Saigyo
Who is Saigyo
Saigyō Hōshi (西行法師, 1118 – March 23, 1190) was a famous Japanese poet of the late Heian and early Kamakura period.
Biography
Born Satō Norikiyo (佐藤義清) in Kyoto to a noble family, he lived during the traumatic transition of power between the old court nobles and the new samurai warriors. After the start of the age of Mappō, Buddhism was considered to be in decline and no longer as effective a means of salvation. These cultural shifts during his lifetime led to a sense of melancholy in his poetry. As a youth, he worked as a guard to retired Emperor Toba, but in 1140 at age 22, for reasons now unknown, he quit worldly life to become a monk, taking the religious name En'i (円位).
He later took the pen name Saigyō (西行), meaning “W...
Read Full Biography
Saigyo Poems
- Having Seen Them Long
Having seen them long,
I hold the flowers so dear
That when they scatter
I find it all the more sad
...
- How Wonderful
How wonderful, that
Her heart
Should show me kindness;
And of all the numberless folk,
...
- Thought I Was Free
Thought I was free
of passion, so this melancholy
comes as surprise:
a woodcock shoots up from the marsh
...
- Unbroken Gloom.
times when unbroken
gloom is over all our world
over which still
sits the ever brilliant moon
...
- Limitations Gone
limitations gone
since my mind fixed on the moon
clarity and serenity
make something for which
...
Read All Poems
Saigyo Quotes
Read All Quotes
Comments about Saigyo
- 0rpheusshould: tightly held by rocks
through winter, the ice today
begins to come undone:
a way-seeker also is the water,
melting, murmuring from the moss.
saigyo, mirror for the moon
- Mkimdorman: the willow is bare
the clear stream has dried, and stones
lie scattered here and there
-saigyō
(tr. gail sher)
- Shirasagih2: goodbye innocence
- Jumphavoc: obito is such a nice person. he let fiesta 3-0 graveyard shift :)
- Lumaacee: why is this game so lgbt friendly like look at the pose lol
Read All Comments