WAGA KOKORO by Sugae Masumi (II)

Kobe Shoin Women’s University Repository

Title Waga Kokoro by Sugae Masumi(Ⅱ)

菅江真澄の「わがこころ」(二)

Author(s) Richard A. Jambor（R・A・ジャンボール）

Citation 研究紀要（SHOIN REVIEW），第 38 号：1-20

Issue Date 1997

Resource Type Bulletin Paper / 紀要論文

Resource Version

URL

Right

Waga

Kokoro

by Sugae

Masu mi

_{(II )}

(translated by

Jambor)

The 15 th

A fine day, the rain and clouds all gone. Leaving our inn at a place called Kuwahara, we were elated when we saw the moon on the edge of the mountains in the morning sky.

Kusamakura karine no tsuyu mo onaji ku wa hara ha de sode ni tsuki yado sananl

Naokata composed this poem there. Sato no ko ga

kafuko no mayu no itonai mo

hodohete sabishi aki no kuwahara

We came to a place called Mine Village. could see Mt. Obasute.

Deru yori

iru made tsuki o minemura ni sumutefu hito ya tanoshi karuran On a journey— the dew at our inn is the same as that on my sleeves. where I hold the moon.

The villagers

make their living raising silkworms from cocoons. Later on Kuwahara will be quiet when autumn comes.

When we climbed from there, we

From its rising until its setting, those who live in Mine Village can enjoy the moon.

There are also people living on climbed from behind it to the summit, tva in a thatched shrine.

Mukai miru Chikuma no kuma mo nokori naku terasase tamae mizu no tsuki kage

the mountainside in Sugi Village. We where we prayed to the Kannon

Bodhisat-Look over there — how I hope the moon covers every part

of the Chikuma River!

When I was young, I spent two nights at this shrine, gazing at the moon. I thought about that as I walked around looking at the different things there. There is a poem about the autumn foliage of the cherry trees on Mt. Obasute2. Withered yellow deutzia lay at the foot of a tall judas tree. The mountains rose steeply from the banks of the Chikuma River to end in majestic peaks. We could see the summits of Mt. Ariaki and Mt. Kamuri in the east, and Mt. Hitoe to the west. The narrow stream, which the poem describes as "flowing into the Sarashina River even now," was emptying into Yawata Village'. The bridge that crosses there is called the Kumoi Bridge. The famed Akashi Pines, which we saw when we came to Kariyahara, had withered and remained only in name . Of course, everyone knows the Chikuma River, of which it is said that "we should cross it carefully."'

No one knows who said it first or when, but someone remarked on how the moonlight is reflected in each one of the small rice paddies that lie one above the other in the forty-eight cho on the mountainside during the harvest moon. But since the rice plants are heavy with dew at that time, they block the water in the paddies, which do not reflect the moon.5

Does not Toshiyori say that, long ago, the mountain was known as Mt. Ka-bun?' And Uji Daigon's account in The Tales of Yamato, which is also well

coun-try of Shinano. His parents having died when he was a child, his aunt had cared for him like a parent until he became an adult. His wife was mean and hated her mother-in-law, who was stooped over because of her age, and was always speak-ing ill about her to her husband. The man and his aunt did not get along as well as they used to, which the aunt found very troubling.

About this time, the aunt was getting on in years and was completely bent over. Even so, the man's wife treated her meanly and kept on complaining about her, saying that she wished she would die, and urging her husband to take her and abandon her far off in the mountains. She urged him to do this again and again, and so one night, the man felt that he had no choice but to do it.

That night the moon was shining very brightly, and he said, "Auntie, there's a very special service in the temple that I'd like to show you." Overjoyed, she let herself be borne by the man on his back. They lived at the foot of a lofty moun-tain, and when he had entered far into it, he set her down on the summit, which

she would be unable to come down from, and ran away. "Come back," she cried, but he went back home without answering.

When he thought about what he had done, however, he grew angry with what his wife had made him do. To have done this after his aunt had cared for him like a parent, and they had got along so well together for such a long time! When he looked at the mountaintop and saw the moon shining so brightly above it, he was so stricken that, unable to sleep, he recited the poem :

Waga kokoro My heart

nagusame kanetsu cannot be consoled Sarashina ya in Sarashina,

obasute yama ni when I see the moon teru tsuki o mite shining on Mt. Obasute.

