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Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the Chinese preface to four poems in Man’yōshū, Book 18, where Ōtomo no Yakamochi, embodying the Confucian bureaucrat respectful of laws, discusses the laws on divorce as an admonishment against one subordinate who had decided to repudiate his wife to marry a local courtesan.

Paper long abstract:

Book 18 of the Man’yōshū (Collection of Myriad Leaves, post 759) contains four poems (one chōka and three tanka) dating back to the first year of the Tenpyō Kanpō era (749), composed by Ōtomo no Yakamochi (718?–785), who in that year was Governor of Etchū province (now Toyama prefecture). The four poems, numbered 4106 to 4110 in the Shōgakukan edition (1996), are introduced by a preface which, explaining the reason for the composition, actually constitutes an admonishment by Yakamochi against one of his subordinates, Owari no Okui (?–?), secretary at the Governorate. Entered into a relationship with a local courtesan, Okui had decided to marry her after repudiating his wife. The essentially “technical” content of the preface, in which Yakamochi mentions the legislation of the time in matters of divorce in both its penal and administrative aspects, represents the only example of my knowledge that brings a subject of legal matter into a literary source of the ancient period. In his preface, Yakamochi combines jurisprudence with poetry, expressing his personal and official point of view on the subject, and suggesting that literary anthologies can also furnish matters of political, philosophical, and ethical relevance. As a matter of fact, Yakamochi quotes the Koryō (Law on the Households), articles 27 and 28, and, moreover, he refers to penal laws and sovereign’s edicts in order to dissuade Okui from taking illegal action. Through this preface, we see that in matters of divorce Yakamochi is completely respectful of the spirit of Chinese laws, which he does not question: on the contrary, he tries to make them more severe. From this point of view, he perfectly embodies the figure of the Confucian bureaucrat, remaining consistent, even when expressed in poetry, with the principle according to which virtues must be public but vices private, or in any case clearly separated from the official dimension.