Yamabe no Akahito and Yamanoue no Okura — Contrasting Man'yō Poets, the Static Great Nature and the Dynamic *Hinkyū Mondō*

Positioning the Two

Just after Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (660?-724?), two representative poets active in the first half of the 8th century were Yamabe no Akahito (dates unknown, active c. 700-736) and Yamanoue no Okura (c. 660?-733?).

Ki no Tsurayuki, in the Kokinshū’s Kana Preface, ranked Hitomaro and Akahito together as “sages of poetry.” But in fact Akahito’s and Okura’s styles are opposites. If Akahito composes “the static beauty of great nature,” Okura composes “the bottom of society and the dynamic grief of the individual.” The two show the breadth of the Man’yōshū.

Yamabe no Akahito — The Static Great Nature

Life

Yamabe no Akahito was a court poet in the first half of the 8th century, in Emperor Shōmu’s reign (724-749). The Yamabe were of the lower official class, and Akahito himself was a lower-ranking official, who accompanied imperial progresses and left many progress poems composed on those occasions.

His dates are unknown. About 50 poems (13 chōka, 37 tanka) remain in the Man’yōshū. Not the largest number after Hitomaro, but the perfection of each poem is extremely high.

Representative Poem 1: Fuji from Tago Bay (Man’yōshū 3, 318)

“Tago no ura yu / uchi idete mireba / mashiro ni so / Fuji no takane ni / yuki wa furikeru”

• Tago no ura yu — coming through Tago Bay
• uchi idete mireba — coming out and looking
• mashiro ni so — pure white
• Fuji no takane — the high peak of Fuji
• yuki wa furikeru — snow was falling

A scene of viewing Mount Fuji from Tago Bay (Fuji City, Shizuoka). Excluding all technique, composing what he saw as he saw it in a great voice — a representative example of the Man’yō style. Sharper than a modern photograph.

Composed as a hanka to a chōka (Man’yōshū 3, 317). The chōka sings of Fuji’s grandeur, but this tanka reflex became famous on its own.

Representative Poem 2: The Scene at Wakanoura (Man’yōshū 6, 919)

“Wakanoura ni / shio michi kureba / kata wo nami / ashibe wo sashite / tazu naki wataru”

• Wakanoura — Waka Bay (present-day Wakayama)
• shio michi kureba — when the tide comes in
• kata wo nami — because there is no tidal flat
• ashibe wo sashite — toward the reed-grown bank
• tazu naki wataru — cranes fly across, calling

Composed on accompanying Emperor Shōmu’s imperial progress at Wakanoura. The quiet sea scene and the cries of cranes — cut down to a minimum of motion and sound, which conversely opens the width of the scene.

Representative Poem 3: A Spring Field Scene (Man’yōshū 8, 1424)

“Haru no no ni / sumire tsumi ni to / koshi ware so / no wo natsukashimi / hito yo ne ni keru”

• Haru no no — the spring field
• sumire tsumi ni — to pick violets
• koshi ware so — I who came (indeed)
• no wo natsukashimi — feeling fond of the field
• hito yo ne ni keru — spent one night there

I who came to the spring field to pick violets ended up spending a night there, because the field was so lovely. Intimacy with nature, and the luxury of sleeping in the field, away from the capital — a poem plainly Man’yō in feeling.

Akahito’s Style

• Composes great nature simply, greatly — Fuji, the sea, the spring field, cranes, cherry
• Excludes technique — no kakekotoba or engo, inscribing in what he sees
• Human feeling dissolves into scene — “no wo natsukashimi” turns emotion into intimacy with nature
• Go-shichi-chō rhythm — the recitative rhythm of Man’yō

As Ki no Tsurayuki praised in the Kokinshū’s Kana Preface, “Akahito hard to place below Hitomaro, Hitomaro hard to place above Akahito” (=the two are equals), Akahito is one of the peaks of Man’yō.

Yamanoue no Okura — The Bottom of Society and the Individual Grief

Life

Yamanoue no Okura was born around 660 and died around 733. Older than Akahito but a contemporary. His origin is thought most probably to be of migrant descent (details unknown).

Around 720, he crossed to Tang China as a member of a Japanese embassy (presumed). Deeply influenced by Chinese Confucianism, Buddhism, and literature, on his return he was posted as governor of Chikuzen province (in Kyūshū), where he became close with Ōtomo no Tabito (Yakamochi’s father).

11 chōka and about 60 tanka survive in the Man’yōshū. Small in number, but the depth of content is unmatched in the Man’yōshū.

Representative Poem 1: Hinkyū Mondō Uta (Man’yōshū 5, 892-893)

The most socially engaged chōka in the Man’yōshū. In the form of a dialogue (question and answer) between a poor father and his child, it composes the misery of the ritsuryō state’s underclass.

