178
Containing China
眇眇孤舟逝
Boundlessly journeys the solitary boat,
綿綿歸思紆
Continuously binds my desire to return home.
我行豈不遙
How could my journey be other than distant
登降千里余
When I have scaled and descended over a thousand
leagues?
117
When Shigenori’s narrator frames his journey in similar terms, it can be
read not only as a complaint about isolation and distance, but also as an
expression of the hope that, like Liu Yu, the narrator will emerge trium-
phant. Invoking this particular poem lets Shigenori incorporate both the
reimagining of Liu Yu (a reluctant but capable general and eventual em-
peror) and the figure of the well-known reclusive poet, Tao: Shigenori may
be in a sort of enforced reclusion as a result of his skill, but with luck, it
will be temporary.
This is the imagery that brings Shigenori’s narrator to Anrakuji, where
he takes up the language of Michizane, as noted above. Before he turns
to the Chinese monks and the contents of his
Mirror
, however, the nar-
rator’s thoughts once more are framed in language evocative of Bai: the
narrator’s allusion to the landscape of “the lake by night at Wuzi Temple”
(
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