The Structnre of the Komachi Legend(<Feature Articles>Early Poetry and Prose)

Abstract

We run the risk of reading Komacihi's Kokinshu poems as part of a ready-made Komachi legend. lf we focus on the two poems, "The flowers have faded" and "Being wretched" we find that the former entered the ranks of oral librature in the late Heian and early Kamakura Periods, when the color of flowers came to mean personal beauty, whereas the latter constituted the core of the Komachi legend at a much earlier age. The fact that the Tamatsukuri no Komachi Sosuisho had the form of a biography was decisive in the shaping of the Komachi legend. The Komachi legend, which has the contrasting themes of beauty and old hag, glory and decline, noble birth and downfall, is formed as a narrative. The principal theme is that of life's inconstancy. The "Flowers have faded" poem, which symbollzes the oral transmission of the Komachi legend, continues to be recited today.