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 (1052), 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" meaning...
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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 ...
Top 10 most used topics by Saigyo
Moon 5 Wind 3 Grief 2 Sad 2 Autumn 2 Heart 2 Mountain 2 Hold 1 Cloud 1 Wild 1Saigyo Quotes
Comments about Saigyo
- Smallconsol8ion: more saigyō. goodnight.
- Cnbcnow: breaking: prince philip, queen elizabeth’s husband, dies at age 99
- _ui1422: i thought i was free of passion, so this melancholy comes as surprise ; snipes fly up from a marsh .. where autumn's twilight falls. saigyo
- _ui1422: every single thing changes and is changing always in this world yet with the same light the moon goes on shining saigyo
- Taocowboy: tree-filtered patch of moonlight fades with dawn; staring at it gives loneliness, deepened by winds soughing through pines on the peaks. - saigyo (1118-1190)
