Hyakunin Isshu: Meet the Poets
Priest Egyō

Meaning

Weeds grow thick around the deserted house. No one comes to visit. And yet — autumn has arrived.

Commentary

The "yaemugura" (a layered, clinging weed, often identified as common cleavers) was used in classical poetry as an image of a desolate, neglected place. The dwelling is so overgrown and untended that it seems to have been forgotten entirely — no visitor comes. And yet autumn arrives regardless, bringing its characteristic chill and loneliness, uninvited and unasked for.

Priest Egyō was a mid-Heian Buddhist monk about whom little biographical information survives. His single poem in the Hyakunin Isshu is one of the most quietly powerful in the collection. The idea that autumn comes even to the most abandoned place — with the same indifferent punctuality it visits a palace garden — gives the poem a melancholy that is universal rather than merely personal.

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