13th century AD

Criticism, Spring, 1997 by James A. Wren

(13.) Indeed, her usage is rather complex. Early into the text, Abutsu-ni writes: "Sara ni omoitsuzukereba, Yamato uta no michi wa, tada makoto sugu naku, ada narususami bakari to omou hito mo ya aramu Hi no moto no kuni ni, ama no iwato hirakeshi toki yori, yomo no kamitachi no kagura no kotoba wo hajimete, yo wo osame mono wo yawara gura nakatachi to nari ni keri to zo kono michi no ijiritachi hashiru shio kare tari keri (268). Or in the choka (a long poem of alternating 5-7 syllable pattern and ending in a 5-7-7 cadence) appended to the text, she recounts her argument in verse:

Shikishima ya

yamato no kuni wa

ametsuchi no

hirake hajimeshi

mukashi yori

iwato wo akete

omoshiroki

kagura no kotoba

utai teshi

sareba kashikoki

tameshi tote

hijiri no miya no

michi shiruku

hito no kokoro wo

tane to shite

yorozu no waza wo

koto no ha ni

origami made mo

aware tote

Yashima no hoka no

yotsu no umi

nami mo shizuka ni. (300)

The lexical affinities shared with the Japanese preface to the Kokinwakashu, composed by Ki no Tsurayuki, are immediately obvious:

Yamato uta wa, hito no kokoro wo tare to shite, yorozu no koto no ba to zo

narerikeri. Yo no naka ni iru hito, koto, waza, shigeki mono nareba, kokoro

ni omou koto wo, miru mono, kiku mo ni tsukete, ii idaseru nari. Hana ni

naku uguisu, mizu ni sumu kawazu no koe wo kikeba, ikitoshi ikerumo, izure

ga, uta wo yomazari keru. Chikara wo mo irezushite, ametsuchi wo ugokashi,

me ni nienu origami wo mo aware to omohaze, otoko onna no naka wo mo

yawarage, takeki mono no no kokoro wo mo nagusa muru wa, uta nari. (4-5)

For closer inspection, see Ki no Tsurayuki, Kokinwakashu6, in Shinnihon koten bungaku zenshu, Vol. 5 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten), 1992.

(14.) Herman Meyer, The Poetics of Quotation in the European Novel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 23ff. It is helpful to recall at this point that the poet Shunzei had characterized this aesthetic principle as "kotoba furaku, kokoro atarashi" ("old words, new concepts"). In fact, via a system of zukei ("traces") and hankyo ("echoes")--Ziva Ben-Porat uses the term "directional markers" in "The Poetics of Literary Allusion," PTL 1 (1976): 105-28--Abutsu-ni manages adroitly to invoke a number of prior texts, all of which certainly lend credence to her abilities and to her claims, and, just as important, aid in her attempt to deliver on her three promises to her late husband. To point to but a few examples as illustrative of this point: she alludes to the versions of the foundation myth found in the Nihongi (the trip round the pillar by Izanagi and Izanami) and the Kojiki, to the Ise monogatari, to the Shinkokinshu, to the Shinchokusenshu, and to the Lotus Sutra (in Japanese, known as the Hokekyo).

(15.) According to the Kojiki, the sun goddess Amaterasu, having concealed herself in the "rock cave of heaven" (ama no iwato), had plunged the world into utter darkness. She is lured from her stronghold out of curiosity over the attentions being given to Amenouzume, another goddess who is performing the sacred kagura as dance. Abutsu-ni's allusion concisely encompasses both usages, as poetry and as performance.