Egyo Hoshi

The fourth print in this year's series depicts the monk Egyo, who lived in the late tenth century. His poem is evocative of his quiet existence living in a lonely hut. When compared to the elegant draping of the kimono on all the other poets in the set, Egyo comes across looking a bit bedraggled, but as I don't suppose that he spent very much time doing laundry in the mountain streams, this is probably an honest depiction. He also seems to have misplaced his razor somewhere, but as I myself haven't touched one of those for over ten years now, I'd better not complain!

I think that when Shunsho was writing out the poems ready to be sent to the carver some 215 years ago, he got a little bit tired of putting them all in a standard 'flowing' kind of format. When he got to this one he decided to lay it out just a bit differently, with the poet's name running horizontally across the bottom. I don't really like it this way, but I'm not about to try and rearrange it! I suppose that it's just as well that he used some variety, instead of having every page look the same.

I hope you enjoy this month's print. Coming up next, one of the favorites - Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.