Who Is Minamoto no Yorimasa (Gensanmi Yorimasa)?
The old warrior who shot the nue and rose in revolt
Minamoto no Yorimasa was an aging Minamoto warrior famous for his skill at archery and poetry. Past the age of seventy, he rose against the Heike with Prince Mochihito and took his own life at Byōdō-in temple in Uji.
In The Tale of the Heike, one of the triggers for his revolt is the humiliation of his son Nakatsuna, whose beloved horse is taken by Taira no Munemori. Yorimasa urges Prince Mochihito to issue an order (ryōji) calling for the Heike to be destroyed. At the Battle of Uji, he pulls up the planks of the Uji Bridge to hold back the huge Heike army, but when Ashikaga Tadatsuna and others cross the river with their horses linked in a "horse raft," he falls back to Byōdō-in. There he composes his death poem, beginning "Like a buried log that never saw its flowers bloom," and takes his own life.
A story says that in his youth he shot down the nue, a monster that appeared at the imperial palace night after night. This tale is also told in Book Four of The Tale of the Heike.
Episodes featuring this character2
NEWEpisode 5
An Old Monster-Slayer's Last RebellionThe Battle of Uji Bridge
Furious at an insult to his son, the aging Minamoto warrior Yorimasa rises against the Heike with Prince Mochihito, only to watch a young warrior lead a raft of horses across the river at Uji. Long ago, he brought down the Nue, a monster hidden in black clouds, with a single arrow. Now he looses one last arrow at an unseen target in the fog to let the prince escape, and writes his death poem at the Byōdō-in. The second arrow left over from that night has already traveled east with the prince's order, into the hands of a young Minamoto.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 14
He Doomed Her ClanThen Came to Visit — The Imperial Visit to Ōhara (Kenreimon-in)
the series finale. Kenreimon-in was the only one of her clan pulled alive from the sea at Dan-no-Ura. Now she spends her days in prayer at a mountain hermitage in Ōhara. One early summer, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, the man who ordered the war that destroyed her family, comes to see her in secret. She tells him to his face how much she has resented him. Then she begins to tell her life story as a journey through six realms.
19 pages