WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.910 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.910 --> 00:00:05.450 align:middle line:84% The second poet in the book, Izumi Shikibu, 00:00:05.450 --> 00:00:07.640 align:middle line:84% wrote around the turn of the millennium 00:00:07.640 --> 00:00:09.410 align:middle line:90% around the year 1000. 00:00:09.410 --> 00:00:12.350 align:middle line:84% If any of you know the world's earliest novel, 00:00:12.350 --> 00:00:16.460 align:middle line:84% The Tale Of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, 00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:18.620 align:middle line:84% they served at court at the same time. 00:00:18.620 --> 00:00:20.030 align:middle line:90% Shikibu is a title. 00:00:20.030 --> 00:00:24.660 align:middle line:84% It's basically could be translated as "lady." 00:00:24.660 --> 00:00:28.830 align:middle line:84% Lying alone, my black hair tangled, 00:00:28.830 --> 00:00:32.910 align:middle line:84% uncombed, I long for the one who touched it first. 00:00:32.910 --> 00:00:37.850 align:middle line:90% 00:00:37.850 --> 00:00:40.640 align:middle line:84% Why haven't I thought of it before? 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:45.650 align:middle line:84% This body, remembering yours, is the keepsake you left. 00:00:45.650 --> 00:00:48.610 align:middle line:90% 00:00:48.610 --> 00:00:52.870 align:middle line:84% In this world, love has no color, yet how deeply 00:00:52.870 --> 00:00:56.980 align:middle line:90% my body is stained by yours. 00:00:56.980 --> 00:01:00.940 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking of stained glass windows. 00:01:00.940 --> 00:01:04.540 align:middle line:84% Stained is a difficult word, but dyed also 00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:06.310 align:middle line:90% has another connotation. 00:01:06.310 --> 00:01:09.280 align:middle line:84% In between the two, I went for the stained glass windows. 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:11.770 align:middle line:84% These are all co- translations done 00:01:11.770 --> 00:01:14.110 align:middle line:84% with a collaborator, a Japanese born, 00:01:14.110 --> 00:01:19.210 align:middle line:84% Mariko Aratani came to this country when she was 27, 00:01:19.210 --> 00:01:23.770 align:middle line:84% and also loved these early poems. 00:01:23.770 --> 00:01:26.860 align:middle line:84% I wanted to give you one taste of the women's other side. 00:01:26.860 --> 00:01:31.480 align:middle line:84% They weren't always sitting around longing. 00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:36.650 align:middle line:84% So the men would come to the women's home after dark. 00:01:36.650 --> 00:01:38.860 align:middle line:84% It was a time of great freedom for women. 00:01:38.860 --> 00:01:41.470 align:middle line:84% Again, more so than has been seen until, you know, 00:01:41.470 --> 00:01:45.490 align:middle line:90% 20th century culture. 00:01:45.490 --> 00:01:46.690 align:middle line:90% The men would come. 00:01:46.690 --> 00:01:48.670 align:middle line:84% They would have exchanged poems, which 00:01:48.670 --> 00:01:51.130 align:middle line:84% would have told them whether they were welcome 00:01:51.130 --> 00:01:53.060 align:middle line:90% or not to come. 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:56.860 align:middle line:84% And when they left before dawn because there 00:01:56.860 --> 00:01:59.440 align:middle line:84% was a convention of secrecy, poems 00:01:59.440 --> 00:02:02.930 align:middle line:84% would be exchanged afterwards as well. 00:02:02.930 --> 00:02:04.750 align:middle line:84% But in this case of this poem, it 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:07.990 align:middle line:84% was Shikibu who went to her lover's home, 00:02:07.990 --> 00:02:10.600 align:middle line:84% and this was the poem that she wrote. 00:02:10.600 --> 00:02:14.500 align:middle line:84% Returning home near dawn after a night away, 00:02:14.500 --> 00:02:18.400 align:middle line:84% I used to say, how poetic, but now I 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:22.664 align:middle line:84% know this dawn rising men do is merely tiresome. 00:02:22.664 --> 00:02:34.300 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:34.300 --> 00:02:40.510 align:middle line:84% This one is quite certainly a poem of Buddhist understanding. 00:02:40.510 --> 00:02:44.207 align:middle line:84% The moon in Japanese poetry can mean many things. 00:02:44.207 --> 00:02:45.790 align:middle line:84% It can mean the fullness of something, 00:02:45.790 --> 00:02:51.600 align:middle line:84% but it can also be an image of Buddhist awakening. 00:02:51.600 --> 00:02:57.300 align:middle line:84% I cannot say which is which, the glowing plum blossom is 00:02:57.300 --> 00:03:00.950 align:middle line:90% the spring night's moon. 00:03:00.950 --> 00:03:07.040 align:middle line:84% So a poem about no separation between awakening 00:03:07.040 --> 00:03:13.230 align:middle line:84% and the transient beauty of any moment. 00:03:13.230 --> 00:03:15.505 align:middle line:84% I'll just give you a last poem by her. 00:03:15.505 --> 00:03:18.480 align:middle line:90% 00:03:18.480 --> 00:03:19.230 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 00:03:19.230 --> 00:03:22.620 align:middle line:84% I really would like to spend the whole evening reading 00:03:22.620 --> 00:03:24.250 align:middle line:90% their poems. 00:03:24.250 --> 00:03:28.860 align:middle line:84% This one, Shikibu is known-- she would go to Buddhist 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:30.420 align:middle line:90% monasteries and practice. 00:03:30.420 --> 00:03:33.270 align:middle line:84% There are poems about that, and this 00:03:33.270 --> 00:03:35.765 align:middle line:84% is the one, which according to legend, 00:03:35.765 --> 00:03:37.140 align:middle line:84% was supposed to have been written 00:03:37.140 --> 00:03:42.630 align:middle line:84% on her deathbed sent to the priest who was her teacher. 00:03:42.630 --> 00:03:49.150 align:middle line:84% The way I must enter leads through darkness to darkness. 00:03:49.150 --> 00:03:51.820 align:middle line:84% Oh, moon above the mountain's rim, 00:03:51.820 --> 00:03:55.030 align:middle line:84% please shine a little further on my path. 00:03:55.030 --> 00:03:57.890 align:middle line:90% 00:03:57.890 --> 00:04:02.900 align:middle line:84% So that's a taste of 1,000-year-old poems. 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:05.600 align:middle line:84% Falling out of it-- this is the original paperback. 00:04:05.600 --> 00:04:08.150 align:middle line:90% It just fell out of its cover. 00:04:08.150 --> 00:04:12.280 align:middle line:90% So there we go.