Pathway to Japanese Literature

When looking at Sato Haruo’s *Kurumajirishū*, there is a five-character quatrain that reads: “Apricot blossoms—a solitary village; Flowing water—several rooms of a house; Setting sun—no person in sight; A bullock sleeps in the wheat fields.”

Apricot blossoms blooming - a lonely countryside

By the riverside—houses here and there

The setting sun shines—not a trace of people—

In the wheat fields—a bullock sleeps.

[The line] was translated as “houses here and there,” but I questioned this rendering of 「家をちこち」.
The “several-room house” mentioned in the original poem undoubtedly referred to a small single dwelling with three or four rooms.
In ancient times, Tao Yuanming’s poem titled “Returning to Dwell in Gardens and Fields” contained the lines: “Guarding my clumsiness, I return to gardens and fields; My square homestead spans over ten *mu*, with thatched huts of eight or nine rooms.”
These lines are well known.
Furthermore, Su Dongpo’s reference to “a house of several rooms at Dongpo” and Lu Fangweng’s verse stating, “Having served as an official for fifty years… building a hut of over ten rooms”—in all such cases, the character 「間」 signifies “rooms.” Whether describing “thatched huts of eight or nine rooms,” “Dongpo’s house of several rooms,” or “a hut built with over ten rooms,” each denotes chambers within a single structure.
Even in the line “Apricot blossoms—a solitary village; flowing water—a house of several rooms,” interpreting it as one small riverside dwelling posed no issue—so why did *Kurumajirishū* construe “a house of several rooms” as multiple houses?
There was no reason for experts to misunderstand such a matter.

“Far and near, all are temples; West Village has eight or nine households”—this was a poem by Guo Xiangzheng. “Spring waters stretch six or seven *li*; sunset over three or four houses”—this was a poem by Lu Fangweng.
These were precisely the instances where “houses here and there” would apply.

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When examining the *Meng Haoran Collection*, we found that only nineteen five-character quatrains remained extant; however, the *Anthology of Tang Poetry* had selected two from among them. Yet of those left unselected, I cherished "Staying Overnight at Jiande River" most dearly among the nineteen quatrains. It reads thus:

Moving boats anchor by mist-cloaked shoals—
When shifting vessels to berth by fog-draped banks,

Sunset renews the traveler’s sorrow—
As dusk falls, the traveler’s sorrow renews.

The wilds vast—the sky lowers to the trees
When wilderness stretches boundless, heaven bends toward the trees—

The river clear—the moon draws near to the traveler.

In Kosugi Hōan’s *Tang Poetry and Tang Poets*, the opening line of this poem was definitively read as “anchoring by mist-cloaked shoals,” while the concluding line was rendered as “the moon approaches the traveler.” However, I wished to continue reading it as “when anchoring by mist-cloaked shoals,” and with “the moon draws near to the traveler,” I wanted to preserve the moon’s tranquility.

Now, “the wilds vast—the sky lowers to the trees” depicted a scene viewed from within a boat looking toward shore, those trees standing at the edge of an expansive plain lying far removed from any human presence. (If they had been close, it would not have been described as “the wilds vast.”) Next, the scene of “the river clear—the moon draws near to the traveler” would have been a view of the river from within the boat. And as for “the river is clear”—though it had appeared muddy when observed during daylight—it must now have been purified by moonlight. The moon was of course a bright one—large like a washbasin and feeling startlingly close. As for me, toward this bright moon—though I might feel that the moon was near—I had never felt that it was approaching me. Thus I read it as “the moon draws near to the traveler,” and did not wish to read it as “the moon approaches the traveler.”

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Of Meng Haoran’s poems included in the *Anthology of Tang Poetry*, seven were selected; however, a characteristic absent from all of them became evident when examining his complete works.
It was that identical characters were deliberately repeated within individual poems.
For instance, consider this five-character quatrain titled *Seeing Off a Friend Departing for the Capital*:

You ascend to azure clouds and depart,

I gaze upon Green Mountain and return.

Clouds and mountains part from here—

Tears moisten the ivy robe.

Within just twenty characters, the same characters—*blue clouds*, *green mountain*, and *clouds and mountains*—are repeated three times, yet their pattern of recurrence holds fascination.
We sensed no unnaturalness whatsoever; rather, we discerned a singular charm.

Below, I proceeded to list examples of repeated characters.

In morning travels I visit famous mountains;
*(Seeking Monk Zhan on Mount Xiang)*

Gently flows the Qing River’s waters; as they recede, a sandy islet emerges.
*(Ascending the Solitary Islet in the River)*

Mandarin ducks and waterfowl crowd the sandy shore; at the shore’s edge, the sun sets as sandbanks stretch long; glittering golden sands shimmer in the storm’s light.
*(Parrot Island: Seeing Off Wang Jiu on His Journey to Jiangzuo)*

Medicine seller comes to West Village; village smoke—the day hints at dusk.
*(Meeting a Taoist Priest in the Mountains)*

Misty waves trouble my heart; my heart races toward Maoshan Cave.
*(Staying Overnight at Yangzi Ford)*

I too board a boat to return to Lumen; Lumen’s moon shines, unveiling mist-clad trees.
*(Night Return to Lumen Gate Song)*

Shan Gong often gets drunk at Xijia Pond; by the pond’s edge, fishing girls follow one another.
*(Gaoyang Pond: Seeing Off Zhu Er)*

Turned to herd the warhorses here;
The warhorses scatter as the sun tilts westward.
*(Same as above)*

The arrogant official is no ordinary official;
The renowned figure is indeed a Taoist adept.
*(Plum Taoist’s Waterside Pavilion)*

Brushing my robes—where do I go?
Pillowing high, south of South Mountain.
*(Returning to the Capital: Presented to Zhang Wei)*

By He County’s willow grove,
At the river bridge, boats moor at dusk.
*(Meeting Zhang Shiyi and Fang Liu at Magistrate Pei’s Banquet in Linhuan)*

South of the county seat flows the Han River;
The river cliffs form Southern Yongzhou.
*(Ascending Anyang City Tower)*

Different customs are not hometown customs;
The new year alters the old year.
*(Viewing Lanterns at Jiemen)*

Attempting to ascend Qinling, I gaze upon Qinchuan.
*(Yuezhong: Seeing Off Magistrate Zhang on His Return to Qinzhong)*

When I gathered and examined them, they were merely of this level, but since the number of surviving poems was exceedingly small, even this much stood out conspicuously.

