Ariwara Narihira

On a spring evening, a young beauty leans on a sill to gaze at the moon, shining on cherry blossoms above a meandering stream. Beneath her on the veranda is a vase of red plum blossoms, whose scent must fill the air. She dangles her long pipe from one sleeve of a kosode decorated with fawn-spotted purple clouds and threeleaf arrowhead. A long obi of hexagonal diaper pattern with spider tie-dying hangs from her back. In the room behind her a two-panel folding screen painted with peonies and gold clouds bears the signature, “painted by Harunobu,” cleverly identifying the print’s artist.
Above the young lady’s head a cloud-form cartouche contains an inscription that reveals the subject matter. One from a series of six prints entitled Fashionable Six Poetic Immortals, this print features a young woman who is an avatar of the emotions of ninthcentury courtier-poet Ariwara Narihira (825–880), known for his dashing looks and romantic exploits. The scene before us is a contemporary manifestation of one of his most famous waka poems:
Tsuki ya aranu
haru ya mukashi no
haru naran
waga mi hitotsu
ha moto mi ni shite
The moon is not the same.
Is the spring the spring of old?
Only this body of mine is the same body . . .
In this verse, Narihira laments the changing of the seasons, and perhaps the absence of his love, feeling that he himself is the one lonely constant.
According to David Waterhouse, this may be a later reprint using the original keyblock.