Akai-shū

The Akai Shū is a personal collection (kashū) of the waka poetry of Asukai Masachika (飛鳥井雅親).[1] It is in ten volumes.[1] The name of the collection derives from the tōmei, or equivalent Chinese term, for Masachika's office at court, Acting Major Counsellor (gon-dainagon).[1]

The Akai Shū was compiled by Masachika's eldest son Masatoshi (飛鳥井雅俊) following his father's death,[1] and collects the best poems Masachika composed throughout his life.[1] It contains 1,249 poems,[1] although this is the result of the surviving manuscripts having one poem missing.[1]

The collection is in ten books or scrolls.[1] The first book consists of 100 poems composed in the summer of Bunshō 1 (1466).[lower-alpha 1][1] The second book consists of 100 poems composed as offerings to Sumiyoshi taisha in Bunmei 11 (1469)[lower-alpha 2] and 50 others.[lower-alpha 3][1] Books 3 through 6 are devoted to poems on the four seasons,[1] books 7 and 8 to love poetry,[1] and books 9 and 10 to poems on various topics (partings, travel and acrostics in book 9; laments, Buddhist and Shinto poems, and congratulations in book 10).[1]

The first text of the work dates to Meiō 1 (1492),[1] but the standard edition was probably completed at some time before Daiei 3 (1523).[1]

Three forms of the 1492 text are in the manuscript held by the Matsudaira Archives in Shimabara, Nagasaki (島原松平文庫),[1] the printed edition from the Kanbun-Jōkyō eras (1661–1688),[1] and the manuscript held by the Archives and Mausolea Department of the Imperial Household Agency.[1] The later edition is preserved in the manuscript in the holdings of the Tenri Central Library.[1]