ఈ కవి జపాను భాషలో కకి అనిపిలవబడే తియ్యని పండ్లచెట్టు మొదల్లో దొరికేడట పెంచుకున్న తల్లి ‘అబయే’ కి. ఇతను క్రీ.శ. 697-707 వరకు పరిపాలించిన మొమ్ము చక్రవర్తికి పరిచారకుడుగా ఉండేవాడు. ఇతను ప్రాచీన జపనీస్ కవిత్వంలో ఎన్నిక చెయ్యదగిన కవులలో ఒకనిగా గుర్తింపు పొందడమే గాక మరణానంతరం ఇతన్ని కవిత్వానికి అధిదేవతగా చేసి ప్రజలు రెండు దేవాలయాలు కూడా నెలకొల్పారు.
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The Noble Man Kaki-No-Moto
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Long is the mountain pheasant’s tail
That curves down in its flight
But longer still, it seems to me,
Left in my lonely plight
Is this unending night.
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Kaki-no-moto
The legend about Kaki-no-moto: The writer was a foundling picked up from the foot of a Japanese Kaki tree ( A plum tree bearing a soft red or orange fruit sweet and edible when ripe) and adopted by Abaye, That is how he got his name. He was an attendent on Emperor Mommu who ruled Japan between 697-707 CE, Kaki-no-moto was one of the great poets of early days and a rival to Akahito Yamabe. He was deified after his death and 2 temples were erected in his honour one at at Ichi-no-moto and the other at Akashi not far from KObe. He died in 737 CE.
Translation by : William N Porter.
This Tanka is Taken From:
A Hundred Verses from Old Japan; Translation of the HYAKU-NIN-ISSHIU by William N Porter, Oxford At The Clarendon Press, 1909.
Hyaku-nin-isshiu or “Single verses by Hundred People” was a collection of poems by Sadaiye Fujiwara in 1235 CE placed in approximately chronological order… and start almost from 670CE. Japanese are more devoted to poetry and hardly there is a home that doesnot know some of these verses.
An interesting sidelight is that there is a game of cards (with parts of a verse written on each) where the players have to fit different parts of the same poem together.
Tanka is a Japanese verse genre in in 5 lines with 35 syllables arranged in the order 5-7-5-7-7 without any rhyme, alliteration or any perceivable rhythm. (The translator, however acknowledges that he has adopted 8-6-8-6-6 metre with the second, fourth and fifth lines rhyming to give it a semblance of english verse in form and sound.)
అనువాదలహరి 