THE POETRY of AIZU YAICHI the Eighteenth Century Philologist

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THE POETRY OF AIZU YAICHI The eighteenth century philologist Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) points out that “Yamato” was originally the name of a province (Yamato no kuni) in what is known today as the Nara basin of the Kansai region. Only after the mythical Emperor Jinmu (660–585 B.C.) established his capital in Kashiwara no Miya and other emperors fol- lowed suite in establishing their capitals in the Yamato province, did Yamato come to be used as a general name for the whole country.1 The relationship established between Jinmu, the alleged first human emperor, and Yamato was sufficient to endow this region with a mythical aura; and it made Yamato the cradle of Japanese culture. Many classical texts could easily be summoned as proof of the sacredness of Yamato, beginning with the eighth-century Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720), which takes the construction of the Kashiwara capital in Yamato (Yamato no kuni Kashiwara no Miya) to mark the end of a period of uncertainty and unsettledness in Japanese history. In other words, ancient records set up Yamato as the original signifier of political and social fullness (culture). Subsequent emperors, such as Shōmu (701–756), would issue edicts to find appropriate Chinese characters for writing the name “Yamato,” which by then had become the sign for the whole country, as the Shoku Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan, Continued, 797) attests. This information was readily available to eighteenth-century readers of the Yamato Meisho Zue (Illustrated Description of Illustrious Places in Yamato), a guide to the Yamato region by Uemura Ugen (d. 1782) and Akisato Ritō (fl. 1780–1814), which begins with a section on the Yamato province (Yamato no kuni). In this section readers could also find an etymological explanation of the name Yamato, based on Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1714)’s The central ideas of this essay were presented on July 19, 2005, at Kobe College, Kobe, Japan, and on April 21, 2006, at the International Symposium “The Making of an Ancient Capital: Nara,” University of California, Los Angeles. The author wishes to thank Professor Hamashita Masahiro for his kind invitation to Kobe and for his comments. 1 Norinaga makes these remarks in Isonokami no Sasamegoto (Poetic Whisperings, 1763). Hino Tatsuo, ed., Motoori Norinaga Shū, SNKS 60 (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1982), pp. 353–354. 452 chapter twenty-two Nihon Shakumyō (Japanese Etymologies, 1699), according to which Yamato ጊᄖ literally means “outside the mountains.” This reading of the name Yamato referred, again, to the mythical times of Emperor Jinmu, who marched westward from Hyūga, proceeded from Naniwa to Hirakata, crossed the Ikoma Mountain, and entered Yamato. The place was allegedly named after the fact that it was located “outside” (to ᄖ) the Ikoma “mountain” (yama ጊ). North of the Ikoma Moun- tain stood the Yamashiro province ጊ⢛, which literally means “at the back of the mountain.” These etymological explanations of the Yamato (Nara) and Yamashiro (Kyōto) provinces ran parallel to the naming of the Kawachi region ᴡౝ (Ōsaka)—a name which literally means, “within the river.” Indeed, Kawachi is the name of the province sur- rounded by the Yodo River.2 It is no wonder that Aizu Yaichi (1881–1956), also known by the pen name Shūsō Dōjin, whose love for Greek culture was nurtured by the Romantic bent of his teacher Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), would turn to the Yamato region in his frantic search for the origins of Japa- nese culture. Hearn was born in Greece of Greek and British parents; with Hearn Aizu read the poetry of George Byron (1788–1824), who had volunteered as soldier in the Greek war of independence. In 1920 Aizu founded the Greek Society of Japan (Nihon Girisha Gakkai), moved by the belief that “at the height of Greek civilization, every- thing was perfectly complete and full of life in itself.”3 The question for Aizu was whether an age of cultural fullness could be located in Japan. The answer came from the Yamato region which provided Aizu the means to experience Greece in Japan. A man born in the northern province of Echigo (Niigata) and educated at Waseda University in Tokyo, Aizu made his first trip to the Yamato province in 1908, at the age of twenty-eight. He was shocked by the state of disrepair in which he found temples and Buddhist statues, as he sang in twenty- one poems titled Saiyū Eisō (Leaves of Grass on my Western Journey). He visited the ancient capital Nara again in 1920 and 1921, continu- ing to add poems to a collection which he published in December 1924 as Nankyō Shinshō (New Songs from the Southern Capital). Later 2 Uemura Ugen and Akisato Ritō, Yamato Meisho Zue (Tokyo: Dai Nihon Meisho Zue Kankōkai, 1919), pp. 1–8. For Ekiken’s explanation, see Ekiken Zenhsū 1 (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1973), pp. 21–22. 3 Michael F. Marra, ed., A History of Modern Japanese Aesthetics (Honolulu: Uni- versity of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), p. 139..

Load more