Princess Shikishi was a 12th-century Japanese poet
who wrote in the TANKA form. Like many women
in the imperial court, little is known about her life.
She was the third daughter of Go-Shirakawa, who
became Japan’s 77th emperor in 1155. Early in her
life she was selected to become a high priestess of
the Kamo Shrines, but illness required her resignation.
Sometime during the 1190s, she became a
Buddhist nun and acquired the Buddhist name
Shonyoho.
Shikishi was well known for her poetry, much
of which centers on her isolation. Fifteen of the 21
imperial anthologies include 155 of her poems,
and 399 poems altogether have been recovered.
The majority of her work appears in 100-poem sequences
called hyakushu-uta, which translator Hiroaki
Sato described as a “mosaic describing the
changing of the seasons, love, and other matters.”
In Go-Kuden, a treatise on poetics, Emperor Go-
Toba (1180–1239) calls Shikishi one of the most
outstanding poets of their time.Her seasonal poems
show great sensitivity and creativity in addressing
traditional tanka themes, such as the arrival of
spring and the scattering of cherry blossoms:
Though warblers
have not called,
in the sound of cascades
pouring down rocks
spring is heard.
Her poems about love, on the other hand, focus
more on the psychological impact of love than on
the meditation of natural images:
My sleeves’ hue
Is enough to make folk ask—
I care not!
The depth of my love—
If only you would believe in it . . .
Shikishi’s poetry is important in that it provides
a rare glimpse of a woman’s perspective in 12thcentury
Japan and because it reflects a spiritual dimension
that offers several layers of meaning. In
addition, Shikishi shows a clear understanding of
the Buddhist way of life, full of compassion and
detachment from earthly pursuits. Its role in her
poetry rivals the animistic themes and passionate
passages.
An English Version of Works by
Princess Shikishi
String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi.
Translated and edited by Hiroaki Sato. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1993.