Man 'yōshū: Erotic vs Love
Unlike the conceptions that characterize basic notions of love, erotic love details more on the sexual desire of the body rather than the endearment based on feeling. However this separation between the two, has not always been apparent. Often times in literature of the past where this very distinction between what is erotic versus what is love is frequently considered hard to differentiate due to the vagueness within the way writers wrote the text. When looking at one of Japan’s oldest collections of poetry, the Man 'yōshū (compiled sometime during the eighth century), the relationship between love and erotic love is represented within the feelings portrayed through the author of the poems.
One way that love can be distinguished over erotic love is through this notion of longing and waiting for a lover that may never return. The first example of this is seen in the four poems written by Empress Iwanohime, while thinking of the emperor. “I shall wait for you / like this / as
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“You say you have been drenched / waiting for me / on the foothill-trailing mountain. / O that I could be / that trickling rain!” (Man 'yōshū 108). The lines more than likely describe a feeling of longing for the prince yet at the same time, it also depicts her sexual desire for him. This notion is further supported in the following poem where Tsumori Tōru discovers the Prince’s marriage to Lady Ishikawa through divination. “Knowing full well / it would be told / in Tsumori’s divination / (Tsumori of the great boat), / we two did sleep together” (Man 'yōshū 109). It seems that Prince Ōtsu, and Lady Ishikawa did desire each other enough to sleep together showing a feeling of lust between them. However, due to the fact that there was a secret marriage between the two, this also concludes that there was more of a feeling of endearment between