We are told that he rushed out again and got his aunt. Ever since then, this mountain has been known as 'The Mountain on Which the Auntie was

Aban-doned.' And that is the reason why we are told that he found it so difficult to be consoled. The mountain became famous because of the way the moon shines so brilliantly on it, and because of this moving story associated with it. In connec-tion with that auntie, who was abandoned so long ago, auntie stones, niece stones, mother stones, and nephew stones are found here on the mountain, " our guide told us with a smile.

I intended to climb the mountain again when it got dark. Now I wanted to see the ceremony at the Hachiman Shrine below the mountain, and so I went down to Sarashina Village to a place called Yawata. Various colored lanterns were hanging from the eaves of every house on the roadside. In the midst of the large crowd there, a naked ascetic priest was begging for alms, as he stood under a spout from which the water from a valley stream fell, waving small bunches of bamboo grass in both hands and asking, "Hey, how about letting me do your ablutions for your' On one side of the road, there were some figurines that had probably been used in the fireworks the night before.

Shaking his staff and ringing the bells on it, an ascetic priest could be heard above the din, chanting loudly, "May I be purified."8 People were walking around trying to sell pictures of the eruption of Mt. Asanama, saying that

Momijiba wa All the autumn leaves

kogarete nomi mo have been burnt

miewatari kern as far as the eye can see.'

The village children were going around with ladles, crying out "Giboshi, gi-boshi," and those with warts or ringworm scooped up water with the ladles and poured it on the ornamental globes (giboshi) on the railings of the bridge at the shrine's entrance. "Please buy some rice cakes," said some people with small rice cakes wrapped in straw instead of bamboo. A man who was carrying roost-ers and hens was crying out, "Birds for sale." The birds' heads hung from the mouth of his sleeves, their wings tucked inside. How sadly their eyes were blink-ing! The freeing of chickens and other living creatures carried out in this day was

probably modeled after the Festival at the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine.'

I pushed through the crowd until I came before the shrine. A lantern was hung there with "Deliverance Ceremony of Living Creatures" written on it. Their sleeves rolled up and dressed like hunters, a large number of priests were beating drums and blowing flutes as they officiated at the ceremony, the sacred flag of the blue dragon waving in the autumn breeze.

Iwaite wa They have celebrated

iku yo ni narinu for untold generations,

shira ni gite dressed in white,

nabikuya hata no with this god's flag

kami no mizukaki fluttering in the breeze.

I went around to the rear of the shrine of the Amitabha Hachiman, where the washed rice, which had been scattered there by those who had come earlier, lay piled up like snow. Some small stones among the rocks stood out here and there like stars, which people call eye stones, believing that rubbing them will cure their eye troubles. How shocking that people honor these stones more than either the gods or the Buddha!

Some children were playing along the banks of the Chikuma River, fishing for bullheads and looking for round stones. Their elders were out on the water in small pleasure boats, enjoying the scenery around Mt. Obasute.

Chikumagawa Children at play,

soko no sazare ya picking up stones

hirouran from the bottom

tamoto hitashite of the Chikuma River,

asobu unaiko getting their sleeves wet.

I was relaxing for a short while in a house in the village, when a large group of linked poetry enthusiasts, who had come from all over the country, entered

and talked about climbing the mountain. While they were doing this, the sun be-gan to set. "Well, let's go now," they urged, and we all set off for Mt. Obasute on a narrow overgrown path through the rice fields, chatting along the way. We worshiped at the temple, and then made our way up through the eulalia, wet from the evening dew, to the top of Mt. Obasute as the sun was going down. There were about a hundred of us, eagerly waiting for the moon to come out and enjoy the view on Mt. Obasute, and the murmur of the stream and the songs of the crickets in the undergrowth were appropriate to the scene.

Some of them were sitting with their legs crossed, heads bowed, smoking, and muttering something. Peering at each other in the dark, they whispered,

"Japanese or Chinese

, did you make a good poem?" "How's this?" "That's not right." "This word contains more feeling than that one." "Oh, that's excellent!"

