The Origins of Haiku Part 1 - Chōka & Hanka
Issue #5: Haikai & Haiku
For the next few weeks we will be exploring the earliest surviving records of Japanese poetry—the Kiki and the Manyō’shū, compiled in the late-600s and early-700s respectively—and the origins of haikai and haiku. At this time, four poetic forms in particular became popular: chōka (‘long verse’), tanka (‘short verse’), and sedōka (‘head-spinning verse’), which were all based on the katauta (‘fragment verse’). This week there’s a brief introduction, including numerous tanka translations, followed by a more in depth discussion of chōka and hanka (a type of tanka). Next week, we will move on to tanka proper, and then the following week we will explore katauta and sedōka (among other things). I hope you enjoy it!
In a damp hut In a field of reeds, Grass mats Laid one atop the other We two slept.
—Emperor Jimmu (c. 711-585 BC)1
The earliest surviving collections of Japanese writings are known as the Nihon Shō'ki (lit. 'Japan's Written Records', c. 700 CE) and the Koji'ki (lit. 'Records of Ancient Things', c. 712 CE). The Ki'ki (i.e. 'The Twin Records')—as they were collectively known—begin in the age of kami (i.e. 'gods', 'divinities', 'spirits', etc.) and the creation of the world, before detailing the numerous generations of Tennō (i.e. Empresses and Emperors) and their families, alongside various significant people and events of the court, beginning with Emperor Jimmu (c. 660-585 BC), and ending with Empress Suiko (in the Koji’ki, c. 554-628 CE) and Empress Jitō (in the Nihonki, c. 645-703 CE).
On every tree Flowers are blossoming, How is it My beloved darling Does not bloom again?
—Mitsu Nonaka (c. 650 CE)2
Along with records of Imperial lineages and affairs, there are some 190 uta (i.e. 'songs' or 'poems') scattered throughout the Kiki. While there was a great deal of variety among the poems, certain tendencies had begun to emerge. The forms of the poems, for instance, were not strictly fixed, however a number of common patterns had gained popularity by the time the final versions were compiled, including the kata'uta ('half' poems, typically in 3-phrases), tan'ka ('short' poems, typically in 5-phrases), and chō'ka ('long' poems, typically anything over 7-phrases). Similarly, while there was still widespread variation with regard to the rhythms of phrases within a poem, the verses of the Ki’ki clearly showed a blossoming preference for phrasings of 5 and 7 kana in length, arranged in patterns of alternating “short” (from 3-6 kana, i.e. tending toward '5') and “long” (from 6-9 kana, i.e. tending toward '7').3
Asuka River Its waters surging As it flows, Unceasingly I long for you.
—Empress Kōgyoku (c. 594-661 CE)4
By the time of the Manyō’shū (10,000 Leaves Collection, c. 759 CE)—the earliest surviving anthology dedicated to wa'ka (lit. 'Japanese-poetry')—these tendencies had developed into four fairly stable forms: chō'ka (‘long verse’), tan'ka (‘short verse’), kata’uta (‘fragment verse’), and sedō'ka (a type of ‘double-katauta’, of which less than 100 classical examples survive). While there was a relatively equal number of tanka and chōka preserved across the Ki’ki, the Manyō’shū showed a clear preference for tanka, containing over 4000 examples across its 20 books, compared to just a few hundred chōka, and around 60 sedōka. By the 10th century the chōka, katauta, and sedōka had disappeared almost entirely. Tanka, on the other hand, flourished, with more than 30,000 examples being anthologised over the next 500 years, forming the bulk of the 21 volumes of the Chokusen Waka'shū (‘Imperial Poetry Collections’, c. 920-1440 CE).
If in this world I can have some fun, In the next I'll be a bug or bird It doesn't bother me.
—Ōtomo no Tabito (c. 665-731 CE)5
Chō'ka 長歌 (lit. 'long-verse') were typically composed of alternating phrases of 5 and 7 (i.e. 5, 7 + 5, 7, etc.) for as long the poet wished, and finished with a concluding verse of 5-7-7, following the overall pattern: 5-7 (+ 5-7, etc.) + 5-7-7. In practice chōka tended to be less than 100-phrases, but can theoretically be any length. In the Kiki, chōka tended to be shorter, seldom exceeding 15-20 phrases. Across the books of the Manyō’shū, chōka tended to be longer, with one of the longest being a 149-phrase lament for Prince Takechi, by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (c. 655-710 CE).6 Falling out of fashion after the Manyō’shū, the chōka which have survived exhibit a great deal of variation, as in the following 18-phrase poem by Princess Nukata, ending with a 7-7 couplet, rather than the more common 5-7-7 triplet;
—Choosing Between Spring Hills
& Autumn Hills—
After winter
When spring comes to pass,
The unsinging
Birds burst into song,
The unblooming
Flowers burst into blossom,
Hills too wild
To go and pick flowers,
Grasses too thick
To see what you're picking,
But on autumn hills
You can see the leaves,
Yellow leaves
To take as a keepsake,
Green leaves
Begrudgingly left behind;
Still, despite all of that
For me, it's autumn hills.
