Sanai Hashimoto · Fukui

Original

二十六年
夢の如く過ぐ
平昔を顧思すれば
感滋多し
天祥の大節
嘗て心折す
土室猶ほ吟ず
正気の歌

Sanai Hashimoto's poem, "二十六年夢の如く過ぐ". Read the original Japanese, modern translation, interpretation, and historical context as distinct parts of the poem.

Person

Fukui retainer, physician, and thinker, executed in the Ansei Purge after work in education and succession politics.

Learn about Hashimoto Sanai

Translation

Twenty-six years have passed like a dream. Looking back, feeling only deepens. I once bowed before Wen Tianxiang's great integrity; even in this prison cell I still recite the Song of Righteous Spirit.

Poetic Shape

This poem is deliberately brief. Rather than explaining a life, it gives feeling a compact form and leaves the rest to silence.

Reading

This final verse joins a brief life to Wen Tianxiang's prison poem.Hashimoto frames his death within the classical lineage through which he had studied political integrity.

Background

In 1859, Hashimoto Sanai was imprisoned at Tenmacho during the Ansei Purge for his involvement in the shogunal succession movement and was executed at the age of twenty-six.Facing death, the poem looks back over those twenty-six years and aligns him with Wen Tianxiang, who wrote the Song of the Righteous Spirit in prison.The earthen cell is not an abstract metaphor but the immediate place of confinement, and the closing lines declare that political integrity remains even there.