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In quatrains and regulated verse—such as Li Bai’s “With one cry, one twist of the gut, one break; / In third spring’s third month, hidden in Three Ba,” Wang Bo’s “On the ninth day of the ninth month at the Homesickness Terrace, / Raising a farewell cup on another seat, in another land” and “Old friends with old affections recall old banquets; / Gazing at each other, longing for each other, yet never meeting,” Gao Qingqiu’s “Crossing water again and again, viewing flowers over and over; / On a spring breeze’s river path, I arrive at your home unawares,” Wang Anshi’s “South of the water, north of the water—layers of willows; / Behind the mountains, before the mountains—plum blossoms everywhere. / Before this body follows nature’s transformations, / Year after year I return at this very time,” and Lu You’s “No hunger, no cold—all things suffice; / With mountains and waters—a lifetime of leisure. / Vermilion gates care not for his foolish devotion; / He cherishes his thatched hut of three or four rooms”—while using identical characters within a single line poses no issue, repeating them across separate lines within one poem was, in principle, deemed objectionable.
However, there proved no shortage of examples where such layered repetition instead revealed exquisite artistry in phrasing.

The five-character quatrain titled *Seeing Off a Friend Departing for the Capital* by Meng Haoran, which I had presented earlier, served as one quintessential example of this technique; however, another five-character quatrain titled *Cloud-Viewing Tower* by Wen Tong (late Tang), through its repetition of the character “tower” (楼) in each line, was also thought to produce a distinctive flavor.

Bashan lies east of the tower,

Qinling lies north of the tower.

When rolling up the curtain in the tower’s upper level—

The tower fills with clouds of a single hue.

The following poem titled *To an Old Friend in Jiangnan* by Jia Xuanweng (late Tang) also exhibited an intriguing use of repeated identical characters.

I once resided at Qiantang,

Hearing the magpie, I recalled my homeland of Shu.

I know not whether tonight's dream—

Will reach Shu, or reach Qiantang?

Qiantang corresponds to present-day Qiantang in Zhejiang Province, that is Jiangnan; Shu equates to Sichuan Province in the northern region.
"Resided at" here means simply "lived in."
The author was now neither in his homeland of Shu nor dwelling in Qiantang where he had once lived; rather, he was remembering a friend who remained in Qiantang.

Zhang Wenji (wife of Bao Canjun [Military Advisor Bao]) writes in her “Xi Kou Yun” poem: *Billowing clouds at the ravine mouth, / Barely expelled into the ravine’s midst; / No longer returning to the ravine, / Instead transforming into rain within the ravine* (Billowing clouds at the ravine mouth, scarcely expelled toward the ravine’s heart).
(No longer returning to the ravine’s midst, instead becoming rain within the ravine.) This too can be said to achieve the wonder of repeated characters.

Zheng Gu’s *Parting with a Friend at Huai River* poem states: *At Yangzi River’s edge, willows herald spring; / Willow catkins grieve the river-crossing travelers. / A few notes of wind-borne flute at dusk in the parting pavilion— / You head toward Xiao-Xiang, I toward Qin.*
The characters “river” (江), “willow” (楊), and “toward” (向) each repeat, yet instead create poetic beauty.

Bai Juyi’s “Remembering the River Willows” poem also follows this pattern:
*Once I planted willows on Jiangnan’s southern bank;*
*After parting with Jiangnan through two springs,*
*Now I gaze afar at those verdant river shores—*
*Who breaks their branches? I wonder.*

In contrast to the examples above, those that artificially repeat identical characters were generally grating.

Next, I presented several examples.

*Qujiang After the Turmoil* — Wang Jia

I recall once wandering by the Qu River’s banks—

(Recalling how once I wandered by the Qu River’s banks—when spring had yet to come, there were those who ceaselessly sought spring; once the spring revelers had all departed, an empty pond remained; yet when true spring’s depth arrived, it bore no resemblance to spring.)

*Ancient Sentiments* — Wang Jia

夫戍蕭關妾在呉西風吹妾妾憂夫一行書信千行涙寒到君邊衣到無

In the former poem, the character “spring” appeared five times, and “wander” and “person” each appeared twice; in the latter poem, “concubine” appeared five times, and “husband” and “arrive” each appeared twice—yet I did not believe this repetition produced any distinctive effect.

*Spring Night* — Liu Xiang

Here and there, weapons of war block paths and forks; / Longing for the mountains, my heart aches as I part from them. / In these troubled times, where can I bare my soul? / Day after day, the sun slants—I return home drunk, empty.

Here and there, weapons of war block paths and forks; my heart aches to long for the mountains, yet I am parted from them.
In these troubled times, where can I bare my heart? Day after day, as the sun slants, I return home drunk and empty.

*Spring Night* — Liu Xiang

Once parted from Duling, return undated;

Once parted from Duling with no return date set,
I connect with intimacy through soul and dreams alone.
Lately when I try to sleep yet find no rest,
Night after night in deepening hours I hear the cuckoo's tone.

Dawn Ascent of the Greeting Spring Pavilion — Liu Xiang

Without yet combing my hair, I lean on the railing and gaze at Brocade City—mist enveloping myriad households, the Two Rivers gleaming.

Without yet combing my hair, leaning on the railing to gaze at Brocade City—mist enveloping myriad households, the Two Rivers gleaming.
Fragrant breezes fill the pavilion; flowers fill the trees. On every treetop, dawn warblers sing.

