To start off with this year, I thought that, rather than having poems from the imperial poetry collections, I would translate some poetry and prose from the Ise Shû, the poetic memoirs of Lady Ise (?877-?940), the premier woman poet of the Kokinshû.

Some of the Ise Shû poems crop up elsewhere in the Japan 2001 waka, although with different headnotes, but I think it's worth quoting them again. So, with no further ado, let's get on with the poetry!

During the reign of the Kanpyô Emperor, a lady whose father was Governor of Yamato served in the retinue of the consort who had borne His Majesty children. Her father loved her dearly, and felt that he could not wed her to any ordinary man, so when the brother of the consort proposed marriage to her with great attentiveness, what was she to do but allow the union? Though the lady wondered what her father would say about it, he replied, 'It must be the bonds from a previous life that have brought you to this fate, but young men are known to be unreliable...' Years passed, and the man wed into the family of the man who was Major Captain at the time. The lady's father heard of it and thought that, indeed, matters had proceeded as he had feared. While the lady was still in an agony of shame, a messenger came from the man's household to the estate of her father near Gojo and, on a scarlet autumn leaf upon the fence, wrote:

Fito sumazu aretaru yado wo kite mireba ima zo ko no Fa Fa nisiki worikeru

I live no more At this overgrown house I have come to gaze upon, but Now, the leaves upon the trees Weave a fine brocade.

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