Sacred Texts Japan Index Previous Next
Buy this Book on Kindle
A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (The Hyakunin-isshu), tr. by William N. Porter, [1909], at sacred-texts.com
BE not displeased, but pardon me,
If still my tears o’erflow;
My lover's gone, and my good name,
Which once I valued so,
I fear must also go.
This lady was the wife of Kinsuke Ōye, the Governor of the Province of Sagami, from which she got her name. The verse is said to have been composed at an Imperial poetical contest in the year 1051. The incidents mentioned in these verses are not all supposed to have really taken place; many of the poems, including this one, were simply written on a given subject for one of the poetical contests, which were so common at the period.
