One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki) was Hokusai's final series of single-sheet woodblock prints. He based it upon a thirteenth century anthology of well-known poems, the Hyakunin Isshu (A Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets). These poems, based on love and melancholy, were assembled by the poet Fujiawara no Teika. Hokusai chose to visually recount the poems from the perspective of a fictional elderly nurse.

The series was never completed and only twenty-seven published prints are known. However, other unpublished designs exist for a further sixty-two prints, all preparatory drawings and one key-block print.

The series was commissioned by the publisher Nishimura Yohachi and his firm Eijudo successfully issued five prints before closing down; the additional twenty-two prints were then published by Iseya Sanjiro’s firm Iseri, with the original Eijudo seal continuing to be employed.

The poem in this print is by Abe no Nakamaro (710-790), who travelled to China as a youth to discover the secrets of the Chinese calendar. On discovering his intentions, the Emperor of China had him arrested; the scene depicted by Hokusai in this print. The poem reads:

Ama-no-hara

Furi-sake mireba

Kasuga naru

Mikasa no yama ni

Ideshi tsuki ka mo

When I look abroad

O'er the wide-stretched 'Plain of Heaven'

Is the moon the same

That on Mount Mikasa rose,

In the land of Kasuga?”.

Abe no Nakamaro stands on a hilltop at the centre of the composition. Clothed in an elegant robe, he is flanked by two kneeling soldiers and further soldiers a little further back, who wait respectfully for him to finish his verse. The poet longingly looks out towards his homeland, the moon - the central subject of the poem - is abstractly included by Hokusai as a reflection in the water.

For a similar impression in the collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 11.17664, go to: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/209276

For another in the collection of The British Museum, London, museum no. 1906,1220,0.574, go to: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1906-1220-0-574