Notices by Wim ???? (wim_v12e@octodon.social), page 3

A winter #poem from the Kokinshū

冬ながらそらより花のちりくるは雲のあなたは春にやあるらむ

fuyu nagarasora yori hana nochirikuru wakumo no anata waharu ni ya aru ran

it’s winter now, yetfrom the skies blossomcomes fluttering down;beyond the cloudscan it be spring already?

(written more than a thousand years ago in Japan, by Kiyowara no Fukayabu, the great-grandfather of Sei Shonagon)

Tonight I made iridofu: stir-fried carrots, celery, shiitake mushrooms, arame seaweed and tofu. I served it with wholegrain yumenishiki rice.

My closest recipe is

http://quickandtastycooking.org.uk/recipes/iridofu-carrots-shiitake

#cooking #vegan #food

The Kokinshū (古今集) was the first Imperial collection of waka form #Japanese poetry, published in 905 (Heian era). It contains 1,111 poems and a cultivated person of that time needed to know them all by heart.

The Tale of Genji is full of references to this work.

Speaking of the Tale of Genji, I found a very interesting article, by Prof Yukiko Yuasa of Meji University:

「源氏物語」は批判精神に充ちた「硬派」の物語！？

"Is The Tale of Genji a serious story full of criticism?"

https://www.meiji.ac.jp/cip/english/research/opinion/Yukiyo_Yuasa.html

https://www.meiji.net/career/vol310_yukiyo-yuasa

The Tale of Genji is a Japanese novel from the 10th century, written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court. It is set in the 9th century.

I've posted about it before, andI recently wrote a post about its connection to a Japanese rock song, Ukifune.

https://quickandtastycooking.org.uk/articles/ukifune/

But it is a long novel so there is much to say about it.

In the chapter of the Tale of Genji entitled "The Law", Lady Murasaki, Genji's wife, is very ill and she fears that she has not long to live. She decides to dedicate a thousand copies of the Lotus Sutra, which she had made herself over the years.The dedication event is very grand, and amongst other things there is a performance of the court dance "The Warrior King" (Ryou-Ou).

What I find remarkable is that this very dance is still performed today, a thousand years later, in quite the same way.

Some years ago I saw an outdoor performance in Kyoto, at the eve of the Gion Matsuri.I didn't know anything at all about that dance then, but luckily I took some pictures. Eventually, I made a drawing from those pictures, and I wrote a blog post about it.

https://quickandtastycooking.org.uk/articles/ran-ryou-ou/

@toneji 自分と喋るのは自然なことですよ。

@toneji Thank you for explaining, that is very interesting.

@toneji Yes, this is from the chapter named "Maboroshi". It's very sad.

A beautiful tanka from the Tale of Genji

植ゑて見し花のあるじもなき宿に知らず顔にて来ゐる鴬

uwe te mi si hana no aruzi mo naki yado ni　sirazugaho niteki wiru uguhisu

植えて眺めた花の主人もいない宿に知らない顔をして来て鳴いている鴬よ（現代語訳）

The warbler has come again. It does not knowThat the mistress of its tree is here no more. (Seidensticker)

How the warbler sings, just as though nothing had changed, there among the flowers,in the tree she planted then, even when she is no more. (Tyler)

#poetry #japanese

Context:

It is very early spring, there is still snow but the plum blossoms are out. Genji's wife and love if his life Murasaki has died some months before and he is still devastated.He is aimlessly gazing at the garden and in a blossoming plum tree that he remembers her planting, a songbird is singing.

Here is another tanka from that same chapter of the Tale of Genji

憂き世には雪消えなむと思ひつつ思ひの外になほぞほどふる

ukiyo ni hayuki kiye nam toomohi tutuomohi no hoka ninaho zo hodo huru

つらいこの世からは姿を消してしまいたいと思いながらも心外にもまだ月日を送っていることだ（現代語訳）

The snow will soon have left this gloomy world.My days must yet go on, an aimless drifting. (Seidensticker)

When I only long to melt from this sorry world as this snow will soon,how strange still to linger on once again to watch it fall! (Tyler)

The context is the same as for the first tanka. Genji longs to die now that his love has died.

The lines before the poem make it even more poignant:

夜明けに、折も折、曹司に下りる女房であろう、「ひどく積もった雪ですこと」と言う声をお聞きつけになって、ちょうどその時の気がするが、側にいらっしゃらない寂しさも、言いようもなく悲しい。（現代語訳）

He felt as though he was reliving that moment when dawn came and he heard a gentlewoman on her way back to the room say, "Why, look at all the snow!"Her absence from beside him gave him unspeakable pain.(Tyler)#poetry #japanese

The Yamato taiko drummers made a great cover of GO!GO!7188's Ukifune. It's not just a cover of the song, the beautiful video is a homage to the original's animation video.Worth watching even if you don't know the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbHwrfNbcDA

The song has very beautiful lyrics and also a very interesting background. It was inspired by the "Tale of Genji", a masterpiece of Japanese literature from the early 11th century, written by the noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu.

I wrote an article with a translation of the lyrics and an explanation of the connection to the Tale of Genji.

https://quickandtastycooking.org.uk/articles/ukifune/

#japanese #poetry

If you are a student of Japanese, then you might want to read the whole essay from which the poem was taken, it is very interesting:

美しい日本の私 by 川端康成

https://quickandtastycooking.org.uk/kawabata-nobel-lecture/

Or you can take the easy way and read it in English:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1968/kawabata/lecture/

Here is an amazing poem by the Buddhist priest Myōe (明恵) (1173–1232)

あかあかやあかあかあかやあかあかやあかあかあかやあかあかや月

He has been called the "poet of the moon". The translation is

“Bright, bright, and bright, bright, bright, and bright, bright.Bright and bright, bright, and bright, bright moon.”

What I found quite amazing is that this poem is a tanka: it follows the 5-7-5-7-7 pattern.

aka aka yaaka aka aka yaaka aka yaaka aka aka yaaka aka ya tsuki

#Japanese #Poetry

I wrote about this poem and others in my latest article,

"The Beautiful Japan of the Mind"

https://quickandtastycooking.org.uk/articles/my-own-private-japan/