A Hundred Verses from Old Japan · 8 of 101

7. Nakamaro Abe: Abe no Nakamaro

7

Nakamaro Abe

Abe No Nakamaro

Ama no hara Furisake-mireba Kasuga naru Mikasa no yama ni Ideshi tsuki kamo.

WHILE gazing up into the sky, My thoughts have wandered far; Methinks I see the rising moon Above Mount Mikasa At far-off Kasuga.

The poet, when sixteen years of age, was sent with two others to China, to discover the secret of the Chinese calendar, and on the night before sailing for home his friends gave him a farewell banquet. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and after dinner he composed this verse. Another account, however, says that the Emperor of China, becoming suspicious, caused him to be invited to a dinner at the top of a high pagoda, and then had the stairs removed, in order that he might be left to die of hunger. Nakamaro is said to have bitten his hand and written this verse with his blood, after which he appears to have escaped and fled to Annam. Kasuga, pronounced Kasunga, is a famous temple at the foot of Mount Mikasa, near Nara, the poet's home; the verse was written in the year 726, and the author died in 780.