A Wren and Chrysanthemums
Utagawa Hiroshige Japanese
Not on view
Intriguingly, the artist borrowed both his depiction of the wren (misosazai) and the accompanying kyōka (thirty-one-syllable witty verse) from the poetry book Myriad Birds (Momo chidori, ca. 1790), illustrated by Kitagawa Utamaro and published about four decades before. The poem is about falling in love with a high-ranked courtesan and was composed by Karagoromo Kisshū (1743–1802), a samurai-poet who was one of the pioneers of the kyōka revival in the late eighteenth century.
大鵬の 高き心の 君ゆへに
うきみそさゝゐ よりもつかれず
Taihō no
takaki kokoro no
kimi yue ni
uki misosazai
yori mo tsukarezu
Since your ambition
is as lofty as that of Taihō
the majestic bird of legend
as a wren, even if I fall in love,
I cannot hope to soar that high.
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
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