The 84th emperor of Japan, third son of Go-Toba. Enthroned in 1210, he devoted himself to learning and poetry under his father's guidance. In 1221 he abdicated in favor of his infant son to join his father's rising against the Kamakura shogunate; after its failure he was exiled to Sado Island, where he died twenty-one years later. His treatises on court ceremonial and on waka preserved the traditions of the imperial court for later ages. A pupil of Teika, he has about 160 poems in imperial anthologies. His poem, closing the Hyakunin Isshu, mourns the fading glory of the palace beneath its fern-grown eaves.
百敷や 古き軒端の しのぶにも
なほあまりある 昔なりけり
Seeing the fern growing on the old eaves of the palace, I long for the glorious reigns of the past — and no amount of longing is ever enough.
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