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II. The Privy Councillor Takamura: Sangi Takamura, read aloud

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A Hundred Verses from Old Japan · 12 of 101

II. The Privy Councillor Takamura: Sangi Takamura

11

The Privy Councillor Takamura

Sangi Takamura

Wada no hara 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.