Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
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Hitomaro by Kikuchi Yosai |
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Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (from Ogura Hyakunin Isshu) |
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (柿本 人麻呂; c.
662 -
710) was a
Japanese poet of the
Nara period. He was the most prominent of the
Man'yōshū poets, in particular its volumes 1 and 2.
Hitomaro's famed poems included "In the sea of ivy clothed Iwami"[
1], "The Bay of Tsunu"[
2], and "I loved her like the leaves". He has 19 nagauta ('long poems') in the
Man'yōshū and 75 or so tanka ('short poems'). Many of his poems were written for public occasions, for instance, his "Lament for Prince Takechi". Other poems were written on occasions in his life when he was particularly moved: parting from his wife, mourning for his wife, or seeing a corpse.
In the
Preface of the
Kokin Wakashu compilation,
Ki no Tsurayuki called him
Uta no Hijiri, a divine poet of equal to Yamato-era poet
Yamabe no Akahito.
Ikeda Munemasa wrote "Portrait of Hitomaro and His Waka Poem". The modern waka poets like
Masaoka Shiki and
Saito Mokichi considered him one of greatest poets in the history of Japanese literature.
In
Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture there is Kakinomoto Jinja, a shrine devoted to Hitomaro. The shrine holds every year an utakai (
waka party) devoted to him.
In the Heian period, some anonymous waka in the
Manyoshu was attributed to Hitomaro. These include the waka attributed to Hitomaro in
Fujiwara no Teika's compilation of the
Hyakunin Isshu.
His life is uncertain despite his prominence as a poet. His name doesn't appear in
Nihon Shoki nor in
Shoku Nihongi (History of Japan II), all data about him comes from
Manyoshu. His earliest waka with a fixed date was made in
680 under the reign of the Emperor
Tenji. He served the Empress
Jito and her successor
Emperor Mommu. He made waka in occasion for emperors. When he was aged around 50 years old, he was appointed a certain provincial office in
Iwami province, today the western part of
Shimane prefecture and died there. In
700 he made a waka mourning Princess Asuka. It was the last waka with a fixed date and some supposed Hitomaro died some years after this year. In
708 Zokunihongi reports Kakinomoto no Saru, another Kakinomoto clan man died and the Japanese thinker
Umehara Takeshi supposed Saru (柿本佐留) and Hitomaro were identical (Saru is same to 猿, monkey at sound and it is supposed as an official blame to him).
The Kakinomoto clan from which he derived was a middle class noble clan and he was referred with Ason, the third highest title among eight. In earlier the clan served the court mainly with holding religious ceremony with singing and reciting poems. It had a deep relation to the Sarume clan whose legendary founder was
Ameno Uzume, the dancer goddess. It supposed Hitomaro grew up in an artistic atmosphere.
*[
3] The
2001 Waka for Japan 2001 collection contains a large selection of translations of Hitomaro's poetry, mostly from the
Manyoshu*
Kenneth Rexroth's One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (New Directions, 1955, ISBN 0811201813) contains several of Hitomaro's waka, as well as notable translations of 3 naga uta ("In the sea of ivy clothed Iwami", "The Bay of Tsyunu", and "When she was still alive")
