Ono no Komachi

Ono no Komachi (c. 825 – c. 900) was a Japanese waka poet from the early Heian period. She is one of the Rokkasen, the six finest waka poets of that era, and also belongs to the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals. Her extraordinary beauty was legendary, and in Japan her name remains a byword for feminine beauty.

Almost nothing is known for certain about her life. The only concrete details come from the names of men she had romantic affairs with, preserved through exchanged poems in the *Kokin Wakashū*. She was likely born between 820 and 830 and was most active as a poet around the mid-ninth century. Scholars have tried to determine her birthplace and family, but without success. The Edo-period scholar Arai Hakuseki suggested there may have been multiple women named Komachi, with legends blending them together; later this idea expanded to a theory of four separate "Komachis." It is thought she may have been a lady-of-the-bedchamber for Emperor Ninmyō, and after his death in 850, she began relationships with other men. One tradition says she was born in what is now Akita Prefecture, the daughter of Yoshisada, Lord of Dewa. A Noh play describes her as the daughter of Ono no Yoshizane, governor of Dewa. Her social status is unclear—she may have been a low-ranking consort or an emperor's lady-in-waiting. A headnote in the *Kokinshū* suggests she had some connection to the poet Fun'ya no Yasuhide.

Legends about Komachi arose as early as the eleventh century and were later used extensively in Noh plays. Many stories focus on her love life. One claims she was a lover of Ariwara no Narihira, a fellow poet and Rokkasen member, though this may stem from the accidental placement of her poem next to his in an anthology. Another set of legends describes her cruelty to lovers. In one tale, she promised to become the lover of a courtier named Fukakusa no Shōshō if he visited her for a hundred consecutive nights. He came every night, regardless of weather, but died on the ninety-ninth night. A third type of legend portrays an aged Komachi, her beauty gone, wandering in rags and mocked by all as punishment for her past harshness. Other legends tell of her death, with her skull lying in a field; wind blowing through its eye socket makes a sound that echoes her anguish. Scholar Masako Nakano categorized these legends into five groups: tales of beauty, tales of sensuality, tales of haughtiness, tales of poetry and poetic virtue, and tales of downfall and bemoaning old age.

Almost all of Komachi's surviving poems are melancholic. Poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth and Ikuko Atsumi called her one of the greatest erotic poets in any language, noting that her work begins the extreme verbal complexity that distinguishes the *Kokinshū* from the earlier *Man'yōshū*. Most of her waka deal with anxiety, solitude, or passionate love. In the *Kokinshū*, all but one of her poems—the one later included in the *Hyakunin Isshu*—were classified as love or miscellaneous poems. She is the only female poet mentioned in the anthology's kana preface, which describes her style as containing naivety in old style but also delicacy. One of her poems appears as number 9 in Fujiwara no Teika's *Ogura Hyakunin Isshu*; originally included in the *Kokinshū* as a spring poem, it is layered with multiple meanings. Translator and critic Donald Keene wrote that the intensity of emotion in her poetry was unprecedented and rarely matched later, and that her work, along with that of Narihira, represents the passionate peak of ninth-century waka, making the *Kokinshū* seem less like a dawn after darkness than the culmination of a steady enhancement of Japanese poetic art.

The many legends have made Komachi the best-known of the Rokkasen in modern times. Until recently, the most beautiful woman in a town or region would be called "XYZ Komachi." She and Narihira are considered archetypes of female and male beauty, respectively, and appear frequently in later literature, especially Noh plays. Five Noh plays feature her: *Sotoba Komachi*, *Sekidera Komachi*, *Ōmu Komachi*, *Sōshi Arai Komachi*, and *Kayoi Komachi*. These works focus on her poetic talent, her love affairs, and the vanity of a life spent in romantic pursuits, often highlighting her tragic old age.