I do not care for any of these three poems at all.
The second poem is particularly detestable.
Nor do I care for any of Fang Qiuya’s works that follow.

*Plum Blossoms* — Fang Qiuya

With plum blossoms but no snow—lacking vitality;

If plum blossoms exist without snow, they lack vitality; if snow exists without poetry, it vulgarizes people.
At dusk when the poem is completed, heaven snows once more—together with plum blossoms creating spring's full measure.

*Wilderness* — Cai Jiezhai

In the pine grove stood a pavilion; pines formed its gate.

(Established a pavilion within the pine grove—pines fashioned into its gate; read books beneath their boughs and sat at their roots.)
In leisure I leaned against pine shade and dozed off; rustling pine sounds enveloped my dreaming soul.

*Auspicious Blossoms* — Cai Junmo

Flowers not yet fully bloomed; moon not yet round—

Flowers were not yet fully bloomed; the moon was not yet round—yet my longing to gaze upon blossoms and await moonlight lingered unchanged.
Though I knew well that flowers and moons lack hearts to feel: were they made tenderhearted still more pitiable would they grow.)

*Leaning on the Railing* — Mengzhai

Several times leaning on the railing awaiting deep night;
Deep night—deep emotions not as now.
Now forcibly leaning on the railing I stand—
Moon fills empty steps; frost fills the woods.
(Night, deep, as, now, fill—five characters each repeated.)

Several times I lean on the railing, awaiting deep night;
When night deepens, my sentiments are not as they are now.
Now forcibly leaning against the railing and standing—
The moon fills the empty steps; frost fills the woods.

Every single poem is vulgar—not worthy of being called poetry.

How many pines stand by Helan Creek?
How many peaks lie north, south, east, west?
How many days have passed since I bought this dwelling?
In ordinary times—with whom do I sit at ease?

(How many pines stand by Helan Creek? How many peaks lie north, south, east, west? How many days have passed since I bought and settled here? In ordinary times, with whom do I sit at ease?)

This was Wang Anshi’s poem; despite repeating certain characters three times, they remained strangely unobtrusive.

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An example of irresponsible Chinese poetry translation and interpretation.
*Zoku Kokuyaku Kanbun Taisei*: *Su Dongpo’s Poetry Collection*, Volume 4, pp. 308–9; Annotator: Shaku Seitan.

*Inscribed on Li Shinan’s Painting of Autumn Scenes*

Wild waters jaggedly receded, leaving flood marks;

A sparse grove tilted over, exposing frost-whitened roots;

A lone-oared skiff—where would it return? / A lone-oared skiff—where would it return?

The home lay in Jiangnan’s yellow-leaved village.

[Poetic Meaning] The wild waters spread jaggedly in all directions, their flood marks having fully receded; above them, a sparse grove tilted precariously, exposing frost-whitened roots. A skiff—its boatman rowing once—knew not where to return but was presumed to head toward Jiangnan’s Yellow-Leaved Village; in that direction, the boat advanced steadily.

[Lexical Notes] (1) “Jaggedly” denotes an uneven appearance; the phrase appears in the *Book of Songs* as “jaggedly water mallow.” (2) “One oar”—some manuscripts render this as “one scull.”

This example remains among the more tolerable within the volume，but since it concerns a renowned poem，I initially chose to transcribe it as a specimen.
The prose purporting to explain poetic meaning would likely fail even as a middle school composition.
Setting aside questions of literary quality—what exactly are “flood marks”? What does “flood marks have receded” signify? How does “a sparse grove assumes a tilting form”? What action does “the boatman gives one stroke of oar” describe? None of this amounts to genuine interpretation.
If such Japanese requires explication，there would be no purpose in publishing vernacular editions.
These too constituted unhelpful annotations.

Because copying long poems was tedious, I decided to present a few more examples focusing solely on quatrains.

*Drinking Well Water at Night with Wang Lang*

In Wu Xing’s sixth month, the water springs are warm;
A thousand acres of wild rice and cattails gather swarms of battling mosquitoes;
This well alone reaches a depth of one *zhang*,
Genryū is like me and also like you.

[Poetic Meaning] In Wu Xing’s sixth month, the water springs are warm; swarms of battling mosquitoes gather across a thousand acres of wild rice and cattails. This well alone reaches a depth of one *zhang*; Genryū is like me and also like you.

Did they truly believe one could grasp this poem’s meaning through such meager explanation? Had the annotator himself even understood this work? — Hardly.

“Five Poems of the South Hall (No. 5)”

Swept the ground, burned incense, shut the pavilion doors and slept.
The mat’s weave flowed like water; drapes hung smoke-like.
A guest arrived—awakening from dreams, he knew not where he was.
Raised the west window: waves met sky.

[Poetic Meaning] One swept the ground, burned incense, closed the pavilion and slept; the mat’s weave resembled cold water while the bed curtains were like smoke. Hearing a guest’s voice, one awoke from a dream; the guest asked, “Where is this?” When [the curtain] was lifted, waves outside the west window surged skyward.

[Lexical Notes] (1) Mat weave: A tool spread for sitting during summer; (2) Curtain like smoke: From Li Bai’s poem—“Green gauze like smoke separates window conversations”—and Li Shangyin’s poem—“Water-patterned mats smooth, spread over ivory beds.”

Despite being a Chinese-style poet of renown in society, it felt strange that he could nonchalantly write such things.

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Reading Chinese poetry in Japanese might appear straightforward, but in truth, it becomes shaped by both the reader's immediate comprehension of the poem and their acuity toward Japanese prose—naturally resulting in differing interpretations of the same work among individuals.

I, who believe that Chinese-style poetry composed by Japanese should emphasize its rhythm when read in Japanese (I will address this type of consideration separately in another section), generally maintain various requirements regarding the Japanese-style reading of Chinese poetry.

