Gensai Kawakami · Higo
Original
君が為め
Gensai Kawakami's death poem, "君が為め死ぬる骸に草むさば赤き心の花". Read the original Japanese, translation, meaning, and historical background. Corpse, grass, and a red heart make this poem emotionally intense.
Person
A Higo loyalist known for the assassination of Sakuma Shozan, later executed after the Restoration. His life shows the dark edge of purity, where devotion to an ideal became violence and then found no place in the new era.
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Translation
If grass grows over the corpse that dies for my lord, perhaps flowers of a red heart will bloom.
Poetic Shape A Japanese death poem is less a final explanation than a last shape given to feeling. Its brevity matters: a life is not narrated, but compressed into a few lines that leave room for silence.
Reading
Corpse, grass, and a red heart make this poem emotionally intense. Kawakami Gensai's assassin image is wrapped in beauty and unease.
Background
Introduced as Kawakami Gensai's death poem. Because purity of loyalist feeling and violence appear at once, the poem remains shadowed and uneasy. A Higo loyalist known for the assassination of Sakuma Shozan, later executed after the Restoration.
Source / Transmission Wording and readings may differ by transmission; this page treats the text as one circulated form.
Further Reading
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