Some were looking up at the sky, while others rested their heads on their knees. Those who were not old were also squatting, as they recited their poems or mois-tened the tips of their short-handled writing brushes. Others had spread out straw mats, opened their picnic baskets, and taken out sake cups. They had fogotten all about moon-viewing and were engrossed in their party, taking up their containers of sake and turning their backs on the moon. Their thoughts were only of the feast spread before them, and they were not acting in a manner proper to moon-viewing.

The men and women who had gathered on the face of a flat rock below us were offering incense while waiting for the moon, and they could be heard fer-vently chanting, "I sincerely believe in Amitabha," and rubbing their rosaries, as they prayed to the moon with deep feeling. No matter how fine our poems might be, they would be nothing but dew when compared to the emotion these men and women felt for the moon.

When it became dark, the moon finally emerged faintly from out of the clouds above Mt. Kyodai opposite us and the peaks in the distance, covering everything with its light. The Chikuma River resembled a sheet of silver, and I

had never seen anything to compare with it. Could the mountain path where the aunt had been abandoned long ago have been as beautiful as this? Consoled by the moon this way, I completely forgot the old, sad story and felt happier than I had ever been.

We stayed there until two in the morning when dark clouds hid the moon. A rooster crowed, and we all left and went down to Yawata. Many of them fol-lowed me to the inn where I had rested at noon, and we formed a circle and re-cited the poor poems that we had composed on the mountain.

Tabigoromo In travelers' clothes

omoitatsu yori since starting out,

obasute no I have come

tsuki ni kokoro o thinking solely of

kakete kinikeri the Mt. Obasute moon.

Suminoboru hikari ariya to obasute no yamakuchi shiruki tsuki no kage

Could the brightness be increasing?

The crest of Mt. Obasute is growing white with moonlight. Yoso ni mishi mine no onoe mo oshinabete tsuki no nakanaru obasute no yama Akirake ki miyo no hikari mo sashi soete ima wa nagusamu

I have seen other peaks and ridges completely covered with moonlight— Mt. Obasute!

Along with the brilliant light of this reign, I am now enjoying

obasute no yama

Noji yamaji

wale koshi

tsuyu

no

yado shite akanu mochitsuki no kage

Toshifui tomo omoishi yama mo kai ante

ima obasute no tsuki o koso mire

Furusato ni kawaru noyama mo ukitabi mo wasurete mulcO Sarashina no tsuki Chikumagawa soko no sazare mo arawarete

tsuki ni kazu miru sora no sayagesa

Sumukata ni nagusame kanete Sarashina ya

the moonlight on Mt. Obasute.

We made our way on mountains and fields, the dew on our sleeves, never without the light of the full moon.

I thought so long about this mountain, and here I am! Now look at the moon

over Mt. Obasute!

I've forgotten

about the mountains and fields away from home

or anything else while

looking at the Sarashina moon.

In the moonlight

I can count the small stones on the bottom of

the Chikuma River— how bright the sky is!

Those whom the moon cannot console,

obasuteyama no tsuki o koso mire

and see it shining on Mt. Obasute. Tsuki ni ima nagusame kanete miyako bito shinobi ya suran obasute no yama

Those in the capital whom the moon cannot console now,

must be thinking of Mt. Obasute.

Kage takaku tsuki koso kakare obasute no fumoto no kiri wa tachi mo nobara de

May the light from the moon above chase the mist

from the foot of Mt. Obasute and keep it from rising.

Tern tsuki ni kumo no izuko mo arawarete omoi nokosanu obasute no yama In the moonlight clouds also appear here and there, loathe to leave Mt. Obasute.

Suzumushi no koe no kuma sae hanten no tsuki no koyoi to fun idete naku

Tonight's moon hanging in the sky

has brightened even the places where the bell insects hide and made them sing.'

Chikugaw a tsuna hikufune no

The ferries go out on the Chikuma River

yukikai mo kurikaeshi min mochitsuki no kage

with those who want to see the full moon one more time.

Ikubaku no michi shi hedateba kono yama ni mizarishi aki no tsukikage wa oshi

We have traveled long and far— how disappointing

not to see the autumn moon on this mountain!