Next, I will try to state a few thoughts as they come to mind.

In Urushiyama Matashirō’s annotated translation of the *Anthology of Tang Poetry* (Iwanami Bunko edition), Li Bai’s “Yuezhong Huaigu” is presented as follows.

King Goujian of Yue, having defeated Wu, returns.

The righteous warriors returned home, all in brocade garments;
The palace women, like flowers, had filled the spring palace—
But now, only partridges fly.

I did not approve of such punctuation choices, and above all, I found the overall tone extremely clumsy.
"The righteous warriors return home, all in brocade robes,"
I do not like such writing.
"Palace women are like flowers…"
Why did he not read the previous line as "righteous warriors *wa*," yet rendered this line alone as "palace women *wa*"?
Reading "brocade robes are" and "fill the spring palace" in the present tense was also unacceptable.
Moreover, "fill the spring palace" was likely a mistake.
In this context, "spring palace" follows the same structure as in *The Analects* passage stating, "In late spring, when spring garments have been completed"—here, "spring" functions as an adjective modifying "palace."
Since it does not mean "the palace has become filled with spring," there was absolutely no need to forcibly read *Manshunden* as "fills the spring palace."
As for "Only partridges fly," I did not care for its tone.
I read the entire poem as follows.

When King Goujian of Yue defeated Wu and returned,

The righteous warriors returned home, all in brocade robes,

The palace women, like flowers, had filled the spring-adorned palace, though,

Now, only partridges fly.

In Hirano Hidekichi’s *Complete Exegesis of the Anthology of Tang Poetry* and Kanno Michiaki’s *Detailed Commentary on the Anthology of Tang Poetry*, the second line was rendered as “The righteous warriors return home, all donning brocade robes.” However, this case differed from ordinary ones: since the breath flowed uninterrupted from the second line to the third, one had to avoid clumsy phrasings like “donning brocade robes” or “brocade robes are” and instead halt at the noun “brocade robes.” Furthermore, the third line should have been read in the past tense as “had filled the spring-adorned palace,” with this past tense carried over to the second line. Only then did the poem’s overall meaning become intelligible in Japanese prose, and its rhythm improved markedly.

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The poem "Night Rain: Sent North" by Li Shangyin, also found in the *Anthology of Tang Poetry*, was presented in the Iwanami Bunko edition as follows, but I found this reading equally difficult to accept.

"You ask when I will return, but there remains no set date.

Bashan's night rain swells the autumn pool.

When shall we together trim the west window's candle,

Only then might we speak of Bashan's night-rain time?"

I once read this poem while in detention and truly felt it was a good poem.
However, I do not read the opening line as "When you ask about my return date," but instead read it as "Though you ask about my return date."
The Iwanami Bunko edition annotates, “*Bei* [‘north’] signifies one residing in northern lands; *jun* [‘you’] refers to that person in the north.” While this is not incorrect, I interpret *jun* here more concretely as referring to [the poet’s] wife.
The north undoubtedly refers to Chang’an.
At that time, the author had departed for his post in the land of Bashu, while his wife remained in Chang’an to keep watch over their home; from her came a letter asking when he would return—a missive filled with longing for her husband’s homecoming.
In response, he said, “Though you ask about my return date, there is still no set time,” but if one reads it as “When you ask about my return date, there is still no set time,” it becomes utterly ineffective.
The original text also reads *jun wen* (“you ask”) and is not structured as *wen jun* (“ask you”), so there is no need to forcibly interpret it as “asking you.”

“Though you ask about my return date, there is still no set time.”
I read this poem in detention and was pierced by its poignancy.
The fact that “there is still no set date” is profoundly poignant.

Now, when he saw the letter from his wife and felt an inexplicable pathos, it had been an autumn night with rain falling softly.
When he opened the window, Bashan lay hidden in the rain, and water brimmed profusely in the pond before the eaves.
The author found the emotions of this moment toward the scene before him truly unforgettable.
Thus he composed the lines “When will we together trim the west window’s candle and speak again of the time of Bashan’s night rain?”—and it was precisely through such an interpretation that these lines truly came alive.
I read this as “When will we together trim the west window’s candle and speak again of the time of Bashan’s night rain?”
(In Chen Yanjie’s *Annotations to Lu Fangweng’s Selected Poems*, a note on Lu You’s line “*He dang chu qing shi, qian gu xu yi chang*” states: “*He dang* means ‘when,’ as seen in Li Shangyin’s poem: ‘*He dang gong jian xi chuang zhu*.’”)
If one follows this [annotation], it would necessitate reading *hedang* as “when” (*itsuka*). The Bunko edition renders it as “Shall we speak of the time of Bashan’s night rain?,” but since it continues with *hedang* [“when”], the final “ka” becomes redundant—and this redundancy severely disrupts the rhythm.
In Kanno Michiaki’s edition, this is read as “When will we together trim the west window’s candle and speak again of Bashan’s night rain?,” criticizing that “common editions’ *kundoku* reading of ‘speak of *the time* of Bashan’s night rain’ is incorrect.”
The annotation states, “The two characters for ‘when’ [何時] are split and placed at the beginning of the third line and the end of the fourth line.” However, I do not wish to follow this.
On an autumn night with softly falling rain, holding the letter from his wife and facing Bashan, he lamented, “When will we be able to take each other’s hands and speak of this moment?” Therefore, I deliberately choose to read it as “then can we speak of the time of Bashan’s night rain.”

"The phrase 'together...' referred to taking his wife's hand."
"The expression 'together trimming the west window’s candle' indicated an extremely intimate relationship; it could not possibly refer to complete strangers."
"The phrase 'and so on' conveyed that while his body had returned to Chang’an, his heart still lingered in the distant land of Bashu."
"None of these were placed merely for the sake of rhythm."

