An Account of My Hut (Hojoki)
Overview
An essay written in 1212 by Kamo no Chomei in a hut ten feet square (about three meters) on Mount Hino, southeast of the capital. The first half records five disasters he saw when young: the Great Fire of Angen, the whirlwind of Jisho, the move of the capital to Fukuhara, the famine of Yowa and the great earthquake of Genryaku, and speaks of the impermanence of people and their dwellings. The second half tells how he came to live in the hut and the pleasures of his simple life there, and it ends with him questioning even his attachment to the hut.
Background
Chomei was born into a family of priests of Shimogamo Shrine, but failed to get the post he wanted and took holy orders around fifty. He lived at the turning from the Heian to the Kamakura period, when the Genpei War and one natural disaster after another left the capital in ruins. He was also a poet who served in the Bureau of Poetry, and wrote the poetics Mumyosho and the Buddhist tale collection Hosshinshu.
Highlights
- The flowing river"The flowing river never stops, and yet the water is never the same." Reread the famous opening within the whole text.Read “Heian-kyo, the Imperial Palace” →
- A record of disastersFire burns a third of the capital; famine fills the roads with the dead. Descriptions as concrete as reporting.Read “Heian-kyo, the Imperial Palace” →
- The move to FukuharaThe capital is suddenly moved; houses are taken apart and floated downriver, and the new capital never comes together. People's unease and confusion.Read “Fukuhara” →
- The ten-foot-square hutA small house that can be taken apart, a koto and a biwa, the turning of the seasons. The joy of living small, and the question of that very attachment.Read “Hino, site of the ten-foot-square hut” →