![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Whose venerable sides the moss doth line. Rule on, my lord, until what are pebbles nowīy ages united to mighty rocks shall grow Thousands of years of happy reign be thine The translation of the poem I’ve used so far comes from Christopher Hood but a more poetic one by Basil Hall Chamberlain is as follows: It might also, therefore, be a sign of peace and tranquility to counter the growing boulders. Moss is soft, and notably (for English proverbs) doesn’t grow on rolling stones. The moss here adds life to the stone, which otherwise might be a bit barren despite its sacredness. To say Japanese poets are fans of nature is a bit of an understatement. 苔の生す迄 = koke no musu made = Lush with moss It’s said that they grow out of these pebbles over the course of centuries. Sazare-ishi look like rocks made of thousands of little pebbles and are often regarded as sacred. Sazare uses the same kanji meaning “slender” or “fine,” but here refers to a pebble. You may well have seen sazare-ishi at Shinto shrines. 巌となりで = Iwao to nari de = Grow into boulders If we wanted to be a bit poetic, we could appreciate the contrast between the life of one person and 8,000 generations. When roles are hereditary and held for life, a generation is generally equal to a reign - thus wishing for a long line of succession as well as one person’s life. Note the repetition of 代, but here in a slightly different context. 千代に八千代に = Chiyo ni yachiyo ni = Continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations The “lord” meaning is the most prevalent, so we’ll be focusing on that for this article. Historically, Kimigayo seems also to have been sung as a wish for the long life of one’s guests and other non-lordly people of honor. In this poem, the first yo is almost always translated as “reign,” but the kanji and word itself can also refer to generations and other such spans of time. 代 (yo) has several meanings, as you’ll also see in the next line. It was eventually decided that “Kimi” does refer to the emperor, but the emperor as “the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people, and whose position is derived from the consensus-based will of Japanese citizens, with whom sovereign power resides,” according to then-Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, as cited by the Japan Policy Research Institute. This etymological quandary caused much debate during the passing of the 1999 Act on National Flag and Anthem, which made Kimigayo the official national anthem. During the Edo period (1603-1868), “Kimi” would have referred to the shogun rather than the emperor, but this would switch formally with the founding of the Empire of Japan in 1868. Given that the Heian period was about infusing modern poetry with ancient influences, it’s far from settled whether or not this poem directly addresses the emperor. In the Heian period (794-1185) when the poem was written, “Kimi” would generally refer to one’s lord, but the emperor himself was often called “Okimi “ (meaning “Great Lord”) in earlier times. It’s also been translated as “My lord’s reign.” There remains debate about who, exactly, “Kimi” is. Originally, the first line read “ Waga kimi ha” - “My lord” - but this was changed a few years later to its current form. We’ll go line-by-line, starting with the first, most famous, and controversial: ![]()
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