[Topic unknown, anonymous]
On the Tatsuta River, red leaves seem to be scattered and flowing. If I wade across, will this brocade of a current be cut in two?
[Composed on a folding screen painted with red leaves flowing on the Tatsuta River, when the Nijo Empress was still called the mother of the crown prince, Ariwara no Narihira]
Not even in the age of the gods, when wonders were many, was it ever heard of: the Tatsuta River tie-dyeing its waters a deep Chinese crimson.
The Tatsuta River flows east of the Ikoma hills in Nara and joins the Yamato River. On its banks stands Tatsuta Taisha, a shrine to the gods of wind, and the red leaves of Mount Tatsuta were famous from early times. Tatsuta-hime, the goddess of autumn, takes her name from this mountain.
Narihira's poem was not written while looking at the real river but while looking at a painting on a folding screen. He sees the red leaves crowding the surface as kukurizome, tie-dyeing, in which cloth is bound with thread before it is dyed. Karakurenai, "Chinese crimson," names a vivid deep red brought from China. Opening grandly with "not even in the age of the gods," he marvels that such beauty seems not of the human world: a bold poem in Narihira's style.
This poem was also taken into the Hyakunin Isshu and recited widely. In the Edo-period rakugo story "Chihayafuru," a retired know-it-all explains the poem's meaning in absurd ways, turning it into the tale of a sumo wrestler named Tatsutagawa and a courtesan named Chihaya. That is how well everyone knew this poem.