A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 93
93
KAMAKURA UDAIJIN
Yo no naka wa
Tsune ni moga mo na
Nagisa kogu
Ama no obune no
Tsunade kanashi mo.
THE MINISTER OF THE RIGHT DISTRICT OF
KAMAKURA
I love to watch the fishing-boats
Returning to the bay,
The crew, all straining at the oars,
And coiling ropes away;
For busy folk are they.
The name of the writer of this verse was Sanetomo Minamato, the second son of the great General Yoritomo. He was a famous man of letters, and was murdered in the year 1219 by his nephew, the Priest Kugyō, at the Temple of Hachiman at Kamakura, whither he had gone to return thanks for his promotion to a high office of state. He seems to have had a premonition of his coming fate; for that morning, while being dressed, he composed the farewell poem to his plum tree given in the Introduction, and pulling out a hair he gave it to his servant, bidding him keep it in memory of him. The assassin sprang out from behind a tree, which is still pointed out to-day, growing at the side of the temple steps, cut him down, and ran off with the head. Kugyō was caught and executed, but the head was never found, and so the single hair was buried in its stead.