Who Is Saitō no Sanemori (Saitō Sanemori)?
The old warrior who dyed his white hair for battle
Saitō Bettō Sanemori
Saitō no Sanemori was a warrior from Nagai in Musashi Province. Once a follower of the Minamoto, he later joined the Heike side, and as an old man he was killed at the Battle of Shinohara.
In The Tale of the Heike, before the Battle of the Fuji River, the Heike commander Taira no Koremori asks him about the eastern warriors. Sanemori answers, "Even if their fathers or sons are killed, they climb over the bodies and keep fighting," which frightens the Heike soldiers. In the northern campaign, not wanting to be looked down on as an old man, he dyes his white hair and beard black, wears a brocade robe that Munemori allowed him, and fights alone. He is finally killed by Tezuka Mitsumori of Yoshinaka's army. When his head is washed, the black hair turns white, and Higuchi Kanemitsu recognizes him as Sanemori and weeps. The story that he once saved the young Yoshinaka comes from other sources.
Sanemori's story became the Noh play Sanemori. The poet Matsuo Bashō, on seeing Sanemori's helmet, wrote the haiku "How pitiful — beneath the helmet, a cricket."
Episodes featuring this character2
NEWEpisode 6
The Army That Lost to a Flock of BirdsBattle of Fujigawa / Death of Kiyomori
Having moved the capital to Fukuhara, Taira no Kiyomori hands a vast army to his grandson Taira no Koremori to crush Minamoto no Yoritomo's uprising. But the Heike troops, already shaken by the old warrior Saitō no Sanemori's tales of eastern fighters, flee without a fight when a flock of waterfowl takes off in the night. The year after Nara's Great Buddha Hall burns, Kiyomori, a tyrant who still had a soft spot for his own family, is seized by a fever like fire. His last command: "Hang Yoritomo's head before my grave."
19 pages
NEWEpisode 7
He Won the Battle, Then Wept Over His FoeBattle of Kurikara Pass / Saitō Sanemori
At Kurikara Pass, Kiso no Yoshinaka drives the vast Heike army into a valley under cover of night. In the battle at Shinohara that follows, a nameless old warrior fights on alone to the very end. When his head is washed, the black dye runs out of his hair—and the white beneath is revealed.
19 pages