Ono no Komachi
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Ono no Komachi (小野 小町 approximate dates 825–900 A.D.) was a famous Japanese Waka poet, one of the Rokkasen—Six best Waka poets, in the early Heian period.
It is possible she was a lower ranked consort or a lady-in-waiting of a certain emperor, prausibly the Emperor Nimmyo (r. 833-850). She was noted as a rare beauty. Komachi is a symbol of a beautiful woman in Japan.
The place of her birth and death are uncertain. According to one tradition, she was born in what is now Akita Prefecture.
As a poet she was talented to recite love themes. Most of her waka treat anxiety, solitude or passion of love. She was the only female poet who was referred in the preface of Kokinshu. Her style was described there "containing naivity in old style but also delicacy".
Some love legends were attributed to her. Most famous one was a story between her and Fukakusa no Shosho, a high ranked courtier. Komachi promised him if he visited her continuously for a hundred nights, then she would become his lover. Fukakusa no Shosho visited her in every night, but he failed only once. He desperated and felt in disease and died in despair. Komachi heard it and felt very sad.
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She was sometimes featured in the later period literature including Noh theaters. In those works one of her two aspects are often featured. One is her talent of waka. One is her love affairs and vanity of life indulging into love affairs. In the latter often Komachi in her old age is described. She becomes now old, lost her beauty and is abondaned by former lovers. And she regrets her life. It is a fictunal description influenced the Buddhist thought and perhaps there is no relation between this sort of expression and her historical figure.
In honor of her, the Akita Shinkansen is nicknamed Komachi. Also, a variety of rice, Akita Komachi, bears her name.
References
- Hirshfield, Jane, and Mariko Aratani, translators,The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, New York, Vintage Books, 1990