Ono no Komachi

Do you know Ono no Komachi (c.825-c.900)? She was a Japanese poet. I don't remember if I wrote about her on my blog before. She was renowned for her unusual beauty like Cleopatra. But there's no pictures of her youth, so it's not clear whether she was really beautiful or not. Even if the picture was left, sense of beauty over a thousand year ago, must be different from ours.

One of her poets is my favourite;
Hana no iro wa
Utsurinikeri na
Itazura ni
Wa ga mi yo ni furu
Nagame seshi ma ni

It was written in old Japanese. According to an American-born Japanese scholar, teacher, writer and translator; Donald Lawrence Keene, he translated this into English like this;
The flowers withered,
Their color faded away,
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling.

It's a poet about melancholiness of aging. I like this poet because it remind me that we have the same sense against the beauty, as woman, even the time is different. Recently, after I watched my picture, I start worring about sagging skin and bought anti-aging cream today. I am sure that she wanted this kind of cream, if they had:) I just thought about her.