Yamabe no Akahito Biography
Yamabe no Akahito (700 - 736) was a poet of the Nara period in Japan. The Man'yōshū, an ancient anthology, contains 13 choka ('long poems') and 37 tanka ('short poems') of his. Many of his poems were composed during journeys with Emperor Shōmu between 724 and 736. Yamabe is regarded as one of the kami of poetry, and is called Waka Nisei along with Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. He is noted as one of the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals.
The American composer Alan Hovhaness used a text by Yamabe from the Man'yōshū in his cantata Fuji, Op. 182 (1960, rev. 1964).
Heaven and earth:
Since the time they parted,
Of manifest divinity,
Reaching the heights of awe,
...
The sturdy men
Leave for the hunt;
The maidens
Trail the hems of scarlet skirts
...
From the morrow
Would I pick new herbs
But in my marked out fields
Both yesterday and today
...
On the islands off the coast,
The jewelled weeds on their rocky shores
With the rising tide
Is slowly hidden, then
...
All-knowing,
My great lord:
From the eternal palace,
Wherein we serve,
...
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