Title : Sone no Yoshitada

Artist : Utagawa Hiroshige

Date : c. 1847

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Source : Honolulu Museum of Art
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Description : This print was conserved with the support of the Robert F. Lange Foundation. Over Yura bar go fishermen in their boats oarless, just drifting with no more sense of direction than have I on my path of love. (translation by Steven D. Carter) Sone no Yoshitada (fl. late 10th century) was a notable Heian period poet whose poems were prominently featured in several imperial anthologies. This poem, which was included in the New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems (1205), was eventually selected by Teika for inclusion into the One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets collection. In an imaginative re-visioning of this classic poem, Hiroshige depicts the figure lost on the path of love as the lady Usuyuki, heroine of a popular seventeenth century tale called Usuyuki Monogatari (The Story of Usuyuki), which recounts the brief love affair between a married woman (Usuyuki) and her lover (Sonobe no Emon) and climaxes with Usuyuki's untimely death after Sonobe departs on a journey. Though Usuyuki never pursues Sonobe on his journey, Ryükatei Tanekazu, a popular fiction writer of the Edo period, explains that Usuyuki has set out in hope of seeing him (upper right corner of illustration). The love letters featured in this story were so popular that they became a model for letter writing during the seventeenth century, and the story was adapted into several puppet and Kabuki plays. Hence, it is possible to imagine the enjoyment that viewers would have derived from seeing Usuyuki embarking on a boat, uncertain of where her love will ultimately take her.

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