100 poems for the ages

Autumn comes from the north. The leaves in Kyoto won’t turn for a few more weeks but in the colder reaches of the country, they are already red.

Should you find yourself in a place where the maples are bright, and a river flows beneath, look in the water.

The gods have had
their wonders but
not even they knew
the crimson coursing
through the Tatsutagawa
when autumn
tumbles
in.

This image of a river red with maple leaves has passed through the ages in a poetry collection that took shape around 1235. Known as the Hyakunin Isshu – 100 poets, one poem – the anthology is precisely that: 100 poets each contributing a poem.

Covering more than 500 years of Japanese poetry, the work influenced composition even into the 19th century and is still the most famous verse collection in the country. Yet no one can say for sure why the compiler picked the poems he did.

Born 850 years ago into an aristocratic family, Fujiwara no Teika distinguished himself not only as a poet but also as an editor and literary critic. He could be stubborn when it came to poetry; he was known to go head to head with his patron Go-Toba, the retired emperor who controlled the court through boy rulers.

Teika put together a number of anthologies, most of which were meant to be used as poetry textbooks. The Hyakunin Isshu, though, is a private collection. At a relative’s request, he chose poems to be written on decorative paper that was fixed to doors in a mountain villa.

Teika was 74 when he began compiling the Hyakunin Isshu. He would live until the age of 80: a rare achievement at a time when it was common to die before turning 40.

But the poems dealing with old age suggest that longevity was not an unmixed blessing. They speak of gazing out into the long rains, wondering if the years have been spent in vain, and of a life where no one comes, visitors dried up like grass in winter.

Who is left who
still knows me?
The Takasago pines too
are old but I cannot
call them friend.

Teika’s life also coincided with the waning years of the imperial court. About 15 years before he started work on the Hyakunin Isshu, the ruler he served tried to wrest power back from the samurai government on the other side of the country. In the civil war that followed, the imperial forces were routed. Teika’s lord, Go-Toba, was exiled and the court sank even deeper under shogunate control.

Go-Toba, the 99th poet represented in the Hyakunin Isshu, lived in turbulent times but the five centuries of poets before him also knew upheaval. In the background of the collection lie shipwreck, exile, forced abdications and assassination.

Yet all this is merely hinted at in the anthology, which prefers to make art from everyday experiences – snow falling on sleeves, perhaps, or a lover who breaks his word.

The universality of the poems also masks the fact that they represent only a tiny section at the top of Japanese society. There are eight works by emperors and 10 by direct descendants of emperors. Thirty-four of the 100 poets are close relatives, while 28 come from the Fujiwara house – Teika’s clan, which dominated the court.

This aristocratic collection has somehow managed to attain and maintain mass appeal. The poems inspired the creation of a card game in the 17th century, prints by generations of woodblock artists and, more recently, a manga series. An anime based on this ended its run on Japanese television just last month.

The subject matter of the poems may help to explain their popularity: almost half have to do with love.

Now that what was kindled
inside blazes,
may I not tell you?
I am no Ibuki herb
to be set alight,
and yet I burn.

Long-dead aristocrats are not so distant if they have also been tossed through the cycle of longing: attraction, trepidation, the moment when you declare yourself, fear that vows of constancy won’t last, and bitterness when they don’t.

So it matters little that few today know that Ibuki herbs refer to mugwort, burned in moxibustion therapy. Even fewer have heard of the nobleman behind the collection’s 16th poem, something he composed, a promise he made, before leaving the capital to take up a post in the provinces.

Almost everyone knows something of promises so this one has been kept for over a thousand years, a verse of common inheritance.

We must part for
I leave for
Inaba. But there, if
the mountain pines
sigh and it is
your voice I hear,
I shall return
at once.

Illustrated poem cards from the Hyakunin Isshu at the Shigure-den museum in the Arashiyama area of Kyoto. This year marks the 850th anniversary of the birth of the anthology's compiler, poet Fujiwara no Teika.