I cannot say that I’m studying Heian Japan without reading as many of its most important works as possible, even if it is poetry. The Tales of Ise is a collection of 125 narrative-poems consisting of a short narrative + poem(s), all loosely based on the life of Narihara, the model lover.

While I might have mentioned this before, I cannot overstate how important poetry was to the people of Heian Japan. Knowledge of poetry and the ability to write poems was highly valued and one of the ways that you’d be evaluated as a person. As someone who’s never been very good with poetry, I was a bit intimidated by The Tales of Ise. However, the narrative with poetry style made the poetry very accessible to me. Most of the tales are about romantic love, but we do get to read about friendship, love for the homeland, and even exile!

Two of the poems I liked:

The further I travel,

the more I long for the place

from when I have come.

How I envy the ebbing waves

returning home.

Poem 7 – The Returning Waves

And

I knew I’d have to walk on the path

we must all finally take,

but I had no idea

it would be tomorrow,

much less today.

Poem 125 – This Day

Since poetry is not my strong suit, I really appreciated the explanations of the poems at the end. MacMillian not only breaks down each story, but also explains bits of life in Heian Japan while he’s talking. I learnt a lot from the commentary and felt that it was helpful, although if you’re reading just to appreciate the poems, you may not need it.

Overall, this was a beautiful work. I know that The Tale of Genji contains many poems as well, but the story of Genji’s life caused me to missed the beauty of those poems – it took The Tales of Ise to get me to appreciate the beauty of waka poems. My next challenge will be to read these in Japanese!