Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/118

114 his Uta. However, Nakamaro could not return home after all; the ship in which he sailed met with a tempest, and he was shipwrecked. He died in China at the age of eighty-one.

O thou, fisher's boat, Tell men that I sailed Away into the eighty isles, Into the bluest field,—the sea!"

This Sangi Takamura's Uta was written when he was put in a boat to be an exile in the far-away Iki island. It happened that he had been appointed vice-ambassador to China, the chief being Fujiwara no Tsunetsuyu, and the four ships which were to take the entire company were announced officially. And the first ship which Tsunetsuyu rode in was damaged when it had hardly left the shore, and he insisted on having Takamura exchange ships for his safety. The latter grew angry, and at once turned the head of his boat and landed; and he resigned, saying that his old father needed him so that he could not go so far off. The Emperor Saga (810-842) was obliged to impose on him an official punishment since he had disobeyed his august command for such a reason.

He wrote some seventy Uta poems on his exile journey, which are said to be beautiful in diction and full of meaning. This Uta is one of them.