Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 9
hana no iro wautsurinikeri naitazura niwaga mi yo ni furunagame seshi ma ni
??????????????????????????????
As the color of the cherry blossomshas lost its luster
in vain
so I have passed through the world
gazing at the falling rains.
Ono no Komachi (ca. 850)

[Inscription of the present poem in Zuishinin, Kyoto]

Ono no Komachi (fl. mid 9th c., dates perhaps 825-900) was ranked among the "Six Poetic Geniuses" by Ki no Tsurayuki, the compiler of the Kokinshu. Komachi was probably born in the northern provinces in the first decades of the 9th c. About a hundred poems have been transmitted under her name in various collections, of these only about 20 (those included in the Kokinshu and Gosenshu) can be considered as genuine. Nearly all her poems are about passionate, but unhappy love and the infidelity of men. They are verbally complex and contain difficult to translate puns. Ono no Komachi's life has become the stuff of legends, whereby it is rather convenient that practically nothing is known about her. She is considered to have been very beautiful in her youth, but also haughty and cruel towards her lovers - for that last attitude she was "punished" with an unhappy old age.  [Ono no Komachi as an old woman]
Most notable among the legends about her cruel treatment of her lovers is the one about Captain Fukakusa, a high-ranking courtier. Komachi promised that if he visited her continuously for a hundred nigh...