Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a Japanese waka poet and aristocrat of the late Asuka period. He was the most prominent of the poets included in the Man'yōshū, the oldest waka anthology, but apart from what can be gleaned from hints in the Man'yōshū, the details of his life are largely uncertain. He was born to the Kakinomoto clan, based in Yamato Province, probably in the 650s, and likely died in Iwami Province around 709.
He served as court poet to Empress Jitō, creating many works praising the imperial family, and is best remembered for his elegies for various imperial princes. He also composed well-regarded travel poems.
He is ranked as one of the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals. Ōtomo no Yakamochi, the presumed compiler of the Man'yōshū, and Ki no Tsurayuki, the principal compiler of the Kokin Wakashū, praised Hitomaro as Sanshi no Mon and Uta no Hijiri respectively. From the Heian period on, he was often called Hito-maru . He has come to be revered as a god of poetry and scholarship, and is considered one of the four greatest poets in Japanese history, along with Fujiwara no Teika, Sōgi and Bashō.
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“Your hair has turned white
While your heart stayed
Knotted against me.
I shall never
Loosen it now.”
XXI, p. 23
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)
“This morning I will not
Comb my hair.
It has lain
Pillowed on the hand of my lover.”
XX, p. 22
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)
“I sit at home
In our room
By our bed
Gazing at your pillow.”
XXV, p. 27
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)
“Gossip grows like weeds
In a summer meadow.
My girl and I
Sleep arm in arm.”
XIX, p. 21
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)
XXII, p. 24
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese (1976)
XXIII, p. 25
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)
XVII, p. 19
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)
