A Hundred Verses from Old Japan · 29 of 101

28. The Minister Mune-yuki Minamoto: Minamoto no Mune-yuki Ason

28

The Minister Mune-yuki Minamoto

Minamoto No Mune-yuki Ason

Yama zato wa Fuyu zo sabishisa Masari keru Hito-me mo kusa mo Karenu to omoeba.

THE mountain village solitude In winter time I dread; It seems as if, when friends are gone, And trees their leaves have shed, All men and plants are dead.

The poet was a grandson of the Emperor Kwōkō, and died A.D. 940. The Minamoto family, who sprang from the Emperor Seiwa, who reigned 856-877, was at one time very powerful, and produced many famous men, including Yoritomo, the great founder of the Shōgunate. The Taira family and the Minamotos were the Yorks and Lancasters of mediaeval Japan; but, after thirty years of warfare, Yoritomo finally defeated his rivals in a great battle fought at Dan-no-ura, in the Straits of Shimonoseki, in 1185; the entire Taira family was exterminated, including women and children, and the infant Emperor Antoku. The Minamoto clan themselves became extinct in 1219, when Sanetomo was murdered at Kamakura, as related in the note to verse No. 93.