> A companion piece to the Late-Qing series. Where the Chinese essays celebrate “being summoned by the Son of Heaven” as the supreme honor, this Japanese poem turns that same summons inside out. — A crab in hiding receives the sovereign’s call Book 16 of the Man’yōshū (Japan’s oldest poetry anthology, eighth century) holds an unforgettable poem, number 3886. Its annotation calls it “a song composed to voice the pain of a crab.” It was performed by hokaibito—the lowest of…
