II. The Privy Councillor Takamura: Sangi Takamura
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THE PRIVY COUNCILLOR TAKAMURA
SANGI TAKAMURA
Wada no hara
Yasoshima kakete
Kogi idenu to
Hito ni wa tsugeyo
Ama no tsuribune.
Yasoshima kakete
Kogi idenu to
Hito ni wa tsugeyo
Ama no tsuribune.
OH! Fishers in your little boats,
Quick! tell my men, I pray,
They'll find me at Yasoshima,
I'm being rowed away
Far off across the bay.
Takamura, a well-known scholar, rose from poverty to riches on being appointed a Custom-house officer for the ships trading to and from China. His enemies reported him to the Emperor as an extortioner and a thief, and he was deported to Yasoshima, a group of small islands off the coast; he is said to have composed this song and sung it to the fishing-boats, as he was being carried off. He was afterwards pardoned and reinstated, dying in the year 852.