Denryaku: Shōtoku 2 {1098} 2.5

承徳二年二月五日 Shōtoku 2 {1098} 2.5
Translated by Niels van der Salm

Tadazane puts in a good word for Ōe no Michikuni.

Fifth day. Kinoe saru. ¹ Clear weather. Lord Viceroy visited Ōdono. Hearing this, I made a visit. Following my greetings, I brought up a matter that Michikuni ² requested. The reply was that the matter ought to be set in order. ³

1. The twenty-first cyclical day. ↩

1. On Ōe no Michikuni, see the footnotes to Shōtoku 2 (1098) 2.4. ↩

1. It is unclear, also from the preceding entry, what Michikuni's request entailed precisely. Sata 沙汰 can refer to a number of things, including arranging matters or even offering a reward. One is reminded of the frequent requests (direct and indirect), found in low-ranking scholars' writings such as poetry prefaces (shijo 詩序), in which the author bemoans his low status or lack of official appointment and the—real or rhetorical—poverty that resulted from this predicament. With the previous entry referring to a poetry event, it is not entirely impossible that Michikuni had attempted to elicit some form of intercession from Tadazane in a manner reminiscent of these literary requests. For the phenomenon of these laments, see for example Brian Steininger, "Honchō monzui and the Social Dynamics of Literary Culture," in Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2017): pp. 47–78. ↩

Original text 原文
五日、甲申、天晴、関白殿令参於大殿、聞其由参入、見参之次、申通国所望之由、可有沙汰之由云々、

Kundoku 訓読
五日、甲申きのえさる、天晴れ。 関白殿、大殿に参らしむ。其の由を聞きて参入さんにゅうす。見参げざんの次に、通国みちくにの所望しょもうの由を申す。沙汰さた有るべきの由と云々。