JL 11 — The Man’yōshū: Love, Loss and Ordinary Voices

The Man’yōshū: Love, Loss and Ordinary Voices

Two men leave home for military service. One presents himself as his ruler’s shield. The other remembers children pulling at his clothes and crying. Their mother is no longer there. Now he has gone too.

Both speakers have a place in Book XX of the Man’yōshū (compiled over several stages in the eighth century). One departure carries the assurance of duty; the other carries the strain of separation. Serving a ruler could give a man a sense of purpose beyond his household while leaving his family without his presence.

In the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, many speakers hope that another person will recognize or share what they feel.  Love becomes a request to be remembered, a father’s sleepless preoccupation with his children or a mourner’s attempt to pay for someone to carry a child beyond death.

These passages of Japanese literature follow feeling into the effort to speak or act, keeping the reader close to the person making that effort.  Their affection leads them to ask for help, make promises and take responsibility for others. The poem readings here use prose paraphrase rather than quotations from an English translation.

1. An Anthology with Many Uses for Poetry

Court occasions and household concerns

The twenty books of the Man’yōshū preserve around 4,500 poems, reflecting voices from the imperial family to soldiers serving in distant provinces. It is the oldest major Japanese poetry anthology still in existence. Many compositions cannot be confidently assigned to an author.

An interest in private feeling can make it easy to miss the listeners for whom many of these poems were composed. Verse formed part of ceremonial life, official travel and gatherings among the elite as well as expressions of affection and grief. A carefully made statement could honor a ruler, entertain companions or place a personal appeal before someone who might answer.

The variety matters because an anthology collects occasions along with words. A declaration intended for listeners at a gathering carries expectations different from a lament. Before calling a voice candid, we need to consider what the speaker is trying to accomplish.

What the dates establish

Much of the collection developed during the Nara period (710–794). Ōtomo no Yakamochi (c. 718–785) combined an official career with poetry and an important role in assembling the collection. Many of his compositions appear in its later books. Other compilers and inherited material also contributed to the work that survives.

Its latest datable composition is from 759. An anthology assembled over time has a history beyond the date of its last poem, however. The evidence does not establish a single uncontested moment when all twenty books became the collection we know.

2. Serving the Ruler, Leaving the Children

The resolve of poem 4373

Border guards known as sakimori were sent from eastern provinces toward military posts in western Japan. Poems collected from them in 755 appear in Book XX.

In poem 4373, the departing man describes himself as the sovereign’s shield. He makes his intention clear: he will go without looking back. The image gives his body a purpose within the ruler’s defense: he is to stand between authority and danger.

Loyalty to the ruler may explain part of the declaration. Speaking so firmly could also help him face leaving home. He may believe every word, feel expected to make the pledge or find his resolve harder to maintain once he is away. The short poem leaves those possibilities open.

What they clearly give us is a voice claiming readiness.

The unfinished farewell of poem 4401

Another experience of parting is preserved in poem 4401.  Children hold on to the speaker’s clothes, crying as he leaves. Their mother is already absent, yet he goes too.

The garment becomes the place where two demands meet. He is required elsewhere. They want him physically within reach. His recollection makes their resistance part of the account of his service.

How the family will cope after he leaves remains unanswered. That unanswered practical question gives the scene its force. The father has traveled on, carrying the memory of children who tried to prevent him from going.

The same military obligation stands behind both poems. In one, the speaker affirms his commitment to the ruler. In the other, leaving exposes the hardship that service brings to those who need him at home.

3. Remembrance Also Requires Someone’s Cooperation

Lady Kasa’s request

For the speaker of Book IV, poem 587, a keepsake offers a way to remain in someone’s thoughts. Its poet, Kasa no Iratsume (active in the eighth century), known as Lady Kasa, asks Yakamochi to think of her when he looks at it. Her request carries a promise that she will go on thinking of him.

In the poem, the object becomes a link between them. Each time he looks at it, he may think of her again. Possession alone would accomplish very little if he stopped noticing what he had kept.

The speaker can promise her own remembrance with confidence. His must be invited. She does not blame him for forgetting her. Her plea simply acknowledges that remembrance is uncertain.

Kasa’s contribution to the history of Japanese women writers includes this ability to make an appeal precise. He can answer her affection by doing the simple thing she asks. Whether he chooses to do so is beyond her control.

4. The Children Who Interrupt a Meal

Food brings Okura’s children to mind

Yamanoue no Okura (660–c. 733) gives parental attachment an unsettled energy in Book V, poem 802. Melon prompts thoughts of the children. Chestnuts intensify them. Their images persist before the speaker and prevent restful sleep.

The poem moves from eating toward a preoccupation that occupies the rest of his awareness. What begins with a taste becomes difficult to put aside. He cannot simply choose the hour when affection will stop making demands on him.

He lies awake with his children on his mind, his affection offering little peace.  The poem allows a parent to be devoted and worn out at the same time. That complication makes the affection feel lived rather than ceremonially declared.

A second poem weighs their value

The short companion, poem 803, questions whether silver, gold or jewels could ever equal the value of children. It gives the attachment an emphatic value after the longer poem has shown how thoroughly it can disturb a person’s peace.

The two poems work together partly through their different forms. Poem 802 is a chōka (attested by the seventh century). Phrases of five and seven sound units take turns, ending with two seven-unit phrases in succession. Poem 803 is a tanka (in use by the seventh century), whose usual pattern is 5–7–5–7–7 Japanese sound units.

