Shikishi (the name is also read Shokushi) Naishinn, Princess Shikishi, was the third daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Fujiwara Seishi. She was born in the tumultuous years of the mid twelfth century, when the battles between the military clans swept members of the imperial family to ruin and death, and she lost many of her relatives to the intermittent civil wars. Her father, Go-Shirakawa, was a central player in the political intrigues of the mid twelfth century, attempting to rule as the power behind the throne after his abdication and falling into mutual enmity with the leader of the Taira clan, Kiyomori, who had him confined in 1179 after two aborted uprisings. Her brother, Prince Mochihito, declared war against the Taira in 1180 and was killed, and her nephew, Emperor Antoku, died in the climactic battle of 1185.

Shikishi's poetry is typical of the poetry of this era. Dark images and...