Kokoro araba kaze fuki sasoe

obasute no yamaji kumoranu tsuki ni akasan

If you are kind, ask the wind

to blow away the darkness on the path up Mt. Obasute, where the moon is shining.

Tomo maneku sode ka to mireba tsuki koyoi fumoto no susuki aid kaze zo fuku

I mistook it for a friend, his sleeve inviting me

to see the moon tonight— the autumn wind on the bush clover below!

Mata ya min kata yamagishi no koke mushiro koyoi no tsuki ni shiku kage zo naki

Oh, to be

beside the mountain again on a moss mat

in the unsullied light of tonight's moon!

Kusamakura yume mo musubade yo to tomo ni kono obasute no tsuki ni akenamu On my journey, I could not sleep — the whole night bright with the light from the Mt. Obasute moon.

The 16 th

Early the next morning, we went to Jingu Temple.' According to the re-cords in this temple, the younger sister of the god Hikohohodemi was possessed of an evil disposition, and she was abandoned here on Mt. Kaburi because of this.

Was it because of that this mountain became known as the Mountain of the Abandoned Aunt (Obasuteyama)? I wonder in which document I can find this information. Waga kokoro tsukihatenu to ya ion sasu obasuteyama no iriai no sora My heart is so restless! Going to my hut, I see the evening sky, over Mt, Obasute.

Did the monk Jichin13 write this poem about this ancient story?

We wanted to go to the Temple of Perfect Light, and took the road there.' On the way, Hinagawa Kiyotoshi, whom I had met the night before, spoke freely about the many voyages that he had made from the island of Tsushima. He had crossed over to Korea during his childhood where, having learned the language, he worked as an interpreter. Because he had committed some slight crime, how-ever, he was wandering about like this. When we stopped by the roadside, he wrote some Korean words in the dirt and explained what each one meant. As he told us about how the treetops on Mt. Asaji change colors in the autumn rains,

and how the mountains above Takashiki Bay are dyed about the famous autumn leaves at Urama in Takashiki, there, and I asked him about these places.

a deep red, as well as he made me want to go Takashiki no ura no momijiba yoru nami ni chirasuna yume to tachi ya ideken

The autumn leaves of Takashiki Bay— you must have left

hoping the incoming waves would not scatter them.

I composed this poem and handed it to him. He was going to Echigo, so he left us there.

We passed through Inariyama Village. Sweating profusely, a large number of men, bearing straw bags filled with rice on their backs, passed us at Shiozaki Village. Oxen also passed by carrying small bow-shaped bamboo trees, which the people here call heichigo. These had been brought from Mt. Togakushi, where the heavy snows bend them like that, which explains their appearance. The oxen drivers and those carrying the rice were very thirsty and begged for water at the entrance of houses.

Yosho me sae Even outsiders can see,

mitsuru wa kurushi how hard it is

shiosaki ya in Shiozaki!

karaki ukiyo o The villagers' way through life wataru sato no ko is a bitter one.

Due to the recent rains, the river had risen and burst through the levees in several places. We entered Tanbajima on the left, and came out onto a wide river beach. A drunken ascetic priest passed by spouting some nonsense. We heard him singing incoherently in a ragged voice, "The mirror is shining on Mt.

Obasute, but don't give your heart away to the niece." (This was nonsense, but I was interested in it because it might be an old saying with some connection to Mt. Obasute.) Why, he was the priest who had stood beside the statue of the Kannon Bodhisattva, ringing his bell and begging alms from everyone going moon-viewing on the mountain!

We came out to Komatsubara and crossed the river in a rope-drawn ferry and arrived in a village called Koishi. There was a ford at the Susobana River, and we also crossed this by ferry. We kept on and arrived at the Temple of Per-fect Light. The noisy crowds visiting it had not changed since the last time I had seen it. I stayed in the sanctuary a while and wrote a poem using the word Zenk-oji.

Seki aezu I couldn't stop crying

musebu namida ni and was bathed

kakikurenu in tears.

ukimi no tsumi o My conscience told me

shireru kokoro ni where I had done wrong.

