Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 04-24-12
Ono no Komachi
(mid-800s)
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"IS THIS LOVE REALITY OR A DREAM?"
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Nothing is known about Ono no Komachi except that she belonged to a literary family, was perhaps an attendant to Emperor Nimmei (d.850), and exchanged poems with some of the major male poets of the mid-800s. Kokinshu /Kokin wakashu, an imperial anthology completed about 922, contains 18 of her poems; others appeared in later anthologies. A 1000's collection of her poetry, Komachi shu, includes 116 poems; it's not clear if all of the attributions are accurate.
Within a hundred years of her death Komachi had become the stuff of legend (see online): most of the stories about her appear to have been based on her poems, which are about love and the melancholy that it involves. But the reputation of her poems was such that she was later named as one of Japan's "Six Immortals of Poetry."
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. A 2001 essay on Ono no Komachi by Christopher Cokinos is a good place to start: it introduces Komachi and the Heian court and includes three poems, two translated by Donald Keene and one by Arthur Waley.
2. A number of other sites have Komachi's poetry (there is some repetition, but there are also alternate versions of the same poem):
(a) At Branislav L. Slantchev's site, 30 poems from various translators; for 11 of these, you can link to alternate versions (in one case 10 versions), several of the links providing commentary by Slantchev on the different translations.
(b) Links to 21 poems from imperial anthologies, translated by Thomas McAuley; for each, the Japanese is also given in script and in romanization.
(c) Translations by Jane Hirshfield and Mariki Aratani: three poems; another three; and one more, "This inn on the road to Iwanoue."
(d) In a transcript of a 2006 lecture by Hisashi Nakamura on Japanese women's tanka, use your browser's search function to go to "Komachi" for an introduction and five poems, translated by Nakamura.
(e) Four poems, translated by Earl Miner, by Helen Craig McCullough, and by Hirshfield and Aratami
(f) For translations by Kenneth Rexroth, in a collection of poetry by Japanese women, three poems: "You do not come," "Although I come to you constantly," and "Doesn't he realize...?"
(g) Use your browser's search function to go to "Komachi" for two poems, translated by Yasunari Kawabata: "I dreamt of him because I was thinking of him," and "In my dreams I go to him each night without fail."
(h) Two translations by Zoltan Barczikay, both given with Japanese script and romanization: "Alas, my end is near..." and "Though I go to you."
(i) Third in a collection, "While thinking of him," translated by Leon Zolbrod.
(j) Again third in a group, "Though my feet never cease running to him," translated by Laurel Rasplica Rodd with Mary Catherine Henkenius.
(k) Halfway down the page, "In boundless desire," translated by Anne Commons.
3. Finally, versions of the Komachi poem included in Hyakunin Isshu, an important anthology of the 1200s:
(a) "Color of the flower," by Clay MacCauley (but "modernized"), with both Japanese characters and romanization given.
(b) "See how the blossoms," by Tom Galt, with a modern illustration and a commentary.
(c) "The blossom's tint is washed away," by William N. Porter, with a 1700s woodcut.
(d) "Flower's tints have faded," by F. V. Dickins.
(e) "The hue of the cherry," by Jon LaCure.
(f) "The flowers withered," by Keene.
(g) "As certain as color," by Rexroth.
4. S. Yumiko Hulvey's 2006 essay, "Female
Waka Poets: Love poetry in the Kokinshu," focuses
chiefly on Komachi's poems in a discussion of the c.922 imperial
anthology; eleven of her poems are given, in translations by
Helen Craig McCullough.
5. Reviews (for excerpts from the translation, see below, under
"In print"; for information on Keene's treatment of
Senshi, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Robert D. Wilson on Jane Hirshfield's and Mariki Aratani's 1990 translation, The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu (and at the same site, a 2006 interview with Hirshfield, in which she discusses the difficulties involved in translating Komachi and Izumi). Elsewhere, another review of Ink Dark Moon, this by John Stone.
(b) Mark Morris on Donald Keene's 1993 history, Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century
6. On the seven noh plays that were based on legends about Komachi:
(a) First, an article which describes the seven noh plays (with links to other relevant information).
(b) Sekidera-komachi, translated by Karen Brazell (1970).
(c) Two versions of Sotoba-komachi: by Arthur Waley (1922); and by Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa (1916).
(d) Hirshfield's 1996 essay, "Komachi on the Stoop: Writing and the Threshold Life" includes Hirshfield's "rather free translation-adaptation" of and commentary on parts of Sotoba-komachi.
(e) A brief 1978 essay on Sotoba-komachi, by Royall Tyler.
(f) Illustrations for another of the seven, Kayoi-komachi: three 1800s wood block prints, two masks, and portrayals of scenes from the story (enlarging each print will give some description).
7. Examples of later Japanese art based on the legends:
(a) A 1700s scroll which shows Komachi disproving a charge of plagiarism by washing a manuscript that had been tampered with.
(b) An 1800s print that shows her ending a drought by offering one of her poems to the gods.
(c) Another 1800s prints that refer to a story from Kayoi-komachi, Komachi as an old woman, regretting her former arrogance.
