Kakinomoto no Hitomaro — Greatest of the Man'yō Poets, the *Kyūketsu Aidō* Elegy and the Iwami *Sōmon*

Hitomaro’s Position

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was active from the late 7th to the early 8th century (estimated 660?-724?). Of the twenty volumes of the Man’yōshū, centered on volumes 1-4, 19 long poems (chōka) and about 75 short poems (tanka) — or, if one counts the poems from other collections attributed to him or to the “Hitomaro Collection,” about 450 poems — remain under his name.

Together with Yamabe no Akahito, he is called a “Sage of Poetry” (Uta no Hijiri). Ki no Tsurayuki in the preface (Kana Preface) of the Kokin Wakashū praised him as “uta no hijiri” (the sage of poetry). Within the Man’yōshū too, his works are supreme in both quality and quantity.

Life — Fragments and Conjecture

Hitomaro’s life has no firm record in the official histories, and one can only reconstruct it from the kotobagaki (headnotes) in the Man’yōshū and later traditions.

Background

• The Kakinomoto were an old clan of Sōnokami district in Yamato (present-day Nara)
• Presumed to have been middle-ranking court officials
• Various dates for his birth and death; roughly around 660 for birth and around 724 for death is common

Activity as a Court Poet

He was active as a court poet during the reigns of Emperors Tenmu and Jitō (680s-690s). Accompanying imperial progresses, he composed elegies (banka, poems mourning the dead) and progress poems (miyuki-uta, poems celebrating imperial progresses) for public occasions.

His main public works:

• Elegy for Prince Kusakabe (Emperor Tenmu’s son, died 689) — a mourning for a key figure in imperial succession
• Elegy for Prince Takechi (died 696) — for a prince who was active in the Jinshin War
• Progress poems for Empress Jitō — accompanying her progresses to Yoshino

Late Life as Provincial Governor of Iwami

Late in life, he was posted as provincial governor to Iwami (present-day western Shimane) (presumed around 704). He lived with his wife Yosami no Otome in Iwami, and later composed the famous farewell poems (the Iwami sōmon poems) when he returned alone to the capital. Tradition holds that he died there in Iwami.

Representative Poem 1: The Iwami Sōmon Poems

When Hitomaro finished his term as provincial governor of Iwami and returned to the capital alone, he composed a long poem plus tanka farewelling his wife Yosami no Otome. Man’yōshū volume 2, poems 131-134.

Part of the Long Poem

“Iwami no umi / Tsuno no urami wo / ura nashi to / hito koso mirame / kata nashi to / hito koso mirame / yoshi ya shi / ura wa naku to mo / yoshi ya shi / kata wa naku to mo / isana tori / umibe wo sashite / Watazu no / araiso no ue ni / ka aoku ouru / tamamo okitsumo / asa haburu / kaze koso yoseme / yū haburu / nami koso ki yose / nami no muta / ka yori kaku yoru / tamamo nasu / yori-ne shi imo wo / tsuyu-jimo no / okite shi kureba / kono michi no / yasokuma-goto ni / yorozu tabi / kaerimi suredo / iya tō ni / sato wa sakarinu / iya taka ni / yama mo koe kinu / natsukusa no / omoi shinaete / shinou-ramu / imo ga kado min / nabike kono yama”

Iwami Sea, the beach where I slept beside my wife like sea-weeds cast onto shore, and now, leaving her with the frost of the dew, at every one of the eighty turns of this road I look back countless times, but the village grows further and further, the mountain higher and higher. “Bend down, this mountain!” — a call to the mountain, showing the depth of his feeling for his wife.

The Reply Tanka

“Iwami no ya / Takatsuno yama no / ko no ma yori / waga furu sode wo / imo mitsuran ka”

Through the trees of Takatsuno mountain in Iwami — is my wife watching me wave my sleeve? A single tanka of the parting glance after crossing the mountain.

“Sasa no ha wa / miyama mo sayani / sayagedomo / ware wa imo omou / wakare kinureba”

The bamboo leaves rustle noisily in the mountains, but I think only of my wife, for I have come away in parting. A contrast of external sound and internal thought.

Significance of the Iwami Sōmon Poems

This sequence is not a state poem but a private farewell song. It shows Hitomaro not only as a public poet but also as a poet who inscribes individual feeling. Some judge it “the highest peak of love poetry in the Man’yōshū.”

Representative Poem 2: The Kyūketsu Aidō Elegy

A long poem plus reply tanka mourning a deceased wife (thought to be a different wife; the date is uncertain). Man’yōshū volume 2, poems 207-216.

Part of the Long Poem

“Utsusemi to / omoishi imo ga / tama kagiru / honoka ni dani mo / mienu to omoeba”

When I think that my wife, whom I thought of as living in this world, is not seen even faintly like the glow of a jewel (I am overcome with grief). She has become a dead one whose light is not even faintly seen.

The Reply Tanka

“Kozo mite shi / aki no tsuki yo wa / teraseredo / ai mishi imo wa / iya toshi hanaru”

The autumn moon I saw last year still shines, but the wife I saw with me — she grows ever farther in the years. Contrast of unchanging nature and lost person.

“Fusuma-ji wo / Hikite no yama ni / imo wo okite / yamamichi wo yukeba / ikeri to mo nashi”

Having laid my wife to rest on Hikite Mountain, when I walk the mountain path, I feel as if I am not living. The weight of the direct expression “ikeri to mo nashi” (“I feel as if I do not live”).

