We can find such examples in the One Hundred Poets – see the Introduction, here.
Gosenshū (Gosen wakashū; Later Collection of Waka Poems): Usually shortened to Gosenshū, this collection, compiled in 951, is the second of the imperially commissioned waka anthologies. Compared to the Kokinshū, it features more poems by women and a much larger number of poetry ex
changes (zōtōka). The prose headnotes (kotobagaki) are much longer and more elaborate, reflecting the literary preferences of the age.
Goshūishū (Goshūi wakashū; Later Collection of Waka Gleanings): An imperial waka anthology compiled in 1086 by Fujiwara no Michitoshi (1047–99), who also wrote the preface to it.
haiku: Formally, a short poem consisting of seventeen syllables, 5-7-5; see the Introduction, here.
jokotoba (preface): The initial segment of a poem serving as a ‘preface’ to a word introduced later in the poem, to which it is linked via homophony or metaphor. When the first two or three lines of a poem provide an ornamental opening often focusing on aspects of the landscape the poem is said to be a preface-poem (joka) and the first two lines are called a ‘preface’ (jokotoba). Typically, the initial segment is linked to what follows via sound repetition or metaphor. Poem 39 is an example. When the preface is unrelated semantically to the content of the main part of the poem, it gives rise to two distinct layers of meaning within the same short poem. A textbook example appears in the third poem of Episode 23 of The Tales of Ise:
As the wild winds blow
and the white waves rise,
I think of you
crossing Mount Tatsuta
all alone by night.
(Kaze fukeba / oki tsu shiranami / Tatsuta-yama / yowa ni ya kimi ga / hitori koyuran)
The first two lines, ‘As the wild winds blow / and the white waves rise’, serve as a preface for tatsu (to rise), which is also the first part of the word of ‘Tatsuta’ as it appears in Tatsuta-yama or Mount Tatsuta.
kakekotoba (literary pun): Variously defined in dictionaries of classical Japanese poetry, this term is most commonly taken to mean a form of punning, but whereas a straightforward pun – equivalent to the word dajare in modern Japanese – might be viewed as light-hearted and comical and a rather low-grade form of verbal play, the kakekotoba in classical Japanese poetry was used to display the highest level of verbal and poetic artistry. That said, there are cases where the punning can be quite humorous, light or even mildly bawdy.
The device does function primarily as a pun, but one that may operate on many levels. Though sometimes the pun can be conveyed by a single word, in many cases it can apply to several lines, so that a string of words or phrases may be punned together. Thus it is possible for several lines of a waka poem to give two completely different readings, one that provides the basic message of the poet and the other a form of highly refined verbal decoration often depicting a visual image. This second reading might be related to the main message or it might be a separate pun, or series of puns, with a purely decorative function. The intention was to create a multi-layered effect of great complexity in order to convey the depth of the poet’s emotion in a refined and artistic manner. The Japanese language has many homophones and similar-sounding words, which makes such complicated punning possible – wordplay of a kind that would be extremely difficult to simulate in English – and Heian poets deployed the kakekotoba to full effect in their verse. A classic example is poem 16, with the pun matsu (to wait for someone) and matsu (pine tree), which, as it happens, is also one of the rare puns that happens to work perfectly in English.