Onakatomi Yoshinobu Ason

This print comes from a series based on poems by the Thirty-six Poetic Immortals (Sanjūrokkasen), a group selected in the mid Heian period by Fujiwara Kintō (966–1041) and reproduced in portrait paintings and poetry groupings for centuries to follow. The poet featured here is Ōnakatomi Yoshinobu (921–991), whose poem from the anthology Shūi wakashū and its commentary informs the imagery:
Chitose made
kagireru matsu mo
kyō yori wa
kimi ni hikarete
yorozuyo ya hen

A thousand years may
be its limit, but the pine
that is picked out by
my lord, from today shall see
ten thousand ages pass by!
The Shūi wakashū commentary tells us that this poem was written when the shrine maiden (miko) Nyūdō Shikibu performed the rites for the first “Day of the Rat” after the New Year, a time when it is customary to dig up pine seedlings with their roots still attached. Harunobu depicts this subject matter with two beauties as miko in red trousers (hakama), their hair worn long. Outside the room a plum tree is in bloom. The woman on the right holds a Shinto offering tray laden with pine seedlings. The other miko crouches to brush a poem on a poetry slip (tanzaku). A box with writing implements lies beside her on the mat, next to a bamboo basket full of pine seedlings. Pines are an auspicious symbol of longevity used for decoration at New Year’s. The word for the pulled roots (ne) of the seedlings is homophonous with the word for rat (ne), thus the association with the “Day of the Rat.” The floating world undertone of this print comes from the double entendre of the word “pulled roots” (nebeki), which could also imply the purchasing of services from a prostitute in the pleasure quarters.