[Mt.Fuji] The Mountain of Hidden Power

Mt.Fuji■The Mountain of Hidden Power

The smoke that rises from the top of Mt. Fuji tells of the power latent within it, and has inspired passion in poets.

Mt. Fuji in Japanese Poetry
In the Heian period, from the 8th to the 12th centuries, Mt. Fuji was a very active volcano. An object of awe-struck fear on one hand, it also came to symbolize raging passion for people all over the country. Poets, too, affixed their passions to it, and five of the poems in the 10th-century Kokinshu anthology of poetry celebrate Mt. Fuji. In such poems as ‘When it comes to you/whether we meet or we do not/the peak of Fuji/is nothing special/beside how my love burns’ (‘Love’ Part IV, anonymous), the poet celebrates blazing romantic passion. Even after Mt. Fuji itself had gone largely quiet, it continued in poetry to send its plumes into the sky. The monk poet Saigyo also left verses in which he entrusted his passions to the fires of Mt. Fuji. A single thread of white smoke from its summit implied tremendous hidden power which was then put together with strong emotions and smoldering feelings of love. The people of the time, closely watching and living in proximity to natural phenomena, used the taste engendered by their surroundings to evoke a rich emotional life.