January is a Pine Tree

Man'yōshū (万葉集) 623

The other day, I received a delightful present in the mail from friends in Japan, who surprised me with a beautiful calendar devoted to flowers and plants mentioned in the ancient poetry anthology, the Man'yōshū (万葉集). They thought I might like it, they wrote—and I really did! I was so happy!

I realized I had never really read the collection before. Compiled around 750, the “Anthology of Ten Thousand Leaves” is the oldest collection of waka poems in Japan. In graduate school, I took a few classes in classical Japanese, but never studied or read the poetry from the Man'yōshū.

What I know about the collection is that it is often said to be more “Japanese” —informed by Shinto thinking before the more serious literary influence of China. This is said in comparison to the later Heian period court anthologies like my beloved Kokin Wakashū, which dates to 905. Even the script used to write the poems in the Manyoshu is archaic. Called Man'yōgana (万葉仮名) you can see it gets its name from the poetry collection. You can read all about the script here, but basically Chinese characters were used to express Japanese sounds. It is from the Manyogana script that both hiragana and katakata were later developed.

January= The modern name for January is “First Month” 一月 but a pre-modern name for the month is mutsuki 睦月 which means 正月に親類一同が集まる、睦び（親しくする）の月 (family gathers for the new year and this is the month for new beginnings)

Opening my new calendar, I see the theme for January is the pine tree.

松の葉に月はゆつりぬ黄葉の過ぐれや君が逢はぬ夜ぞ多き

Here is my stab at a translation. Please feel free to correct or improve this!!) I wanted to somehow add the idea of time passing… but that is not in the original.

Time passes in the moonlight shifting through the pines needles, changing like the leaves in autumn—so many are the nights when we do not meet

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1. Pine trees are grouped together with plum and bamboo as one of the “Three Friends of the Cold ”岁寒三友 since the pine never loses its leaves or color.

2. Pine is pronounced matsu 松 and but so is the verb “to wait” 待つ It’s like looking at a pine makes you pine for the person missing. Even in English it works.

3. Prince Ikebe is the poet associated with the poem, but it reads like a folksong sung by a young girl waiting for her lover 君.