Kokinshu Commentary -- 9

Kokinshu Commentary -- 9

Book 1 Spring 1

9. Ki no Tsurayuki -- On a snowfall

When snow comes in spring –
Fair season of layered haze
And burgeoning buds –
Flowers fall in villages
Where flowers have yet to bloom

The link to the previous Tanka, number 8, is the snow. In Tanka 8 snow functions both as a seasonal marker for late spring and as a metaphor, through the technique of elegant confusion, to indicate the aging of the poet and the appearance of white, or snow, in his hair.

The technique of elegant confusion continues as the central device in Tanka 9. The ‘confusion’ is the mistaking of falling clumps of snow for falling blossoms when only buds have begun to appear. So Tanka 8 and 9 are linked by the central image of snow and also linked by how that image is used; to create a deliberate sense of ambiguity.

In addition the central ambiguity, or confusion, has to do with time. In Tanka 8 the snow in the hair indicates aging and the passing of time, as opposed to the seasonal now of snow falling in early spring. In Tanka 9 the confusion is between very early spring, when only buds have appeared, and late spring, when blossoms have fallen. Read together the two Tanka have a dream like quality to them:

Rare is the fortune
Of one who basks in the sun
On this springtime day,
Yet how can I not lament
That snow should whiten my head?

When snow comes in spring –
Fair season of layered haze
And burgeoning buds –
Flowers fall in villages
Where flowers have yet to bloom

This is the second Tanka by Ki no Tsurayku who was the main editor and compiler of the Kokinshu. There have been three by ‘Anonymous’; all other poets thus far have one each.

This Tanka was written to a topic: On a snowfall. We do not know what the circumstances were for the assigned topic, but it is likely that it was a public event and that Tsurayuki won the prize for the best Tanka on that topic. I think that one reason Tsurayuki won is that he wrote a Tanka on the assigned topic, but the season of his Tanka is spring. Normally ‘falling snow’ would be a winter Tanka, perhaps late fall. It is unusual, and counterintuitive to think of falling snow as a spring topic. But our poet pulls it off successfully, painting a picture from late spring, perhaps the last snowfall of the year. In my own imagination I think of the snowfall in this Tanka as melting almost immediately.

The progress of the season of spring is moving slowly forward. This is the first Tanka that specifically mentions ‘buds’, ‘burgeoning buds’. The way this Tanka is placed, after a Tanka on snow, and with snow as the central image of this Tanka, mutes the reader’s awareness of the introduction of this specifically spring event. There really is now ambiguity about the progress of the seasons; we all know when we can see buds that spring is here. In a sense spring means that buds are beginning to appear.

But Tsurayuki is a master of ambiguity and of hesitancy; of keeping us waiting for the definitive signs of spring. Tsuryakuki will introduce them not one by one, but in a kind of overlapping way so that when a particular sign of spring first appears it is done subtly, enmeshed in other signs so that we almost miss this new appearance. And isn’t that the way we actually experience the flow of the seasons? We often have the feeling that ‘suddenly’ there is spring, missing when the buds first appear, or when the plum blossom first opened. In this sense Tsurayuki’s method mimics the way we experience the seasonal display.