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Ise Monogatari (Tales of Ise)

It may seem strange to begin a unit about Japanese Irises with a literary discussion about a book of poetry, but in this case, there is a very good reason.

Ise Monogatari is a collection of poems and associated frame stories believed to have been written by Ariwara no Narihira (825 - 880) early in the Heian Period (794 - 1185).

A couple of weeks ago, we spoke of haiga, paintings incorporating poetry--specifically haiku. Artworks have long used poetry of other sorts in paintings, too. I painted the picture below some years ago using a poem from Ise Monogatari in that tradition. The lady was modeled after the style of women depicted in ukiyo-e prints.

The photo is a bit skewed because I had to shoot it at an angle to avoid reflections off the glass cover.

The poem is from Tale 16 in Ise Monogatari.

The poem that relates to this week's lesson is from Tale 9 in Ise Monogatari. In it, a man and two companions have to leave the capitol. It is uncertain whether they have been exiled. The following is from the translation of Tale 9 in Helen Craig McCullough's Tales of Ise, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1968.

"Since none of the party knew the way, they blundered ahead as best they could, until in time they arrived at a place called Yatsuhashi in Mikawa Province. (It was a spot where the waters of a river branched into eight channels, each with a bridge, and thus it had come to be called Yatsuhashi--"Eight Bridges.") Dismounting to sit under a tree near this marshy area, they ate a meal of parched rice. Someone glanced at the clumps of irises that were booming luxuriantly in the swamp. "Compose a poem on the subject, 'A Traveler's Sentiments,' beginning each line with a syllable from the word 'iris' [kakitsubata]," he said. The man recited,

They all wept onto their dried rice until it swelled with the moisture."

Tale 9 about the companions' travels continues from here and incorporates three more poems, one of which will be mentioned later.

You may notice what looks like an error at the beginning of line 4. To meet the requirement, the poem would need to have a "ba" (ば) here. Instead it has a "ha" (は). The difference is in the two dots (tenten) on the upper left corner of the character in "ba". My understanding is that the tenten had not yet come into use in the 9th century, so は could be read either "ha" or "ba," even though "ha" is clearly the correct pronunciation in the context of the word "harubaru" (long way or distant).

The poem has a surprise if one writes the final syllable of each line in reverse order. They form the word urubashimo, an old way of saying "beautiful." The phrase "well-worn robe" referring to the poet's wife is a way of saying that she is so much a part of him that he finds it intolerable to live without her. The poem is a technical tour-de-force, and is known by virtually every educated Japanese, so much so that it is nearly impossible for them to see Japanese irises (kakitsubata) without the poem coming to mind.

Many Japanese artists have been inspired by this poem, the most famous of whom was Ogata Kōrin (1658 - 1716), one of those credited with having established the Rinpa school of art, known for its decorative aesthetic. Among his most famous works are paintings inspired by the poem. The following pair of 6-fold byōbu, executed around 1701 to 1705 and called the most famous paintings of irises in the world, is one of them.

The following is a close-up detail of the left-hand side of the second byōbu.

Some years later, Kōrin painted another pair of 6-fold byōbu of irises, but this time, he included the bridges of yatsuhashi, making the reference to the poem explicit.

Kōrin didn't stop with paintings as shown by this lacquered box.

Another artist who took inspiration from the poem was Kōrin's brother Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743). His ceramics are famous. The dish below is thought to be one of his.

Many other painters took inspiration from Ise Monogatari. The following painting by Tawaraya Sōtatsu (c. 1570 - c. 1640) depicts a later scene in Tale 9 in which the poet meets a traveler and requests that he take a letter to his beloved wife.

The play on words utsutsu (reality) and utsu (the name of the mountain) is one of the things that makes this poem famous. Alas, its cleverness doesn't translate into English very well.

Kakitsubata (Japanese Iris)

There are roughly 260 to 300 species in the iris genus. They grow from creeping rhizomes (modified subterranean plant stems) or in dry climates, bulbs. They have long, erect flowering stems which may be simple or branched, solid or hollow, and flattened or have a circular cross-section.

The illustration below shows the general anatomy.

Kakitsubata (L. Iris laevigata), native to Japan, is among a group called beardless irises which bloom in the late spring to midsummer. Some varieties are almost ever-blooming, making it ideal for cultivation in temperate zones. It isn't the most popular species for cultivation, but it is the most famous because of the Ise Monogatri poem. It has been cultivated in Japan for more than a thousand years. Kyōto's Ōta-jinja Shrine is known especially for its field of kakitsubata flowers, shown below.

The petals pointing upward gives kakitsubata one of its nicknames, rabbitear iris.

It grows in still water and prefers marshy and still ponds, though it can grow in damp soil in ideal conditions. Flowers are usually blue, purple, or violet. They may have unique color patterns including white with blue spots and dark purple bordered with white.