So many a sad day,
So many an awkward affair
On this worldly earth.
Yet you could not fly away,
As you know you aren’t a bird.
(Vol.5-893)

In my opinion, Yamanoue-no Okura could have been one of the few poets at the time of Man-Yoh-Shuh who spotlighted on the daily life of people in general, expressing sympathy on their hardhips and poverty, although through the poetic works describing such life in a somewhat objective perspective, not going into too much of sentimentalism or into political assertion. This may well be because he himself was a member of the upper class, although not on the top tier there. He also sang about a family life, and the joy of it, not only the the songs praising the rulers and the beauty of the country. There are a number of poems of Okura scattered around in Man-Yoh-Shuh, and you might try to collect them to make a group and understand his way of poem-making. I listed several of them in this “Journey”.
◎◎◎

● BILOG“MAN-YOH-SHUH”topに戻る