The 75th emperor of Japan, eldest son of Emperor Toba. Enthroned at five in 1123, he was forced by his father to abdicate in 1141 in favor of a half-brother and later denied the succession for his own son. In 1156 he joined Fujiwara no Yorinaga in the Hōgen Rebellion, was defeated, and died in exile in Sanuki. A devoted patron of poetry, he commissioned the Kyūan hundred-poem sequences and the Shikashū anthology, and has about eighty poems in imperial anthologies. After his death he was feared as a vengeful spirit. His Hyakunin Isshu poem likens parted lovers to a stream divided by a rock.
瀬をはやみ 岩にせかるる 滝川の
われても末に 逢はむとぞ思ふ
Se o hayami iwa ni sekaruru takigawa no / warete mo sue ni awan to zo omou
Just as the swift current, split in two by a rock, joins together again downstream, so we, though parted now, will surely meet again.