—Princess Nukata (c. 630-690 CE)7
Along with “tanka the commonest classical metre is chōka. Some of the best poetry which Japan has produced is in this metre. It consists of a series of couplets of lines of 5 and 7 syllables, the end of the poem being marked by an additional line of 7 syllables [i.e. making a final 'stanza' of 5-7—7].” (Aston, 1877) As a form of 'long poetry' it has “no limit in regard to length.” (Aston, 1899)8
“We find then, from the earliest period of which trustworthy information has survived—say, the 6th century—Japanese verse already consisted of the same elements as characterise it at the present day... Neither rhyme, quantity, nor accentual stress was regarded, but a mere counting of syllables... All poems were brief, few extending beyond 40 or 50 lines, most to little more than half that number. The rule determining their construction was that lines of 5 and 7 must alternate, with an extra line of 7 at the end, to mark the completion of the poem... [though this] rule was often violated, especially in early times. The 'normal form' of the Japanese poem became fixed at 5-7—5-7—5-7 . . . 7, the number of lines [overwhelmingly] being odd.” (Chamberlain, 1902)
On the peak of Mikane in Yoshino, It is said that the rain falls unceasingly, It is said that the snow is ever falling, Like the rain which never ceases, Like the snow that is ever falling, My thoughts dwell . . . At every bend of the mountain path.
—Emperor Temmu (c. 631-686; tr. Aston, 1899, etc.)9
“This method of writing poetry may seem to the English reader to suffer from serious disadvantages. In reality this was not the case. Contrast it for a moment with the undignified welter of undigested and ex parte theories which academic prosodists have tried for three hundred years to foist upon English verse, and it will be seen that the simple Japanese rule has the merit of dignity. The only part of it that we Occidentals could not accept perhaps... [is] the insistence on an odd number of syllables for every line and an odd number of lines to every poem. To the Western mind, odd numbers sound incomplete.” (Fletcher, 1918)10
“For chōka [and all its relative forms: tanka, katauta, sedōka]... because the alternation of 5-7, 5-7 (etc.), continues until the poet adds a final line of 7 syllables after the last 5-7 pair, and stops, the number of lines in a poem is [typically] an uneven number.” (Page, 1923) While, “some of the compositions of the Golden Age ran into as many as 50, 70, or 100 lines... All Japanese poems are 'short', as measured by European standards.” (Chamberlain, 1902
“The long poem is, as already stated, a rare phenomenon. [One of] the longest of them all, in the Manyōshū, has 149-lines... In this connection it may be interesting to recall the dictum of Edgar Allen Poe that “no poem should—that no real poem can—be much longer than 100 lines.” Since the Japanese lines average only six syllables, a Japanese poem of a 149-lines is a good bit shorter than an English one of a 100 lines. The average length of the long poems in the first book of the Manyoshū is exactly 25 lines, or 151 syllables; that is, about fifteen lines of standard English verse. The Japanese 'long poem' keeps well within the limit suggested by Poe, and is usually about the length of the English sonnet [considered a short poem, by English standards].” (Page, 1923)
Tsuiku (対句, lit. 'corresponding' or 'paired phrases'): “This is a frequent ornament of chōka. It consists in a parallelism of meaning or construction in two consecutive or sometimes alternate lines or stanzas.” (Aston, 1877) As in the previously quoted chōka;
It is said that the Rain falls unceasingly, It is said that the Snow is every falling, Like the rain Which never ceases, Like the snow That is ever falling . . .
“Hebrew and Chinese poetry afford numerous examples of it, and even in English poetry it is not un-frequently met with.” (Aston, 1877) Aston gives an example from Henry Longfellow's 'Hiawatha';
Ye who love the haunts of nature, Love the Sunshine of the meadow, Love the shadow of the forest—
Here are some more examples of shorter chōka, mostly from the Manyo’shū;
High mountains and The sea indeed,— One goes on being a mountain Always just as solid: The other goes on being the sea And will never be anything else. But people Are a flower-like thing People of the fleeting world.
