More Kenshin poem!
After reading and searching more about the 'Blossoms and Swords' mentioned in my previous post here, I just discovered -well me stupid anyways not having read carefully the postscript of the book- that in the poem 'Sword dance', the mentioned hero here is Kenshin. Perhaps you already concluded it like that, but I wasn't sure myself, as Kenshin
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However many times I look at this (and wrinkle my forehead) I don’t think that it is white-helm man who flashes his sword, because the "his" (“his sword flashes out”) in the last part follows on from the first part where the subject is the Chieftain (shingen) and “his" means the Chieftain’s shingen's. But thinking about it too much makes me tired and we all get the main idea.
The sword dance here looks to be in imitation of a Chinese poetic form but the Japanese sword dance as a dance was, I believe, traditionally performed by men “fighting” each other (so lots of clashing blades to scare off bad spirits) and not as a solo form which the Chinese preferred. So I’m told!
But - you’re right that real shingen only had a battle fan (for directing troops) and surely he didn’t expect a crazy enemy general to come charging right across the battlefield at his seat! Like you, I’ve read the history as being that one of shingen’s generals jabbed kenshin’s horse with a long spear and the horse - understandably - pulled away and spoiled the aim of kenshin’s sword blow. This is the moment frozen in the Nagano statue which you show. You have given so many exciting pictures in your post!
I like the night watch geese poem too but see this in modern free verse and in a modern Gackt context for some reason. Like this:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2792/4303499697_766c69475e_o.jpg
Your book finds are lovely, and very exciting, and have quite distracted me from my Christmas gifts of other Japanese poetry!
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