Part of the chōka (dialogue portion): “Kaze majiri / ame furu yo no / ame majiri / yuki furu yo wa / sube mo naku / samuku shi areba / katashio wo / tori tsuzushiroi / kasu-yu-zake / uchi susuroite / shiwabukai / hana bishibishi ni / shika to aranu / hige kaki-nadete / ware wo okite / hito wa araji to / hokoro edo / samuku shi areba / asa-bushuma / hiki-kaburi / no-katagoromo / ari no kotogoto / kisokaseredomo / samuki yo sura wo / ware yori mo / mazushiki hito no / chichi-haha wa / ue kogaramu / me ko-domo wa / kō kō naku-ramu / kono toki wa / ika ni shitsutsu ka / na ga yo wa wataru”

A night when wind is mixed with rain, and rain is mixed with snow, in unbearable cold I lick pieces of hard salt, sip lees-liquor, sneeze, my nose runs. Even after piling on hemp bedding, more cold. “How about people poorer than I? Their fathers and mothers must be hungry and cold; the wives and children must be crying” — the gaze at society moves.

Reply tanka: “Yo no naka wo / ushi to yasashi to / omoedomo / tobi tachi kanetsu / tori ni shi araneba”

I think the world is miserable and shameful, but not being a bird, I cannot fly away and escape. The suffocation of one who lives at the bottom of the ritsuryō state is condensed into a single tanka.

Representative Poem 2: Song of Thinking of One’s Child (Man’yōshū 5, 802-803)

“Uri hameba / kodomo omohoyu / kuri hameba / mashite shinuwayu / izuko yori / kitarishi mono so / manakai ni / motona kakarite / yasui shi nasanu” (part of a chōka)

Reply tanka: “Shirokane mo / kugane mo tama mo / nani sen ni / masareru takara / ko ni shikame ya mo”

What are silver or gold or jewels to me? What treasure surpasses (my) child? A poem composing children as the highest treasure, one of the best-known poems in the Man’yōshū. It reaches Japanese today directly, 1200 years later.

Representative Poem 3: A Sickbed Song (Man’yōshū 6, 978)

A poem when Okura was on his sickbed at age 74.

“Onoko ya mo / munashikaru beki / yorozu yo ni / kataritsugu beki / na wa tatezushite”

Should a man born as such end in vain? Not having established a name to be spoken of in the ten thousand years to come. The individual introspection of Okura just before death resonates rawly.

Okura’s Style

• Social character — the Hinkyū Mondō Uta, songs about the sick, and so on — composing the individual condition together with the social structure
• Influence of Chinese classics — Confucian and Buddhist thought lies behind the poems
• Weight of dialogue form and chōka — a construction not seen in other Man’yō poets
• Individual interior — thinking of one’s child, facing death, being ill — extremely private feeling

He is called the “thinker of the Man’yōshū.” Rather than merely composing beauty, he made the meaning of life, contradictions of society, and the weight of death subjects of poetry — a rare poet.

Contrast of the Two

Element	Yamabe no Akahito	Yamanoue no Okura
Dates	first half of 8th c.	660?-733?
Origin	lower official (Yamabe)	migrant descent (presumed)
Career	court poet, accompanying progresses	envoy to Tang, governor of Chikuzen
Subject	great nature (Fuji, sea, field)	society (poverty), self (child, illness)
Technique	plain, go-shichi-chō	dialogue, heavy chōka
Source of influence	Man’yō tradition	Chinese classics (Confucian, Buddhist)
Signature poem	Tago no ura yu	Hinkyū Mondō, Shirokane mo
Position	deified as “sage of poetry”	respected as “thinker”

That the two coexisted in the same era shows the breadth of the Man’yōshū. Without Akahito the Man’yōshū would have been “poetry of great nature”; without Okura, “poetry of society and thought.” Because both are there, the Man’yōshū remains Japan’s oldest comprehensive poetic anthology.

Influence and Legacy

Akahito’s Influence

• Ki no Tsurayuki set him alongside Hitomaro as a “sage of poetry” in the Kokinshū’s Kana Preface
• Ideal of Man’yō-style nature poetry — reassessed by Edo’s Kamo no Mabuchi, Meiji’s Masaoka Shiki
• Modern Japanese view of Mount Fuji is inscribed with Akahito’s poem

Okura’s Influence

• Little valued in the Heian period — from the technique-heavy style of the Kokinshū onward, Okura’s heaviness felt alien
• Rediscovery of Okura’s thought by Edo’s Keichū and Kamo no Mabuchi
• After Meiji, modern re-evaluation of Okura as a poet with social engagement
• Modern tanka too has a lineage of “thought-oriented tanka” from Okura

Toward the Next Article

Ōtomo no Yakamochi (718?-785), presumed compiler of the Man’yōshū — of the generation after Hitomaro, Akahito, and Okura, he is the poet who closes the Man’yōshū. His own poems number 473, about 10% of the whole, and while serving as governor of Etchū, he composed the landscape of Etchū, family feeling, and political disappointment — the complex emotion of the Man’yō late period. The next article treats Ōtomo no Yakamochi and the late Man’yōshū.