Takeaki Enomoto · Former shogunate
Original
出五稜郭
Takeaki Enomoto's Chinese-style poem, "出五稜郭七重濱接五稜郭耳熟朝朝喇叭聲". Read the original Japanese, translation, meaning, and historical background. This is not a poem of battle, but of the night when surrender was decided.
Person
Commander of the shogunate navy and president of the Hakodate government, later imprisoned and then employed by the Meiji state. He is one of the most complex defeated men of the Bakumatsu: a rebel, a prisoner, a technocrat, and eventually a servant of the new order.
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Translation
Nanaehama lies beside Goryokaku. Familiar with the morning bugle, I spend the rainy night before surrender with thoughts moving back and forth until dawn.
Poetic Shape Kanshi draws on a classical Chinese poetic tradition, where restraint, allusion, and moral tension carry much of the weight. The poem sounds formal, but the pressure beneath it is personal.
Reading
This is not a poem of battle, but of the night when surrender was decided. The moment when the last resistance quietly ends emerges through rain and bugle calls.
Background
A poem conveying Enomoto's state of mind near the end of the Hakodate War, when defeat had become decisive and he and the others were about to leave Goryokaku. Commander of the shogunate navy and president of the Hakodate government, later imprisoned and then employed by the Meiji state.
Source / Transmission Wording and readings may differ by transmission; this page treats the text as one circulated form.
Further Reading
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