Poem by Daini no Sanmi: Yokoyama Tarō and His Wife Asaka

Poem by Daini no Sanmi: Yokoyama Tarō and His Wife Asaka is an 1845 woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada from his mitate series matching poems of the Hyakunin Isshu with stories drawn from medieval legend and the kabuki stage. The classical voice on the sheet is Daini no Sanmi, a Heian court poet (daughter of Murasaki Shikibu), whose waka about the wind through the bamboo grass of Mount Arima provides the literary frame. Kunisada's modern counterpart is the warrior Yokoyama Tarō with his wife Asaka, a couple drawn from the medieval Soga and warrior repertories that fed the kabuki stage. The pairing is characteristic of late Edo ukiyo-e: a classical poem supplies the prestige and the cartouche, while the figural treatment quotes specific actors playing the legendary couple, allowing yakusha-e to circulate under a learned cover during a period of continuing post-Tenpō Reform restrictions. Kunisada places the two figures together in a tightly organised composition, with Yokoyama in a martial posture and Asaka in formal dress; the patterned kimono and armoured robe carry the color, while strong black contours hold the design together. As a senior Utagawa-school designer Kunisada was a master of these compressed two-figure compositions, and the print shows the confident, slightly heavy line and saturated mineral palette of his mid-1840s work. The impression is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which records the 1845 date and links the sheet to its parent mitate series, useful for situating Kunisada's classical and theatrical worlds within the same design economy.