Furthermore, the four characters “Bashan night rain” were repeated in both the second and fourth lines; this duplication was inevitable. Through such repetition, it suggested that the present scene would be vividly recalled in the future. Naturally, one could also imagine that at that time, the author composed this poem while trimming the candle by the west window.

By interpreting it in this way, even now, I still think this poem is a rare and excellent quatrain.

Kosugi Hōan’s *Tang Poetry and Tang Poets* recorded four of Li Shangyin’s poems, yet ultimately did not include this one.

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When rendering Chinese poetry into Japanese readings, the appropriateness of okurigana often becomes a matter of life and death.
For example, the Iwanami Bunko edition of the *Anthology of Tang Poetry* includes Cen Shen’s poem:

East of Chang’an, leaving it behind for over ten thousand *li*.

How could my old friend begrudge even a single line of writing?

When I gaze west from the Jade Gate, my heartbreak becomes unbearable.

Ah, and tomorrow morning is the year’s end!

[The poem] reads it as “故人那ぞ惜まん” (“How could my old friend begrudge…”), but in this poem, the second line should instead be “故人那ぞ惜むや” (“Does my old friend begrudge…?”).
Merely reading “oshimu ya” as “oshiman” renders the entire meaning utterly ineffective there.
Cen Shen’s poem, titled “At Jade Gate: Sent to Li Zhubu in Chang’an,” refers to Li Zhubu as the “old friend” mentioned in the verse. The poet lamented, “Does my old friend even begrudge a single line of writing?” because no letters had arrived from this friend.

As the second line of a quatrain—referred to as the *receiving line*—follows from the opening line, one should generally avoid concluding the first line abruptly when rendering a quatrain into Japanese readings. For example, in Meng Haoran’s poem previously presented:

When moving the boat to moor at a misty islet,

As dusk falls, the traveler’s sorrow renews.

“野曠天低樹” — The wilderness stretches vast; the sky lowers to the trees.

The river runs clear; the moon draws near to people.

Even so, as I have previously noted, Kosugi Hōan’s *Tang Poetry and Tang Poets* reads the opening line conclusively as “Moving the boat, one moors at the misty islet,” but I believe it would be better to continue reading it into the next line as “When one moves the boat and moors at the misty islet.”

Moving the boat, one moors at the misty islet.

As dusk falls, the traveler’s sorrow renews.

reading it as

When one moves the boat and moors at the misty islet,

As dusk falls, the traveler’s sorrow renews.

Though this difference seems minor, I feel the impressions conveyed differ profoundly between these two readings.

Again, the same Meng Haoran poem cited earlier:

You ascend to azure clouds and depart,
I gaze at the green mountains and return home.
Clouds and mountains—from here we part,
Tears moisten the ivy-clad robe.

Observing the poem, particularly in this case, since the opening and receiving lines form a couplet, I strongly wished to read them continuously as “You ascend to azure clouds and depart,” flowing into the next line.
In general, when two lines form an antithetical couplet—regardless of where they are positioned (in regulated verse, the third and fourth lines or fifth and sixth lines are always coupled; even in such cases)—it was usually better to read the two clauses continuously.

Let me provide another similar example.
When examining the Iwanami Bunko edition of Li Bai’s poetry selection edited by Kōda Rohan, the fifth poem of the "Five Yue Maiden Songs" is rendered as:

"The waters of Lake Jing are like the moon,
The women of Yexi are like snow.
Fresh makeup; fresh waves ripple,
The scenery—both together—are marvels unparalleled."

[The poem] is presented in this manner.
However, even here, I would prefer to treat the first line as "like the moon" and sustain the rhythmic continuity through to the second line.
I read the entire poem as: "The waters of Lake Jing are like the moon; the women of Yexi are like snow.
Fresh makeup sways on new waves; the scenery is wondrous beyond compare." I read it thus.

As had already been seen in this Yue Nu Ci as well, the same relationship that existed when reading the first and second lines continuously also frequently resided between the third and fourth lines. To give an example, when examining Li Bai’s famous poem *Departing Early from Baidi City* in the Iwanami Bunko edition:

"In the morning, I depart from Baidi amidst the colorful clouds,
A thousand *li* to Jiangling—returned in a single day.
On both banks, the monkeys’ cries echo unceasingly,
The light boat has already passed ten thousand layered mountains."

It was rendered as such, but even here, I believed the third line should still be read as “On both banks, the monkeys’ cries echo unceasingly,” maintaining the rhythmic flow uninterrupted through to the concluding line.

I now presented two additional examples that corresponded to the points discussed above.

Early Departure Liu Zihui

The village rooster had already announced dawn,

The dawn moon gradually lost its color.

The traveler on horseback departed,

The remaining lamp illuminated the empty station.

Dawn Clearing Sima Guang

Upon awakening from a dream, the clamor ceased;
Forest light penetrated through gaps and came.
When one opened the door and startled the crows,
The remaining drops had fallen onto green moss.

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Continuation of Notes on Rendering Chinese Poetry in Japanese Readings.

When rendering Chinese poetry in Japanese readings, the past tense form of verbs is sometimes absolutely necessary.
For example, Zhao ※ (古＋（暇－日）)’s *Jianglou Shugan* from the *Anthology of Tang Poetry* is rendered in the Iwanami Bunko edition as:

Alone I ascend the riverside tower, my thoughts boundless,

The moonlight was like water; the water stretched to meet the sky.
Those who once came together to admire the moon—where were they now?
The scenery faintly resembled last year.

It was rendered as such, but unless one reads "admired" (翫ぶ) in the past tense as "once admired" (翫びし), the concluding line would lack vitality.

In certain cases, it also becomes necessary to employ conjectural auxiliary verbs.
For instance, Li Yi’s *Bianhe Qu* from the *Anthology of Tang Poetry* appears in the Iwanami Bunko edition as:

The Bian River flows eastward through endless spring,

The Sui dynasty’s palaces have all turned to dust.

Traveler, do not climb the long embankment to gaze—

When wind stirs poplar catkins, sorrow kills.