There were some things that I wanted to see, but our guide had told us to hurry back and since I would have other opportunities to come there, I entered our inn beside the main gate of the temple. The sky grew cloudy after lunch, and I said Tsuki ya min kawanakajima ni kumo no nami tachi naedate so izayoi no sora

We want to see the moon in Kawanakajima tonight. May the gathering clouds fade away

The 17 th

The morning was cloudy, and it soon began to rain. We put on our rain-coats and came to the Susobana River, but the ferryman wasn't there. A large group were waiting there, hesitating about whether or not to ford the river. We found a shallow spot and went in first to see how the deep the water was. When they saw someone cross over first, they said, "Let's go," and entered the shallow water. I made up a humorous poem here.

Isa toku mo Hey, hurry up and cross asa kawa watare where the river's shallow.

sugabana no When it rains,

sakari ni furaba the Susobana blooms, mizu wa masaran and the water rises!'

We passed many villages (along the way), but since we had already come this way the day before, I will not say anything about them here. When we came to Futatsuyanagi Village, we saw a large group of people under a zelkova tree so big that an ox could have been hidden under it.

Kokoro aru Looking upwards,

hito ya aogite some sensitive people, tachi machi no waiting in the moonlight

tsuki no kokage ni beneath a zelkova tree — izuru o ya matsu on the seventeenth day.

I didn't know the name of the village that comes after Shiozaki, so I asked a young woman who was looking at us from her gate. When she ran away without

answering me, I thought that there must be something wrong with her, but a man walking behind me told me that the girls in this village are ashamed of its name, and will never answer outsiders who ask them. And when I asked him the reason for this, he burst out laughing and told me that it was because the village had the

funny name of Hekubo. So that explained why she hadn't answered! We were all laughing and talking about this as we kept on.'

We were approaching lnariyama Village, and paid a visit to a doctor named Koryo. He begged us to stay a little, but we declined his invitation and hurried on. It soon started raining as we went up Sarugabanba Pass, gazing on Mt. Obasute on one side and Mt. Hitoe and the Chikuma River on the other. We ar-rived at our inn in Aoyagi where two young women passed by, singing while car-rying linen clothes that had gotten wet in the rain, reminding me of the story by Izumi Shikibu.

Kore mo mata Once more

inari no yama no we are approaching

chikakereba Inariyama, a village

a o kinu ran with young ladies wearing

sato no otomeko men's kimonos.'

We spent the night there. The 18 th

From Long Sword Pass, we saw a narrow trail called an arashi, which plunged like a thread from the tall peak on the left to the bottom of a great valley on the right. Bundles of wood were being dropped here from the top of the mountain. Neither grass nor trees could grow on that trail, and we could hear the

noise made by the wood as it fell.

Yamagatsu ga The noise made

mine yori otosu as the lumberjacks

shibakuruma dropped bundles of wood

arashi no michi ya on the chute

oto no o yamanu never ceased.

there. When Prince Inukai was wandering deep in the mountains, he happened to see steam rising from a hot spring in the distance, and since he was the first one to bathe there, it is known as Prince Inukai' s Hot Spring!' A poem with that title in The Collection of Gleanings from Japanese Poems describes Inukai's warm waters this way.

Tori no ko wa While still chicks, mada hina nagara the young birds

tachite inu are standing,

gai no miyuru ya looking at the eggs sumori naruran and guarding the nest.

We stayed at the house of the Keeper of the Spring, which is called Jian, that night.

Mine no an Clouds,

kumo na tozashi so please don't cover

koyoi mata our mountain hut!

koko ni imachi no Tonight I want to see again tsuki ya nagamen the moon of the eighteeth day.

Naokata told me that he wouldn't go to sleep until the moon came out.

Tabigoromo katashiki made wa tsukimo ya ya idete nohara no tsuyu ni yadoreru On a journey, I will not sleep. Slowly the moon

emerges and takes shelter in the dew in the fields.

Ideru yu no I truly understood

fukaki megumi o the profound blessing

mi ni zo shim of these warm waters.

ika ni asama no It is from them

na ni nagareken that Asama's fame flows.

