The Burke Collection
Three poems from Kokin wakashū (古今和歌集)
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514-1

Catalogue information

Commonly known as Imaki-gire (今城切)

Late Heian period, 12th century

Page from book, mounted as hanging scroll; ink on paper

25.3 x 15.9 cm (10 x 6 1/4 in.)

Donated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation in 2015

Literature

Tokyo National Museum 1985a, no. 74
Tokyo National Museum
1985a
Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: New York Burke Collection / A Selection of Japanese Art from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Chunichi Shimbun.

See full bibliography

;
Avitabile 1990, no. 27.
Avitabile, Gunhild
1990
[Editor]. Die Kunst des alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection, New York. Exh. cat. Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

See full bibliography

Additional details

Text

By unknown poet

[Poem 1037] If things have come to this / why not simply say that you no longer love [me] / that our union has broken / like bright jeweled suspenders.

[Poem 1038] Ah for a way to hide myself and peer into each secret recess / within the mysterious heart of one who claims he loves [me].

[Poem 1039] Although I love him / he only says he does not love me / ah no, I must not go on loving / for my love is unavailing.