Significance of the Kyūketsu Aidō Elegy

“Kyūketsu aidō” is a Chinese classical term meaning “to grieve until one weeps tears of blood.” Hitomaro’s chōka established itself as the summit of Japanese elegies, and had great influence on the Heian and Kamakura elegies to come.

Representative Poem 3: Public Elegies — Mourning Princes

Prince Kusakabe Elegy (Man’yōshū Volume 2, 167-169)

An elegy for Prince Kusakabe (died 689), Emperor Tenmu’s son, who was expected to be the next in succession.

“Hinami no / miko no mikoto no / uma namete / mikari tatashishi / toki wa mukafu”

The season when the Prince Hinami (=Prince Kusakabe) went out hunting with his horses arrayed comes around again. Though the prince is gone, the season returns just the same — the cruelty of time.

Prince Takechi Elegy (Man’yōshū Volume 2, 199-201)

An elegy for Prince Takechi (died 696), who was active on Emperor Tenmu’s side in the Jinshin War. A long poem of 149 units, the longest chōka in the Man’yōshū. It compresses the depictions of the Jinshin War, the prince’s life, and grief at his death into one flow.

Public elegies had the role of recording the memory of the state in poems, not mere personal mourning. Hitomaro undertook this role as a court poet, and this is one of the reasons he was called a “Sage of Poetry.”

Hitomaro’s Style

1. Perfection of the Long Poem

The form of the long poem (chōka) — a chain of 5-7 sounds, closed with a final 5-7-7 — was brought to its highest completion by Hitomaro. It is longer than tanka (5-7-5-7-7), allowing narrative and reflective content.

2. The Technique of Hanka

The form of appending one or two tanka after a long poem, as a hanka (reflective tanka). The hanka condenses the long poem’s content or restates it from another angle. Hitomaro’s hanka excel especially at condensing the long poem’s lingering feeling into a tanka.

3. Masterful Use of Makura-kotoba and Jokotoba

• Makura-kotoba — a formalized 5-sound phrase that leads to a specific word. e.g. “akane sasu” → “murasaki (purple)”; “tamakiwaru” → “inochi (life)”
• Jokotoba — a technique of first drawing a concrete scene and then entering the theme. e.g. “ashihiki no yamadori no o no shidario no” → “naganagashi yo” (from a poem attributed to the Hitomaro Collection)

Hitomaro used these older rhetorical techniques not merely as ornament but for layering meaning.

4. Antithesis and Repetition

Constructions like “ura nashi to hito koso mirame / kata nashi to hito koso mirame” build up rhythm and feeling through antithesis and repetition. This owes something to Chinese classics (Book of Songs, Chu ci) but Hitomaro developed it in his own way to fit Japanese phonology.

The Puzzle of “The Hitomaro Collection”

The Man’yōshū contains many poems (200+) headnoted as being “from the ‘Kakinomoto no Ason Hitomaro Kashū’” (Hitomaro’s own collection). But the original book does not survive; it exists only through quotations in the Man’yōshū.

Whether all “Hitomaro Collection” poems are by Hitomaro himself is doubted. Modern Man’yō scholarship often distinguishes:

• Certainly Hitomaro’s own works — poems certainly known as Hitomaro’s (public elegies, etc.)
• Poems in the Hitomaro Collection — poems that were in the collection Hitomaro compiled but whose authorship may be unknown

Death and Legend

There is no firm record of Hitomaro’s death, but there is an old tradition that he died at Kamoshima in Iwami. Man’yōshū volume 2, poems 223-227 line up what is called Hitomaro’s own death-verses.

“Kamoyama no / iwane shi makeru / ware wo kamo / shirani to imo ga / machitsutsu aramu” (223)

I who use Kamoyama’s rocks as my pillow (=who have died) — my wife, not knowing, is probably still waiting for me. A last call to his wife Yosami no Otome, from Hitomaro who died (as tradition holds) in his posting at Iwami.

Yosami no Otome’s reply: “Kyō kyō to / waga matsu kimi wa / Ishikawa no / kai ni majirite / ari to iwazu ya mo” (224)

The husband I wait for saying “Today, today,” is rumored to be mingling with the shells of the Ishikawa (=lying at the river bottom). A wife’s poem sensing her husband’s death.

The authenticity of these poems is unclear, but they created the later legend that would deify Hitomaro as “the sage of poetry” who died in Iwami.

Later Influence

Hitomaro was deified from the Heian period on as the god of poetry. “Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Shrines” were built in various places, and he was enshrined at poetry gatherings. The Kakinomoto Shrine in Masuda City, Shimane still exists.

Heian’s Ki no Tsurayuki, in the Kokinshū’s Kana Preface: “Kakinomoto no Hitomaro namu uta no hijiri narikeru” (“It was Kakinomoto no Hitomaro who was the sage of poetry”)

praised him, and situated Hitomaro as the ideal prototype of waka. Later Fujiwara no Teika, Edo-era Kamo no Mabuchi, Meiji-era Masaoka Shiki — all studied Hitomaro as “the summit of waka.”

Toward the Next Article

Alongside Hitomaro, the representative poets of the Man’yōshū are Yamabe no Akahito (“Tago no ura yu”) and Yamanoue no Okura (“Hinkyū Mondō Uta” — Dialogue on Poverty). If Akahito is a static poet who “composes the great nature in a great voice,” Okura is a dynamic poet who “composes the bottom of society and individual grief.” The next article treats these contrasting pair.