The 19 th

We set out from Asama early the next morning. There's a poem about this place which says,

Asahano ni Like the hidden roots

tatsu mi wa kosuge of the sacred sedge

ne kakurete in Asahano,

tare yue ni ka wa no one knows

waga koi zaran the one I love.'

Isn't Asaha a mistake? Shouldn't it be Asama?

Suzumushi no I see the crickets

furidete nagame _{emerging from their holes,}

kurenai no and the leaves in the field

asaha no nora ya red in the morning sun —

iza wakete min let us be on our way!

We went through Matsumoto, and while we were resting on the grass on our way through Murai, I came across someone called Oshisaka from Tanabe in Murokunda County in the country of Ki, whom I had met while gazing at the moon on Mt. Obasute the night before. "Now aren't you the friend whom I watched the moon with?" he said. Oshisaka's pen name was Koff', and being quite good at linked poetry, he had journeyed to see the Mt. Obasute moon,

where he made up the following haiku. Suterareba kakaru noyama ya kyo no tsuki

KOffi was a village headman in Tanabe. Yo o tabi ni

yado o kari to no hotori kana.

Would I were cast away on that mountain in the moonlight today!

On life's journey, I stayed at an inn beside a rice paddy.

This was a poem composed by the Priest Sogi during the Bummei Period. In connection with it, KOffi told us that he had built a thatched but named after it. This friend stayed at Senpo's house that night and I at Kani Nagamichi's. When evening came, we gathered again and sat in a circle. KOffi took out some souve-nirs from a paper wrapper-a sedge mat from Tofu and bush clover from Miyagino and showed them to us.

Iro fukaki Deeply felt,

kotoba no hana mo the flowers of your words,

orimazete interlaced with

hagi no nishiki o the autumn colors of the bush clover miyagino no hara from the fields of Miyagi.

Senpo, his host, answered,

Suga komono nanafu ni yado shi wakarenaba taezu mo hito o fumi ni shinoban

A sedge mat in your simple inn.

Soon we part. I'll never forget you

The 20 th

As Kofu was leaving that morning, I gave him the following poem. Wakare temo

onaji karne no kusamakura musubite ahan yona yona no yume

Although we are parting, we shared the same inn on our trip.

I shall be with you every night in my dreams.

Endnotes

1 . The underlined words are an example of kakushidai or a concealed topic. 2 . Found in Fubokusho (The Japanese Collection), 1310 a.d.

3 . Found in Shinchokusenshu (A New Royally Ordered Collection of Japanese Poems) from 1235 a.d.

4 . Found in FubokushO.

5 . One cho equals 109 meters or 119 yards.

6 . Toshiyori or Minamoto Shunrai ( ? 1055— ? 1129) , Heian poet and critic. Uji Dainagon Monogatari another title for Konjaku Monogatari (sho, a

lection of stories from the late Heian Period.

7 . In Shinto and Buddhism, ablutions are believed to wash away defilement. 8 . Rokkonoshojo or the purificatiion through detachment from the senses. 9 . An active volcano in Nagano Prefecture, which erupted In 1783, killing two

thousand.

10. The shrine in Kyoto of this name celebrates this festival on August 15. It is no longer done in Yawata.

11. Bell insects are a kind of cricket.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Meiji Restoration.

Jichin (1155-1225) was a poet-priest.

Better known as ZenkOji, a famous place of pilgrimage in Nagano City. In Masumi's time it was known as the Suzubana ; now it is called the Suso-bana, which is also Japanese for plane tree . Another example of kakushi-dai .

In Japanese he means to break wind .

Caught in the rain, she also had to "wear a young man's kimono (ao kinu) ." Second son of the Prince Wakanomiya, said to be the founder of the Inukai Family.

Masumi refers to the ManyOshil (The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves). Sogi (1421-1502), renga poet.

Acknowledgements

The translator would like to thank the following who have been so generous with their time and knowledge : Nakashima ShOji, Head of Cultural Research Committee of Shiojiri City, and Komatsu Shigeaki of the Shiojiri City Board of Education ; Chao Temple in Shiojiri City ; Yokota Shag° and Shiose Tadao of the Sugae Masumi Research Society ; most of all, Kinuko Jambor.