This is the final poem in our series dedicated to Valentine’s Day:

Japanaese	Romanization	Translation
かくとだに	Kaku to dani	Can I even say
えやはいぶきの	Eyawa ibuki no	“I love you this much”?—No, and so
さしも草	Sashimogusa	you do not know of it
さしも知らじな	Sashimo shiraji na	anymore than of the sashimo grasses of Ibuki,
もゆる思ひいを	Moyuru omoi wo	my burning love for you!

Fujiwara no Sanekata Ason (藤原実方), the poem’s author, was the grandson of Fujiwara no Tadahira (poem 26). True to his heritage, Sanetaka had an impressive record as a poet as well, and his poetry was frequently included in official anthologies such as the Shūishū among others. He was thought to also be friends with Sei Shonagon (poem 62) and Fujiwara no Michinobu (poem 52).

Sanekata apparently was quite full of himself too, and he later paid for this. According to my new book, Sanekata was a darling in his youth and frequently socialized with Emperors Enyu and Kazan. According to one story, when the Imperial procession went flower-viewing, Sanekata accompanied them, but then a heavy rain started. Everyone started to scatter, but Sanekata supposedly said “if I am going to get wet, might as well do it under the blossoms”, and he thus stood under a flowering tree. One Fujiwara no Yukinari later commented “that’s fine in poetry, but Sanetaka is a fool”. Sanetaka and Yukinari apparently had a prolonged and bitter hatred of one another, and in one incident Sanetaka took Yukinari’s headdress and angrily threw it into the garden. Emperor Ichijo, who caught sight of this, rebuked Sanetaka’s crass behavior, demoted him in rank, and sent him to the remote province of Mutsu as punishment. Yukinari, for his part, was later promoted head of the Imperial Archives.

According to Mostow, this poem was sent to a woman he was first starting to court, so the poem is an introduction of sorts to her, since she probably didn’t know who he was. The poem is as technically strong as it is bold, as Professor Mostow explains in detail. The reference to “Ibuki” is probably to a famous mountain in Japan called Mount Ibuki which has a variety of wildlife, including a kind of grass called sashimogusa or mogusa and is part of the Mugwort family. Mugwort was used in moxibustion, so it was burned, and this poem uses this as a symbol of his burning love.

According to Mostow, there is further word-play in the poem as sashimo can be read as sa shimo meaning “that much”, while the words mogusa and omohi reinforce each other to emphasize the passion of his burning love.

If Sanetaka wanted to introduce himself to a lady, he sure did a fine job of it!

P.S. Another poem about mugwort.

P.P.S. Featured photo is of a Japanese Mugwort (yomogi, ヨモギ) by Qwert1234 / CC BY-SA 3.0, courtesy of Wikipedia