Autumn arrives on the wind….. According to classical Japanese poetry, from the beginning of autumn and the autumn wind, the season proceeds to linger on the night sky.
Namely on the Star Festival and the Autumn Moon.
One of my favorite poems from the 10th century imperial anthology, the Kokin Wakashū (古今和歌集, "Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times"), commonly abbreviated as Kokinshū (古今集) is this beauty:
木の間よりもりくる月の影見れば心づくしの秋は来にけり よみ人しらず
Gazing at the moonlight
spilling down through the trees
I am consumed with thoughts
of Autumn’s arrival
—Anonymous
Helen Craig McCullough translated 月の影見れば as “to see moonlight fall filtering through the branches…” which is very beautiful and captures the feeling of dappled moonlight.
She then translates 心づくしの秋は来にけり as: “to awaken to the coming of autumn, the saddest season of all.”
The saddest season of all is not in the Japanese words, but is a convention borrowed from Chinese poetry, where decay, sadness, fading are all associated with autumn deepening toward winter.
In grad school, when I first encountered the poem, I see in my notes that I translated it like this
Gazing at the moonlight
spilling down through the trees
I am consumed
with the sadness of
Coming Autumn
心づくし can mean to think of this and that, to dwell on something or be consumed with thoughts. A modern Japanese translation has it like this: あれこれ思い悩む to be worried with thoughts of this and that.
So translators will get the sadness of the season one way or another.
Here are some other enchanting phrases for the early autumn moon:
秋風月 autumn wind moon that evokes the moon shining down on autumn grasses blowing in the wind
雁来月 Returning geese moon is the moon lighting the geese returning from the north
萩月 Bush clover moon (bush clover is one of the seven grasses of autumn)
And my favorite: 桂月 keigetsu is a beautiful trope from China, which suggested that the moon looks orange at this time of year because there is a lunar cinnabar tree that changes color
久方の月の桂も秋はなほもみじすればやてりまさるらむ ただみね
Might it be because
the cinnabar tree on the moon
changes colors in autumn
that causes the autumn moon to shine so brightly —Tadamine
. . . so lovely! The moon never disappoints; enchants in autumn like the howl of a lone pine tree. Thanks so much for all these moon poems,Leanne! I will think of cinnabar trees now!