—Anon. (of a very early date; tr. Waley, 1919)
Near the valley Although my house dwells, High tree'd Although my village is, The cuckoo Has not yet come to sing. Wanting to hear Its singing voice In the morning I go out to the gate: In the evening I cross the valley: But though I long for it, Not even one song Have I yet heard.
—Anon. (6th century; tr. Waley, 1919)
Loosed from winter's prison When spring comes forth, In the morning The white dew falls: In the evening The mists trail: And in the valley of Hatsuse Beneath the twigs of trees The nightingale sings.
—Anon. (tr. Waley, 1919)
The land of Yamato has mountains, in numbers, But peerless among them is high Kaguyama. I stand on its summit my kingdom to view. The smoke from the land thick rises in air, The gulls from the sea by fits soar aloft. O land of Yamato! Fertile, fruitful! Dear art you to me.
—Emperor Tenmu (c. 631-686; tr. Aston, 1899, etc.)11
Han'ka 反歌 (lit. 'response-poems'): short, compressed, 5-phrase poems, typically composed in the pattern 5-7-5-7-7, and added to the end of chōka:—reforming, refining, and refracting the longer poem into a brief re-ply, re-sponse, or re-flection (lit. to “re-phrase”). Practically speaking, hanka are simply the shortest possible chōka, combining a solitary 5-7 couplet, with a concluding stanza of 5-7-7. Poetically, their relationship is more nuanced: functioning as a 'seam' along which the hanka folds, and the chōka unfolds, simultaneously. Suggestive, rather than strictly sequential. The following hanka, for example, is one of 6, attached to a chōka prefaced with the note: “Thinking of my children while passing the years being old, having a grave illness, and feeling extreme pain”—
Nothing Can console my heart, So like a bird Flying into the clouds To hide and cry.
—Yamanoue no Okura (c. 660-733)12
The chōka in this sense is a hanka producing machine: and is always capable of being capped by a hanka, should a poet in later ages see fit to respond to the original chōka. In this sense, partnerships (i.e. collaboration), possibility, and potentiality, are woven into the structure of Japanese poetic forms, whether actual or virtual: poems are always both compete and incomplete. Always fragmentary. Always opening, changing, moving. That is, the formal requirements are transformative, rather than static (as in most Western poetic forms). However, hanka are not simply supplementary verses, but also typically stand-alone, as self-contained, independent poems;
Shame and despair are mine from day to day, But, being no bird, I cannot fly away.
—Yamanoue Okura (c. 660-733; tr. Chamberlain, 1880)13
“The chōka was usually followed by one or more tanka [i.e. 'short verse'] of the ordinary length of 31 syllables, called hanka. They sometimes contain the principal idea of the poem which precedes in a short pithy form and are at others employed as a sort of poetical save-all to utilize... imagery which it has been inconvenient to include in the chōka itself.” (Aston, 1877) Comparable to the to the envoi in English poetry. (Page, 1923) Sedōka sometimes appeared in place of hanka. (Aston, 1877) More on this next week, when we move on to discussing tanka proper, and the following week, when discussing kata’uta, and sedōka . . .
Bit late this Thursday—had some formatting issues, after my buddy
pointed out that the design of the pages looked a bit weird on phones and tablets in ‘dark mode’ (incidentally, Hilton has just yesterday published his first full length short-story collection, one of which you can read on his newsletter).Dammit! I had completely forgotten about ‘dark mode’, lol. I initially tried to make my peace with it, because setting up the pages otherwise was a bit of a pain, but my brain just wouldn’t let it go. It seemed a waste to spend all this time making the newsletter look pretty, only to be entirely destroyed at the other end. Designing for multiple, moveable, and unpredictable viewing situations is a kind of special madness of the modern age. Anyway, I got it to work pretty well I think, so the newsletter should look decent no matter how you view it now (though I am sure I have forgotten something haha). I also updated the previous issues, as well. Better late and stylish, right?
