Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 447 on a summer night, the first

thought of sleep. I won't bury the lead here. Looking back on my notes for the last few weeks,

I realized I'd said some variation of the phrase, one of these days I'll get around to an

episode on Keynote Suriyuki, enough times that I really should

just buckle down and do it. So I figured I'd finally do it and take care of something else

I've been meaning to do for a while at the same time. This week and next we're going to be

talking about two of the most famous figures of Japanese poetry, whose main contributions

were to shape how we still talk about it

to this very day. This week will be Kino Tsaruki, next week will be Fujiwara no Teika.

So, let's get to it. First, who was Kino Tsaruki, and why does he matter? Well, he was born in

either 866 or 872.

The precise date is not clear, though I've seen the latter one more consistently, to the

key family of aristocrats.

That timing would place him in the early Heyon period, about a century or so removed,

from when the imperial family of Japan set itself up in what it called

Heian Kyo, what's now the city of Kyoto, as its new capital, patterned, of course, on the

greatest city they knew of, the capital city of the Tang Dynasty of Chinese emperors, at Chang'an.

These emperors governed with the help of aristocratic families, of which the key clan were one.

Indeed, this is the very same key clan we talked about last week, which by the mid-800s was asserting itself at court and trying to marry its way into the imperial family and political power.

Kino Tsra yuki was not born to the main main branch but to a subordinate branch of the family,

which was based in Yamato province's Heguri County, now a part of eastern Nara prefecture.

His father was named Kino-Mutsuuki, and was probably a poet of some regard himself, as a few of his

...