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Prof. Yamanaka introduced his presentation by saying that he would touch on some intricate aspects of Japanese grammar and ways of conceptualizing certain personal feelings in classical Japanese poetry, basically ways of saying that one was in love. The ancient anthology of Japanese poems, the Man'yoshu (c.759), known to be a personal collection made by the poet Yakamochi, shows what the language was like at that time, as well as being an incomparable record of human introspection. Only native words were used in waka (by definition Japanese, as opposed to Chinese, poetry), and none of them began with a voiced consonant or an r. In addition, the language had no abstract nouns, and it was only later, after Buddhist thought had influenced imperial poetry, that such words as nori 'the natural law', satori 'awakening', myauga 'providence' and keraku 'pleasure' (these last two Chinese compounds) appeared in waka poems. (In his transcriptions, Prof. Yamanaka reproduced the old pronunciations, using f to represent a putative original p which has now generally become an h or has been lost between vowels.)
The words that came closest to abstract nouns were those that identified "notions" such as kokoro 'heart, mind', kofi 'love', omofi 'longing' etc. In collocations, a word like kokoro could be used either in its basic sense (kokoro nasi 'have no heart') or with some kind of semantic transference, as in kokoro wo hiraku 'open one's heart' (as if it were a container), or kokoro wo toku 'untie one's heart' perhaps recalling the practice of binding the shoots of pine trees, praying for a lover's return). In this case, just as English expressions such as "my heart sank at the thought" and "the flames of love" unconsciously employ images involving water and fire, so the images most consistently used in Japanese poetry make use of the same elements.
One of the most frequent of the water images employs the word sita 'underneath', suggesting an unexpressed love flowing like a silent stream. A reference to 'wet hair' was based on a belief that this betokened that someone was passionately in love with you. 'Morning dews', 'tears of parting', 'wet sleeves' had their origin in the fact that husbands did not live with their wives but only visited them at night. The Kokinshu(914) added a new metaphor of the 'cherry blossoms' to signify the fickleness of the human heart, and the use of iro 'colour' in a case of not betraying one's passion by a change of complexion. Later, in the Shin Kokinshu (1201) we find transparent water symbolizing the peaceful mind afforded by a pious life.
After the initial transference of daily expressions to an aesthetic use, and the further intensification and embellishment of such themes, comes a third stage in which what lies under the imagery is explicitly identified, as in "I did love her... and felt myself like a raging river". Finally the concrete denotation of the word is taken over into the poetic connotation, as in "though not the ocean, my heart brims with water" or "if the water of your heart be not clear...". Some most striking examples of this are found in modern poetry: "The water in the land of Yamato flows like heart" and "Down pours the heart of autumn".
The other image commonly used was that of fire. Here, collocations like "I burn for you" or "The fire of love burns bright within me" are typical, but the metaphor seems never to have reached the stage of "love is a fire". Prof. Yamanaka suggested that omofi and kofi might be punningly associated with fi 'fire', so that the metaphor was already included in these words. He also gave some examples from English poetry to show the universality of the image. There were also poems that combined the two images, as in "Why is it that I, who am no fisherman's fire, should yet find myself floating and burning with love, borne on a river of tears?" This fisherman (ama) theme proved to be useful, and was employed in many hundreds of poems, as it provided a host of poetic resources. There were images connected with the sea, and with fire (mosifobi, the fire for making salt, moshio, by burning seaweed), floating objects such as a rowboat, and associated themes like moonlight and pearls. There was also an opportunity for making puns: ama and Amanogawa 'the Milky Way', nami/namida 'waves/tears', ura 'bay/inside', ukime 'seaweed/mishaps' and the like.
All in all, these images showed the kinds of expression that poets relied on, and still rely on today, to signify love.
A question and answer time followed, and in response to one question Prof. Yamanaka said that metaphor as a figure of speech had never flourished in Japanese poetry; metaphorical use was made rather of similes and puns. The reason was perhaps that in contrast to European poetry, which was professional, carefully worked out, and written for posterity, Japanese poetry was short and instantaneous, and written for a single occasion. A better comparison could perhaps be made between Japanese poetry and European headlines.
The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Mrs. Eileen Kato, who said that love poetry had always appealed to her because of its directness. It had been confirmed today that the human heart was everywhere, and at all times, the same. Two women poets, the Japanese Ono no Komachi and the Irish Liadain, 9th-century contemporaries, had both likened love to 'a running fire' -- as had the Greek Sappho, some 2500 years ago.
Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 3", March 2002, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.
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