While I have never consciously written chōka, a great deal of my poetry today is constructed out of tanka-like fragments, which combine into larger poems, somewhat inspired by the chōka as an idea, if not a form. I’ve been taking part in the monthly Song Title Poem challenge, hosted by
,—lots of great poetry to read, I definitely recommend having a look. When I started I wasn’t sure what to expect. As it turns out, I have been finding it a wonderful way to compose poems. Quite a few of mine have been based on a kind of ‘tanka sequence’ approach, informed by my interest in chōka (and renga—but that’s a topic for another day). I have been treating them as odes, prayers, and epitaphs, dedicated to the gods of music, and their musings. I’ll end today’s post with the one I wrote a couple of days ago, for P.J. Harvey;-: Prayers at the Gate :- I. the river happy and bleeding— water, the colour of the earth II. the wind dances on the mountain— lying in the sun, a place called home III. down by the water a noiseless noise— (grow grow grow) this is love IV. the sky lit up the garden— the nightingale waits, i’ll be waiting, joy xoxo dw
Kojiki, Vol. 2, Sect. 51, Poem 20. Tr. based on Chamberlain, 1882, p180. Love-poem by Temmu, the first Tennō of Japan, for the earthly kami Isukeyori'hime, daughter of Kotoshironushi, principal deity of the Shinto Shrine in Asuka, also the location of the Imperial capital, from 538-710 CE. Temmu's tanka can simultaneously be read as a touching description of the two lovers laying down multiple mats to cover the damp ground of the riverside hut, and as a sexual metaphor, in which the two lovers are the mats one atop the other, slowly getting damper.
Nihongi, Book 25. Tr. based on Aston, 1896, p235. Lament by Mitsu Nonaka Kawahara no Fubito, for Soga no Miyakko'hime, said to have died of a broken heart, after hearing that her father had been beheaded.
Kana are the basic units used in counting rhythm in Japanese poetry, akin to the 'syllable' in English. However, kana are, on average, shorter and more regular than English syllables, which has led to a great deal of discussion with regard to terminology amongst English theorists, translators, and poets (I am particularly fond of the term ‘syllabet’, coined by Robin Gill). While it would do no harm to refer to ‘kana’ as ‘syllables’ for the time being, I have opted to use the Japanese ‘kana’ throughout, hopefully saving confusion in later discussions, where the distinction will become increasingly meaningful. For similar reasons, I have used the term ‘phrase’, instead of ‘line’ (something discussed in the very first issue of Haiku Thursdays) In terms of translation, I have attempted to follow the poem's order-of-thought where possible, using “short” and “long” to echo the 5-7 phrasings of the originals.
Nihongi, Book 26. Tr. based on Aston, 1896, p253. Empress Kōgyoku's lament for her grandson, Prince Takeru, who died at age 8.
Manyōshū, Book 3. See Nippon edition, p117; Carter, TJP, p42; Sato & Watson, FC8, p49. From a collection of tanka by Ōtomo no Tabito, on the joys of sake and drunkenness.
Manyōshū, Book 15. See Vovin, p5; tr. Sato & Watson, FC8, p31.
Manyōshū, Book 1. See Nippon edition, p10; Konishi, HJL, p325; Carter, TJP, p22; Sato & Watson, FC8, p20.
Theoretically speaking. The shortest possible chōka was 7-lines (any shorter would be a hanka or tanka: 5-7 + 5-7-7), and the longest on record, were around 150-lines, but most were somewhere between 10 and 50.
As Aston's (1899) translation is missing the final 2 phrases (his copy of the original was presumably corrupted), I have used Dickins (1906) to finish the verse.
Largely due to the association of rhyme with English poetry, which requires phrases to travel in pair. Over the next ten years, this aversion would dissipate, and short ‘free verse’—with uneven lengths of lines and odd numbers of phrases—became extremely popular, largely due to the impact of tanka and haikai in translation.
Emperor Tenmu's chōka “represents an ancient rite called kunimi—‘surveying the land’ from a high peak to praise the richness of the Tennō's domain, and the prosperity of their subjects.” (Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry, 1991) Here, I have used Dickins (1906) for phrase 12.
Manyōshū, Book 5. See Vovin, p158-65.
Interestingly, Chamberlain originally published this as a rhyming couplet. While rhymed English forms are often an ill-fit for tanka and haikai as forms, Chamberlain’s couplet, and its 5-phrase cadence, is a wonderful example of its, as yet, underdeveloped potential.
Haiku Thursdays
Notes for an unfinished miscellany on haiku in English, including poems, translations, histories, theories, et al. Explore the archive . . .
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Man I loved all of this and your own poetry at the end thank you. I am so new to Haiku but it's funny this way of writing verse speaks to me in ways I cannot describe. I've been writing like this for a while without knowing. Hoping to start my own substack soon. Thanks again for the inspiration!