Minamoto no Ienaga Nikki: a year before <...> she had composed "Do not forget me / Even you, plum tree by the eaves!"
The death of Zensaiin [Shikishi Naishinn ō] left all at a loss for words. As more and more die, the Way of Poetry declines; so one feels one must try all the harder. A year before her death, at the time of 100-po em sequences, she had composed "Do not forget me / Even you, plum tree by the eaves!" And When the following year the tree at her Ō idono residence bloomed as if in sympathy, I could not help saying to myself “This year, at least…” − Minamoto no Ienaga, Minamoto no Ienaga Nikki 源家長日記 (Diary of Minamoto no Ienaga) Translated in Huey 2002, 87−88. Minamoto no Ienaga 源家長 (1170 − 1234) in his memoir Minamoto no Ienaga Nikki 源家長日記 (Diary of Minamoto no Ienaga), remembering the years after the death of Princess Shokushi (式子内親王 Shokushi naishinnō ; between 1149 and 1152−1201; her name can also be read as Shikishi or Noriko; her poem is included in Hyakunin Isshu as number 89 ). The passage is translated by Rober...