Though it is rendered as "When the wind rises, the poplar catkins fill one with sorrow enough to kill," I would prefer to read the concluding line as "If the wind were to rise, the poplar catkins would fill one with sorrow enough to kill."

Such examples could be cited endlessly if one were to gather them, but here I will present just one more: a ci poem (this being not a regular poem but what is termed a poetic song) by Lu Fangweng.
In this particular poem, there are precisely phrases that should employ conjectural auxiliary verbs and past tense verbs, contained both before and after.

In the small courtyard, silkworms sleep as spring approaches its end;

New nests—swallows nurture their young; flowers lie as if swept away.

Dimly dreaming of west Jincheng—

The Chinese flowering crabapple would be as it was in former times.

In those years, truly hurried—

With a single oar, returning to Wu early—

When I finish composing a poem lamenting spring,

In the mirror, strands of hair have been added at my temples.

The above was my experimental reading; since this lyric poem was composed as a reminiscence of when the author resided in Jincheng (Chengdu), one must not read the fourth line as “The Chinese flowering crabapple is as it was in former times” but should instead employ a conjectural auxiliary verb: “would be as it was in former times.” Furthermore, the concluding line must not be rendered in the present tense as “Strands of hair are added at my temples in the mirror” but rather in the past tense: “Strands of hair had been added at my temples.”

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There was a common argument that while appreciating Chinese poetry through reading was acceptable, toiling over rhyme characters and tonal patterns while imitating Chinese people to compose Chinese-style poetry oneself amounted to nonsense.
(To my recollection at the time, Natsume Kōnosuke had once written such things, and Kosugi Hōan’s *Tang Poetry and Tang Poets* also contained similar arguments.) However, I could not agree with this wholesale.
In fact, I myself had recently been dabbling in Chinese-style poetry by studying tonal patterns and adhering to rhymes.
I did not necessarily consider this an utterly absurd endeavor.

Why do I engage in imitating Chinese-style poetry?
(Calling it an imitation is not modesty—I shall gradually clarify its meaning.)

The primary reason lies in instances where kanji and Chinese-style diction prove most apt for expressing my thoughts and emotions.
Yet were this sole consideration, mixing kana might seem permissible; however, such blending creates a visually disagreeable effect.
Thus when prioritizing kanji usage arises—as it inevitably does—the urge emerges to compose solely with kanji; and once committed thusly, one naturally adopts forms of Chinese poetry as practiced by its originators.

However, even if we tentatively adopt the form of Chinese poetry, since we do not read it in a monotone Chinese style but in a Japanese manner, there is no need to strictly adhere one by one to the various poetic rules developed in China for matters of prosody.
That should be the defining characteristic of Chinese-style poetry composed by Japanese—as Japanese poetry, adapted for Japanese readings.

Originally, the pronunciation of Chinese characters has undergone no small amount of change over thousands of years in China, so even modern Chinese people do not read Tang poetry in the pronunciation that Tang-era authors intended for their readers.
(Indeed, while the Tangyun was divided into 206 categories, the Songyun has been reduced to a mere 106.)
(From this, one should infer that there have been significant changes in pronunciation.) Even the Chinese are like this, so when modern Japanese meticulously investigate Tang poetry’s tonal patterns, rhyme schemes, and other elements—striving to create works as close to Tang poetry as possible and agonizing over the notion that composing Chinese-style poetry necessitates replicating Tang poetry—(figures like Mori Kainan seem to have clung to such ideas)—this cannot be considered particularly meaningful beyond a kind of antiquarian indulgence.

For example, if one is to compose regulated verse, adhering to basic rules found in ordinary introductory books—such as tonal patterns, rhyme schemes, and antithetical parallelism—is to some extent unavoidable. However, proceeding beyond this—say, regarding the final character of non-rhyming lines—one should not rest content merely using an oblique-tone character. If the first couplet used an entering-tone character, the second couplet ought to employ a rising-tone or departing-tone character instead. Then in the third couplet, should the second have used a rising-tone character, one must necessarily use a departing-tone character. To delve into such meticulous distinctions among the four tones—for us Japanese, foreigners separated by a millennium and a linguistic chasm—to painstakingly scrutinize every detail of prosodic labors Tang Dynasty poets likely undertook, striving to reproduce them in our own verse: this constitutes utterly meaningless drudgery for ordinary people, specialists excepted.

On the contrary, even the tonal patterns that all those who had composed Chinese-style poetry until then had been mindful of could, depending on the case, be safely ignored. That was the guiding principle for Showa-era Japanese people composing Chinese-style poetry.

This was how I thought.

For example, in Saigō Nanshū’s untitled poem:

Having endured hardships many times over, my resolve had at last become firm;
A true man shatters like jade—ashamed are those who stay whole like tiles.
Does anyone know my family’s legacy?
For my descendants’ sake—I do not purchase fertile fields.

There exists a poem like this: though *senzen* ("tile-like wholeness") was likely intended as *gazen* ("tile wholeness"), the poet avoided the仄-tone character 瓦 (*gwa*) due to tonal pattern constraints. However, had this work been written for Japanese readers using Japanese readings, it would have been better here to disregard tonal rules and employ *gazen*—a phrase familiar to our ears. Moreover, while *gyokusai* ("shattered jade") naturally pairs with *gazen*, no established idiom like *senzen* should exist.

Similarly, in Nanshū’s impromptu seven-character quatrain:

Calling loudly for wine while seated in a high tower,
My heroic spirit shall engulf the five continents.
A single inch of loyal heart, a three-foot sword—
Wielding this blade, I’ll first test it on schemers’ heads.

