The World Moves On: Poem 93

I was reminded of this poem recently and felt like sharing it with readers. It is one of the most poignant in the anthology, I think:

Japanese	Romanization	Translation
世の中は	Yo no naka wa	If only this world
つねにもがもな	Tsune ni mo ga mo na	could always remain the same!
なぎさこぐ	Nagisa kogu	The sight of them towing
あまのをおぶねの	Ama no obune no	the small boats of the fishermen who row in the tide
綱手かなしも	Tsuna de kanashi mo	is touching indeed!

This poem was composed by the Kamakura no Udaijin (鎌倉右大臣, 1192-1219), or “Kamakura Minister of the Right”. He is also known as Minamoto no Sanetomo. Sanetomo was the third shogun of the new Kamamura Shogunate, the same military government opposed by Emperor Gotoba (poem 99) and Emperor Juntoku (poem 100).

Sanetomo was a more gentler ruler than some of his predecessors, and even studied poetry under Fujiwara no Teika (poem 97), the compiler of the Hyakunin Isshu anthology and contributed to other Imperial anthologies as well.

However, he lived at a time when the old Heian court (which included most of the authors in this anthology) had been reduced to a shadow of its former self (see poem 100 above). The power had shifted away from the Imperial Court to the eastern city of Kamakura, and the country was still rebuilding itself after war. Sadly, this new center of power was unstable, and as the third Shogun, he was surrounded by ambitious family members and retainers who either plotted to replace him with their chosen candidate, or ruled “on his behalf”. Sanetomo was a tragic, powerless figure who was given to drink and poetry because he had little else to look forward to.

After escaping other assassination attempts, Sanetomo was killed at age 28 at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine (English site here). His nephew, Kugyo, was hiding behind a ginkgo tree which can be seen to the left of the stairs in the photo above. As Sanetomo descended the stairs, Kugyo leapt out and cut him down with a sword. The ginkgo tree still stood for another 800+ years, but finally fell over in March of 2010 due to age and disease. Efforts to resuscitate the tree are underway. The photos in this post were both taken by me in the winter of 2023: the stump of the dead tree is on the left, while the restored sapling is fenced off in the middle. The grand stairs leading up to the shrine is where Sanetomo was assassinated.

This poem reflects his melancholy as he views the shores of Kamakura, and wishing this peaceful scene would always remain, in contrast to the turbulent life he lived.

Politics and power are a dangerous thing.