Sagami (poet) explained

, also known as, was a Japanese waka poet of the mid-Heian period. One of her poems was included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. She produced a private collection, the Sagami-shū.

Biography

Sagami's dates are unknown, but she was probably born around 1000. Her real name was Oto-jijū.

Her paternal ancestry is unknown, but she was supposedly a daughter of Minamoto no Yorimitsu. The fourteenth-century work Chokusen Sakusha Burui (勅撰作者部類) claims Yorimitsu was her father, but the Kin'yōshū includes a renga by Yorimitsu and "Sagami's mother" (相模母), so it is also possible he was her adoptive father. Her mother was a daughter of Yoshishige no Yasuaki, governor of Noto (前能登守慶滋保章).

She was married to, during his tenure as the governor of Sagami Province, from which her nickname is derived. She served, one of the sons of Emperor Ichijō.

Poetry

109 of her poems were included in imperial anthologies starting with the Goshūi Wakashū. She was included in the Late Classical Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry.

The following poem by her was included as No. 65 in Fujiwara no Teika's Ogura Hyakunin Isshu:

Japanese textRomanized JapaneseEnglish translation

恨みわび

ほさぬ袖だに

あるものを

恋に朽ちなむ

名こそ惜しけれ

Urami-wabi

hosanu sode dani

aru mono wo

koi ni kuchinan

na koso oshikere

My sleeves will never dry

with all these bitter tears

of unrequited love.

But even worse,

the regret of having lost

my good name -

tainted by this love.

She produced a private collection, the .

Works cited

. Donald Keene . A History of Japanese Literature, Vol. 1: Seeds in the Heart - Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century . . New York . 1999 . 978-0-231-11441-7 .

. Peter McMillan . One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each - A Translation of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu . . New York . 2010 .

External links