was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

poet and musician of the early

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

. His name is recorded in the ''

Ogura Hyakunin Isshu is a classical Japanese anthology of one hundred Japanese ''waka'' by one hundred poets. ''Hyakunin isshu'' can be translated to "one hundred people, one poem ach; it can also refer to the card game of ''uta-garuta'', which uses a deck compos ...

'', but there are no historical accounts of his pedigree. Some accounts say he was a son of Uda Tennō, Prince Atsumi, or that he was the fourth son of Daigo Tennō. There are also claims that he lived during the reign of Ninmyō Tennō. Semimaru was a blind

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...

player who lived alone in a straw hut in Ausaka, which means "meeting slope". "Ausaka is a slope about five miles east of the center of modern

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. Its apex is a narrow pass through the eastern range of mountains separating Kyoto from the area of

Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13th ol ...

." The emperor established a formal check point barrier, ''Ausaka no seki'', at this summit in 646. Today the place is known as Osaka. A

Shinto shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

was built there by the tenth century and eventually became known as Semimaru ''jinja''. Supposedly, on seeing the traffic on the road to the capital, he composed the following The above ''waka'' appears in the imperial anthology ''

Gosen Wakashū The , often abbreviated as ''Gosenshū'' ("Later Collection"), is an imperial anthology of Japanese waka compiled in 951 at the behest of Emperor Murakami by the Five Men of the Pear Chamber: Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu (922-991), Kiyohara no Motosuke ...

''. Other Semimaru poems appear in the anthologies ''

Shin Kokin Wakashū The , also known in abbreviated form as the or even conversationally as the Shin Kokin, is the eighth imperial anthology of waka poetry compiled by the Japanese court, beginning with the ''Kokin Wakashū'' circa 905 and ending with the ''Shinshok ...

'', ''

Kokin Wakashū The , commonly abbreviated as , is an early anthology of the ''waka'' form of Japanese poetry, dating from the Heian period. An imperial anthology, it was conceived by Emperor Uda () and published by order of his son Emperor Daigo () in about ...

'' and ''

Shokukokin Wakashū The is a Japanese imperial anthology of Waka (poetry), waka, a type of poetry in classical Japanese literature. It was finished in 1265 CE, six years after the Daijō-tennō, Retired Emperor Go-Saga first ordered it in 1259. It was compiled by Fu ...

''. For this poem, he became known as . According to the

Konjaku Monogatarishū , also known as the , is a Japanese collection of over one thousand tales written during the late Heian period (794–1185). The entire collection was originally contained in 31 volumes, of which 28 remain today. The volumes cover various tales fr ...

(Book 24, tale 23), for three years

Minamoto no Hiromasa was a nobleman and gagaku musician in the Heian period. He was the eldest son of Prince Katsuakira and the grandson of Emperor Daigo. His mother was the daughter of Fujiwara no Tokihira. Career Because the highest rank he achieved was Provis ...

travelled from the capital regularly, hoping to hear and meet Semimaru. Finally, they met and Semimaru tutored him in playing the melodies and .

Legacy

In ''

nō is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Developed by Kan'ami and his son Zeami, it is the oldest major theatre art that is still regularly performed today. Although the terms Noh and ' ...

'' there is a

Zeami Motokiyo (c. 1363 – c. 1443), also called , was a Japanese aesthetician, actor, and playwright. His father, Kan'ami Kiyotsugu, introduced him to Noh theater performance at a young age, and found that he was a skilled actor. Kan'ami was also skill ...

play, ''Semimaru'', that depicts the life of a "young man, blind from birth...abandoned on a mountainside by his father", and his sister, , "a beautiful young woman" that "suffers episodes of inexplicable madness which compel her to wander the countryside aimlessly."

Chikamatsu Monzaemon was a Japanese dramatist of jōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' has written that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatis ...

wrote the Joruri ''Semimaru''.

Landmarks

* in ,

Ōtsu file:Otsu City Hall.JPG, 270px, Ōtsu City Hall is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 343,991 in 153458 households and a population density of 740 persons per km². The total a ...

Shiga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the nort ...

. *A stone grave bearing the name of Semimaru in

Miyazaki Village Miyazaki may refer to: People * Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese animator * Hidetaka Miyazaki, video game director * Gorō Miyazaki, Japanese film director and landscaper, and son of Hayao Miyazaki. * For others, see Miyazaki (surname) Places * Miyazak ...

Fukui Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Fukui Prefecture has a population of 778,943 (1 June 2017) and has a geographic area of 4,190 km2 (1,617 sq mi). Fukui Prefecture borders Ishikawa Prefecture to the north, Gi ...

References

*This article is based on material from the equivalent article from the Japanese Wikipedia. {{authority control Japanese poets People of Heian-period Japan Beggars Hyakunin Isshu poets Deified Japanese people