Poetess Komachi - Kokin Meifu Den

Catalog note / 解説

"Kokin (or kokon) Meifu Den" (Famous Women Today and in the Past). Poetess Ono Komachi. She is washing "Manyoshu" poem book. In the poetic competition in the Imperial court, she was accused by a wicked competitor that she had borrowed one of the poem from Manyoshu (a classical poem book) as her own. He showed to the court audience a copy of Manyoshu in which her poem was written. But Komachi noticed her poem was freshly written, she put the book in water. The freshly added poem was washed away and she proved to the audience that the competitor scribbled her poem later to the book in order to disgrace her.