Farewell Poem

Written in the hand of Ogyū Sorai

ca. 1713

Tangible Cultural Property, designated by Sakata city

Donated by the Homma family

Ogyū Sorai (1666-1728) was a Confucian scholar who served Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, a close attendant of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. He opened the private school Kenenjuku in Nihonbashi, helping to educate a wide range of disciples, advocated for the interpretation of Chinese classics via method known as Kobunjigaku, and established his own “School of Sorai Studies.” His school of learning was applied in Shōnai Domain, and used in domanial schools for the children of Shōnai’s samurai retainers.

This document is a farewell poem written following the killing of a retainer of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu by Tanaka Shōgo (also known as Tanaka Tōkō), a Confucian scholar from Shōnai Domain, who then fled to Mutsu Province.