There exists such a poem, yet certain Chinese-style poets have criticized that since the concluding line’s “wielding the sword” (揮剣) violates tonal patterns, one ought to replace the仄-tone character 剣 (sword) with the平-tone 刀 (saber). I find this entirely unacceptable.
When rendering this in Japanese reading, it is precisely the succession of “a three-foot sword” followed by “wielding the sword” that creates lexical momentum. Even disregarding that aspect, repeating the character for “sword” here becomes essential—without it, the verse loses poetic force.
Whether tonal patterns align or not holds no relevance worth considering.
This is my firm conviction.

Now, if someone were going to say such things, they might as well not concern themselves with tonal patterns at all from the very beginning—but that approach too was acceptable. However, if one tentatively adjusted the tonal patterns, even when Chinese people read it in a monotone style, the rhythm would likely improve somewhat compared to disregarding tonal patterns entirely. Therefore, even if the primary aim wasn’t for Chinese people to read it, one still shouldn’t ignore the rules of tonal patterns altogether. That was as far as I had considered it.

Originally, kanji are pictographic characters, fundamentally differing in nature from Roman letters or Japanese kana; they demand not only that their sounds be conveyed to the ear but also that their forms be seen by the eye.
Characters such as sun (日), moon (月), mountain (山), and river (川) are often semi-pictographic, while those like sorrow (愁), grief (悲), tear (涙), and teardrop (泪) each contain meaning within their radicals.
Now, unless Japanese people discontinue using these kanji altogether, so long as they employ them as daily-use characters, they cannot remain insensitive to the unique flavor and beauty that kanji possess when written on paper. Consequently, in poetry—which esteems subtle sensibilities and beauty—the demand inevitably arises to arrange kanji alone rather than mixing them with kana.
(Japanese text that mixes two entirely distinct types of characters—pictographic and phonetic—appears extremely unsightly to the eye.
I even think such unsightly writing has no equal elsewhere.) Half of the Japanese people’s demand for Chinese-style poetry originates precisely from this.

Since I hold these views, I calmly compose works that expert kanshi poets would likely deride as rule-defying and unworthy of being called poetry if they saw them, or that Chinese people would harshly criticize as rhythmically inept if shown—yet simultaneously, I place great emphasis on the reading method and cadence when rendering these works in Japanese readings (something entirely incomprehensible to Chinese people).

Visually indistinguishable from Chinese poetry through its exclusive use of Chinese characters, its pronunciation and reading remain thoroughly Japanese in nature.
Such works constitute Japanese kanshi—poetry created by Japanese people, achievable through their creative capacity, and imbued with significance through their compositional efforts.
This differs fundamentally from foreign verse like Noguchi Yonejirō’s English-language poems.
Rather than Chinese poetry proper, it forms an integral category of Japanese poetic expression alongside waka and haiku.
Only through maintaining this standard can Showa-era Japanese poets discover meaningful purpose in crafting kanshi.

The above represents my own idiosyncratic views.
I have never encountered anyone expressing such ideas before.
Yet I possess considerable confidence in this self-styled methodology of mine.
What remains unstated here will likely be supplemented in a separate section.

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In Kosugi Hōan’s *Tang Poetry and Tang Poets*, the following was written.

"A friend told me that in the early Meiji period, the China expert Kishida Ginkō had an idea while discussing Japanese poetry with literati he knew there. He mixed works by Yanagawa Seigan and other famous Japanese poets with those of anonymous [Chinese] poets, deliberately omitting the authors’ names, and tested them by showing these works [to the literati]. They all selected the anonymous ones."
At this, Kishida Ginkō asked, "What exactly is good about such a poem with such meager content?"
Their answers were uniform in reasoning: while the anonymous works could withstand recitation (regardless of their merits), those by Yanagawa Seigan and others—though their meanings might indeed be interesting—were ultimately impossible to endorse due to their vulgar tone.
Rhyme characters and tonal patterns are rules established to render this recitation musical.
"Japanese kanshi poets would likely insist on these rules more fastidiously than native [Chinese] writers, but since their grasp of the original four tones falls short even of Chinese children’s instinctive mastery—tones imprinted on their ears from birth, irreducible to scholarly study—this amounts to futile labor. They first create works by lining up kanji in rows of five or seven characters, unreadable to ordinary Japanese; then they strain over rhyme characters and tonal patterns only to produce something the Chinese dismiss as incomprehensible gibberish, irrelevant to Japanese readings—a complete waste of effort."

Kosugi Hōan declared it utterly futile, yet in present-day Japan, introductory books on Chinese poetry composition continued to be newly published, and practices like shigin recitation (though I did not particularly care for the cadence of such performances) remained as popular as ever. This fact could not be explained merely by dismissing it as ridiculous nonsense.

Ultimately, Chinese-style poetry read in Japanese was Japanese poetry, not Chinese poetry. Were Chinese people to appraise such Japanese kanshi as Chinese poetry and still find it worthy of appreciation, nothing could surpass that outcome. However, even if they did not, Japanese Chinese-style poetry—created specifically for Japanese reading—nonetheless retained its independent value as Japanese poetry.

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Coming to the hill, brightly—
the bush warbler’s song of days gone by—
blended into the valley’s snow:
Frozen tears are known only to those who know them.

This poem by Sato Haruo gained its beauty from being written entirely in kana.
At the very least, it had escaped the unsightliness born of mixing kanji and kana.
The reason some people wrote waka in Man'yōgana was to avoid such unsightliness when written on paper, and painters' aversion to kana-mixed text when inscribing characters on their works stemmed from the same rationale.
If one mixes pictographic characters and phonetic characters—two types of writing with entirely different natures—no matter how much one devises, one cannot write beautifully.
It was because the characters themselves were jumbled.
The fact that waka and haiku written with a mix of kanji and kana were typically inscribed on small tanzaku strips, while Chinese-style poetry was grandly written on large sheets of art paper such as ganshi, creating a different aesthetic, stemmed precisely from this relationship.

The development of calligraphy exclusively in China originated from the beauty of pictographic characters.
In countries using Roman letters, there exist no people who find pleasure in writing characters.
The allure of kanji remains one reason why Japanese people continue composing Chinese-style poetry.

