Hyakunin Isshu: Meet the Poets
Mibu no Tadami

Meaning

They say my name as a lover is already known far and wide, even before the affair began. I had kept it so quietly in my heart.

Commentary

This is the companion poem to poem 40 in the famous Tentoku Poetry Contest. While Kanemori's poem focuses on the face giving the heart away, Tadami's focuses on rumour — the way a secret becomes public knowledge before the speaker has breathed a word. Both poems explore the impossibility of truly hiding one's feelings, but from different angles.

According to later accounts, Tadami was so devastated by losing the contest to Kanemori that he fell into a deep melancholy and refused to eat, eventually dying of grief — though this story may be legendary. Whether true or not, it adds a haunting resonance to a poem about a love that was never able to stay secret.

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