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8. For historical background, Jane Reichhold's essay on early Japanese women's writing; Komachi is briefly discussed.
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[This anthology of translations by Jane Hirshfield and
Mariko Aratani has 44 of Ono's poems, as well as the romanized
originals. The book also has a good essay on the difficulties
of translating Japanese poetry:]
The Ink dark moon: love poems / by Ono no Komachi & Izumi
Shikibu; translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani (Vintage
classics). New York: Vintage Books, 1990. (xxi, 212 p.: ill.)
LC#: PL758.825.L6 I55 1990; ISBN: 0679729585
Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-212).
[Also published: New York: Scribner, c1988. (116 p.) ISBN:
0684189712, 0025518208]
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"If only I'd known I was dreaming, I'd never have wakened."
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[On dream and reality:]
Did he appear
because I fell asleep
thinking of him?
If only I'd known I was dreaming,
I'd never have wakened.
[p.3]
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Is this love reality
or a dream?
I cannot know
when both reality and dreams
exist without truly existing.
[p.14]
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"There's no harvest for him."
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[Rejecting a lover:]
The seaweed gatherer's weary feet
keep coming back to my shore.
Doesn't he know
there's no harvest for him
in this uncaring bay? [p.24]
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[In this anthology Burton Watson translates 19 of Komachi's poems. Seven of the poems are not in Hirshfield & Aratani, and for those that are, Watson's treatment is often substantially different. (See the book's table of contents online):]
From the country of eight islands: an anthology of Japanese
poetry / edited and translated by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson;
with an introduction by Thomas Rimer; associate editor, Robert
Fagan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, c1981. (xliv,
652 p.)
LC#: PL782.E3 F74 1986; ISBN: 0231063954
Bibliography: p. [641]-648. Includes index.
[Also published: (1) Garden City, New York : Anchor Books, 1981.
ISBN: 0385140304.; (2) Seattle : University of Washington
Press, c1981. ISBN: 0295957980, 0385140304 (Anchor Press)]
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"Submit to you---could that be what you are saying?"
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[On love:]
Submit to you---
could that be what you are saying?
the way ripples on the water
submit to an idling wind?
[p.113]
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In waking hours
natural, perhaps,
but even in dreams---
how miserable, to be forever hiding
from the eyes of others
[p.114]
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"...the hearts of the people of this world."
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[On transience:]
They change,
though you don't see it
in the color of their faces---
these blossoms that are the hearts
of the people of this world. [p.115]
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"I'll be a mere haze...."
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["Imagining her death and cremation":]
Sad---the end that waits me---
to think at last
I'll be a mere haze
pale green over the fields
[p.116]
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[For a c.1200 Japanese woman's view of Ono no Komachi, see pp. 422-23 of Michele Marra's translation of Mumyozoshi, by Shunzei kyo no musume. The periodical is at many university libraries, so you can get the pages through interlibrary loan:]
Marra, Michele, tr. Mumyozoshi. Monumenta Nipponica,
39: 2-4 (1984), 115-145, 281-305, 409-434.
LC#: DS821.A1 M6; ISSN: 0027-0741
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[A substantial part of Terry Kawashima's study deals with the legends about Komachi that grew up from the 900s. In the course of showing that the poetry was almost exclusively read as autobiography rather than art, Kawashima gives her translations of many of the poems, not only those found in the imperial anthologies but also poems from Komachi shu --- poems not translated elsewhere. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Kawashima, Terry. Writing margins: the textual construction
of gender in Heian and Kamakura Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Asia Center: distributed by Harvard University Press,
c2001. (x, 352 p.)
LC#: PL726.2 .K366 2001; ISBN: 0674005163
Includes bibliographical references (p. [329]-343) and index
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[Roy, Nicholas, and Rebecca Teele discuss the legends of Komachi and the plays based on that legend; the Teeles also translate 17 of her poems:]
Poems, stories, no plays / Ono no Komachi; translated by Roy
E. Teele, Nicholas J. Teele, H. Rebecca Teele ( World literature
in translation). New York: Garland Pub., 1993. (232 p.: ill.)
LC#: PL789.O5 A27 1993; ISBN: 0824033116
Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-232).
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[In her study, Helen Craig McCullough gives analyses, romanized originals and translations of 15 of the 18 Komachi poems in Kokinshu; the whole book is good on the period's background:]
McCullough, Helen Craig. Brocade by night: "Kokin wakashu"
and the court style in Japanese classical poetry. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1985. (xii, 591 p.)
LC#: PL728.22 .M35 1985; ISBN: 0804712468
Includes indexes. Bibliography: p. [561]-567.
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[In his history, Donald Keene discusses Ono no Komachi in his chapter, "The Transition from the Manyoshu to the Kokinshu"; the whole chapter is useful for background on the period, and Keene's bibliographies are thorough. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Keene, Donald. Seeds in the heart: Japanese literature from
earliest times to the late sixteenth century. New York: Henry
Holt & Co., 1993. (xiv, 1265 p. )
LC#:: PL726.115 .K44 1993; ISBN: 0805019995
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Updated 04-24-12