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Seven years not reaching Maple Bridge Temple,

The traveler’s pillow remains—the midnight bell.

The wind and moon need not yet be lightly lamented,

Ba Mountain lies a thousand li ahead still.

From Mount Ba, this departure still spans a thousand *li* Leaving this Mount Ba—still a thousand *li* ahead.

This was a poem titled "Lodging at Maple Bridge" by Lu Fangweng, but I attempted to translate it as follows:

When I came after seven years,

The Maple Bridge echoing by my pillow,

the temple bell of yore

The bell’s tolling, how mournfully—

The tears shed must be bitter.

My body a traveler entering Shu,

Mount Ba lies far—a thousand *li* to the north.

When I tentatively showed this to someone, they remarked that while the translated poem was quite well-crafted, it failed to capture the distinctive flavor unique to Japanese readings of the original poem.
That was a reasonable point.
And while this may of course have been due to my own incompetence, the sensation we receive from Japanese-style Chinese prose or Chinese-style poetry is inherently unique, and there exists no other form of expression that could replace it.

Sato Haruo’s *Shashinshū* consists of nearly fifty translated Chinese-style poems, and the fact that all these original works are by women—works marked less by heroic ethos and more by romantic sentiment—is by no means accidental.
This type of poetry proves relatively easy to express in Japanese that eschews dependence on Chinese characters.
For precisely this reason, Restoration-era patriots’ choice to entrust their martial fervor to Chinese-style verse was likewise no coincidence.
They harbored within their hearts an indomitable spirit that could find expression only through borrowed Chinese characters and Sino-Japanese poetic diction.
Even in General Nogi’s verse—“The warhorse halts; no words pass between us / We stand beneath twilight beyond Jinzhou’s walls”—the era’s emotions permitted no suitable vessel save this form. Whether Chinese readers might admire it or scorn it mattered not in the slightest from the very outset.

Just as the oil paintings and watercolors created by the Japanese have today become not Western-style paintings but Japanese-style paintings, Chinese-style poetry has long since become Japanese poetry.
This is related to the fact that Chinese characters have already become Japanese characters.

The pronunciation of the Chinese characters we use today undoubtedly originated from China; however, modern Japanese people maintain a pronunciation system entirely distinct from that of modern Chinese people, and as those who pronounce them this way, Japan’s Chinese characters have long since become a national script unique to Japan.
And these Japanized Chinese characters have, over long, long years, completely melted into the Japanese language and taken deep, deep roots, to the extent that our present-day language has become something that cannot be understood without the aid of Chinese characters.
For instance, take words like “tanks” or “airplanes”—their meanings remain unintelligible unless rendered in Chinese characters; likewise, even if one rejects English by coining baseball terms like *toshu* (投手) for “pitcher” or *hoshu* (捕手) for “catcher,” those too require Chinese characters to convey any sense.

Whether the benefits and drawbacks of Chinese characters having so deeply permeated Japanese life over many long years are positive or negative is a separate issue. This may have been an unfortunate event for the development of the Japanese language. However, as long as Japanese people—for better or worse—use these Chinese characters as their daily script, arranging them five by five or seven by seven to create what is called Chinese-style poetry is not, as Hōan claims, a meaningless endeavor. However, we must simply be conscious that it is Japanese poetry and autonomously devise our own rules that differ from the Chinese people’s methods of poetic composition.

(Postscript) Regarding "Night’s Midnight Bell Sounds," I have already written about it in detail in *Appreciation of Lu Fangweng*.
However, I believe I neglected to mention Wang Yuyang’s following poem there, so I will transcribe it here.

日暮東塘正落潮、孤篷泊處雨蕭蕭、疎鐘夜火寒山寺、記過呉楓第幾橋、楓葉蕭條水驛空、離居千里恨難囘、十年舊約江南夢、獨聽寒山夜半鐘

Wang Yuyang, too, heard the midnight bell of Hanshan Temple.

(Clean copy finalized on November 11, Showa 16)

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In front of the mountain and behind—all is green grass,
All day exiting through the gate only to close it again.
Every time I think of my kin at heaven’s edge,
I come and see the village elder dote on his descendants.

This was a poem titled *Leisurely Thoughts at the Northern Outskirts* by Cao Ye of the Late Tang period.
He was said to be from Guizhou and to have become the governor of Yangzhou, though where exactly Guizhou and Yangzhou corresponded to geographically, I did not know at the time.
(Later investigation revealed Guizhou to be present-day Guilin County in Guangxi Province, and Yangzhou as Yang County in Shaanxi Province.) I could only surmise this poem had likely been composed during his official posting far from his homeland.
The term "Northern Outskirts" probably referred to the mountain castle at his assigned post, while the line "Before and behind the mountain lies naught but green grass" suggested the areas surrounding this fortress had become fields or farmland.
The gate mentioned was that of this mountain castle.
He kept passing through this gate all day long.
Why would someone go in and out so repeatedly?
When confined within the castle with no diversions to occupy his mind, memories of distant family at heaven's edge would inevitably surface; thus he would find himself wandering out through the gates to watch village elders doting on their children and grandchildren.
——Such must have been this poem's essential meaning.

The young grandchild we had been caring for at our home for a year, together with the mother and elder sister who had come to fetch him, today at last set out for Shanghai.
From now on, I too will likely have countless days where I “think of my kin at heaven’s edge,” but as an aging man, the line “I come and see the village elder dote on his descendants” strikes me as profoundly poignant.
I live far apart from an elderly mother as well; however, the sentiment of longing for aged parents and that of cherishing young grandchildren are inherently distinct.
I look at this poem’s concluding line and think that the author must have had a grandchild or, if not, a young child at the time—there can be no doubt.
The line about going out through the gate and observing the village elder pitying (dote on) his descendants is one that cannot be composed by anyone who has not personally experienced doting on descendants themselves.

(November 14, Showa 16 Draft)