The longer composition develops an experience; its shorter companion gives that experience a judgment. The first poem dwells on the thoughts that keep him awake. Its companion declares how precious his children are to him.

5. When Money Becomes an Offer of Care

A request to the messenger of death

Book V, poem 905 imagines a child traveling where his parent cannot accompany him. The boy is too young to know the route. The grieving speaker offers payment to a messenger of the dead and asks that the child be carried.

He is still trying to arrange the care his child needs. A young child needs guidance and someone strong enough to bear him. The speaker tries to secure both, even though ordinary parental help has become impossible.

Reading this offer alongside poem 803 brings out a difference. This lament gives wealth a practical purpose: the grieving parent offers payment in the hope that someone will carry his child.  Money acquires a possible use within devotion, although it cannot measure what has been lost.

The poems occur at different points in Book V. Reading the poems together is a choice made in this article. It helps us see why precious possessions matter differently in the two situations.

The lament remains moving because its request is so limited. It asks for assistance on a journey. Asking someone to carry the child gives the grieving parent one more way to look after him.

6. How Much Can an Ordinary Voice Tell Us?

Everyday subjects belong to unequal lives

The poems discussed here make family concerns visible, although the writers did not all occupy the same social position. Okura was an educated official. A poem about children does not turn his household into a model for every household in ancient Japan.

Anonymous works create another limit. Without an attribution, we cannot confidently assign a class, occupation or biography to their makers. Familiar speech is also a literary effect that accomplished poets can create.

Ordinary voices is therefore a useful description when it keeps daily experience within our hearing. We need to explain the phrase’s limits if it implies that these poems give direct access to everyone’s lives.

The collection’s breadth allows differences to survive. We should attend as closely to what separates these lives as to what feels familiar.

A collection is also an act of judgment

Japan’s oral and written traditions come together in materials that have been performed, composed, gathered and arranged. Their survival depends on decisions about which poems merited preservation and how readers would encounter them.

The soldier’s distress reaches us inside the same literary inheritance that preserves public declarations of service. We can ask what the decision to include both reveals about the collection’s priorities. We hear a range of responses because different kinds of expression were given a place in it.

7. Hearing the Poems through Another Language

The script comes before the English sentence

Chinese characters helped early writers represent Japanese through combinations of meaning and sound. Man’yōgana (prominent in eighth-century texts) puts Chinese characters to work as symbols for Japanese sounds. Establishing a poem’s reading requires attention to these different functions.

An English version consequently rests on interpretation before its first sentence takes shape. Readers may miss how a translator’s notes and sentence choices make an uncertain relationship seem firmly established. Notes help distinguish what the text supports from what a particular rendering supplies.

In literary translation, tone deserves particular attention. One translation may leave us reassured by Kasa’s appeal; another may make us notice her worry. A change in English phrasing can change its meaning too. Comparing versions brings those choices into view.

Reading across the examples

A Waka Anthology, Volume One: The Gem-Glistening Cup (1993) offers a broad selection with commentary. The Ten Thousand Leaves (1981) covers Books I–V; another source is needed for the military poems in Book XX.

Begin with 4373 and 4401, then turn to 587, 802–803 and 905. Keep the poem numbers and explanatory notes nearby. An English syllable count cannot reproduce Japanese morae exactly. The rhythm and phrasing of the complete poem deserve greater weight.

The questions become more interesting as the poems accumulate. What can a person promise? What must they ask someone else to provide? Which obligations can be fulfilled together? The Man’yōshū gives these questions particular bodies and circumstances: a guard preparing to serve, children holding his clothes, a lover’s keepsake and a child who still needs to be carried.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What kind of book is the Man’yōshū?

It is an early Japanese poetry anthology with approximately 4,500 compositions in twenty books. Poems for public gatherings sit alongside more intimate exchanges, bringing together speakers from different walks of life.

How certain is its compilation date?

The work developed through stages during the eighth century. Its last datable poem comes from 759, although the precise history of its final assembly remains debated.

Does ordinary mean anonymous or poor?

Neither follows automatically. A named official can write about everyday concerns. Without the writer’s name, we cannot assume that the poem came from someone with little wealth or privilege.

Why read a long poem with its short companion?

The shorter poem may support what came before or invite us to understand it differently. Poem 803 declares the children’s unmatched value after poem 802 has described their hold on the parent’s thoughts.

How can a beginner follow the examples?

Locate poems 4373, 4401, 587, 802, 803 and 905 in an annotated translation. Use the headnotes for context while keeping track of what the poem actually reveals. Let that distinction guide any account of the speaker’s life.

References

1. Cranston, Edwin A. (trans.), A Waka Anthology, Volume One: The Gem-Glistening Cup (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993).

2. Levy, Ian Hideo (trans.), The Ten Thousand Leaves: A Translation of the Man’yōshū, Japan’s Premier Anthology of Classical Poetry, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981).

3. McAuley, Thomas (trans.), Waka Poetry, Man’yōshū IV: 587, V: 802 and V: 905 (accessed October 29, 2026).

4. Nara Prefecture Complex of Man’yō Culture, “Man’yō-shū and Japanese Culture” (accessed October 29, 2026).

5.Nara Prefecture Complex of Man’yō Culture, Man’yō Hyakka, entries for poems 587, 802, 803, 905, 4373 and 4401 (accessed October 29, 2026).

6. Kokugakuin University, “Man’yōshū,” Encyclopedia of Shinto (accessed October 29, 2026).