“Seeing people holding up flowers…” by Emperor Meiji

Works

#161 Seeing people holding up flowers…

作品:人みなの

Size: about 27×24 cm
Dressing scrolling

What verse?

verse: Hito mina no, hana wo kazashi te, yuku mire ba, waga yo no haru mo, nodoke kari keri
(imho): Seeing people holding up flowers makes me think that spring in the heyday of my time is being a glorious time, too.
poet: the Emperor Meiji
in: 1896

Note

It was made when Emperor Meiji was 44 years old.

It was finishing the Sino-Japanese War by the previous year and the commander Maresuke Nogi made a triumphant return to Tokyo the April.

Emperor Meiji, who is said to have strongly opposed the War, must have felt the spring with people.

The period from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji period in Japan, in second half of the 19 century, was a period of turmoil. But the word “nodokeki” meaning of tranquil appears both in the waka poems of Sakamoto, Ryoma and Emperor Meiji.

This single word seems to reflect the relieved for fleeting tranquility and peace amidst the turmoil of the times, as well as the longing for it to last forever.

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