-ji, as the Empress Koken's had been with
that of Dokyo, a hundred years previously, and she suffered
deprivation of Imperial rank. As for Narihira, after a few years he
was allowed to return from exile, but finding that all his hopes of
preferment were vain, he abandoned himself to a life of indolence and
debauchery. His name, however, will always stand next to those of
Hitomaro and Akahito on the roll of Japanese poets.

ENGRAVING: FUJIWARA SEIWA

YOZEI, UDA, AND THE KWAMPAKU

The fifty-seventh sovereign was Yozei, offspring of the Emperor
Seiwa's union with the lady Taka. He ascended the throne in the year
877, at the age of ten, and Fujiwara Mototsune--Yoshifusa had died
five years previously--became regent (sessho), holding also the post
of chancellor (dajo-daijin). When Yozei was approaching his
seventeenth year he was overtaken by an illness which left him a
lunatic. It is related that he behaved in an extraordinary manner. He
set dogs and monkeys to fight and then slaughtered them; he fed toads
to snakes, and finally compelling a man lo ascend a tree, he stabbed
him among the branches. The regent decided that he must be dethroned,
and a council of State was convened to consider the matter. There had
never been an example of an act so sacrilegious as the deposition of
an Emperor at the dictate of his subjects. The ministers hesitated.
Then one of the Fujiwara magnates (Morokuzu) loudly proclaimed
that anyone dissenting from the chancellor's proposal would have
to answer for his contumacy. Thereafter, no one hesitated--so
overshadowing was the power of the Fujiwara. When carried to a
special palace--thenceforth called Yozei-in--and informed that he
had been dethroned for killing a man, the young Emperor burst into a
flood of tears.

No hesitation was shown in appointing Yozei's successor. Prince
Tokiyasu, son of the Emperor Nimmyo, satisfied all the requirements.
His mother, a daughter of Fujiwara Tsugunawa, was Mototsune's
maternal aunt, and the Prince himself, already in his fifty-fifth
year, had a son, Sadami, who was married to the daughter of Fujiwara
Takafuji, a close relation to Mototsune. There can be no doubt that
the latter had the whole programme in view when he proposed the
dethronement of Yozei. Shortly after his accession, Prince
Tokiyasu--known in history as the Emperor Koko--fell ill, and at
Mototsune's instance the sovereign's third son (Sadami) was nominated
Prince Imperial. He succeeded to