Man’yōshū
The “Man’yōshū,” or “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves,” is the oldest and greatest of the Japanese anthologies of poetry. It was compiled in the middle of the eighth century, but it includes material of a much earlier date—one cannot say with certainty just how early. There are about 4,500 poems in the “Man’yōshū,” and they display a greater variety of form and subject than any other collection. In particular the long poems—chōka or nagauta—have a sustained power that could never be achieved in the tanka of thirty-one syllables which was to be the dominant verse form in Japan for centuries. Even in the shorter poems of the “Man’yōshū” there is a passion and a directness that later poets tended to polish away.
The translations here given were made by the Japanese Classics Translation Committee under the auspices of the Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkōbai. The poet Ralph Hodgson was among those responsible for these excellent versions.
•
Your basket, with your pretty basket,
Your trowel, with your little trowel,
Maiden, picking herbs on this hillside,
I would ask you: Where is your home?
Will you not tell me your name?
Over the spacious Land of Yamato
It is I who reign so wide and far,
It is I who rule so wide and far.
I myself, as your lord, will tell you
Of my home, and my name.
