An early Heian nobleman and scholar renowned for his Chinese prose and poetry. Appointed vice-envoy to Tang China in 834, he quarreled with the chief envoy over the allocation of ships, refused to sail, and was exiled to the island of Oki by an angry retired emperor. His Hyakunin Isshu poem, sent to friends in the capital as his boat set out across the sea, dates from that banishment. Pardoned in 840, he returned and rose to Councillor. Legend later made him a judge in the court of the underworld.
わたの原 八十島かけて 漕ぎ出でぬと
人には告げよ 海人の釣舟
Wata no hara yasoshima kakete kogiidenu to / hito ni wa tsugeyo ama no tsuribune
Tell the people in the capital, O fishing boats, that I have rowed out across the wide sea toward its countless islands.