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Japan: Princess Sotori Hime, poet and consort of Emperor Ingyo (notionally r. 412-453), said to have been the daughter of Emperor Ojin (notionally r. 270–310), catching a spider with a fan. Hosoda Eishi (1756-1829), c. 1795

Japan: Princess Sotori Hime, poet and consort of Emperor Ingyo (notionally r. 412-453), said to have been the daughter of Emperor Ojin (notionally r. 270–310), catching a spider with a fan. Hosoda Eishi (1756-1829), c. 1795

Emperor Ingyō (允恭天皇 Ingyō-tennō) was the 19th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. No firm dates can be assigned to this emperor's life or reign, but he is conventionally considered to have reigned from 410–453.

Emperor Ingyo's empress is named Oshisaka no Ōnakatsu no Hime in the Japanese annals. Princess Sotori Hime was the concubine of the Emperor Ingyo, so named for the beauty of her skin which seemed to radiate through her robes. Later accounts associated her with the deity Tamatsushima Myojin, enshrined at Wakanoura in Kii Province, and venerated her as one of the three gods of poetry together with Kakimoto no Hitomaro and Yamabe no Akahito.

According to the Nihon Shoki written in 720, Princess Sotori lived in seclusion in the Fujiwara Shrine out of deference to the Empress. The Emperor decided to visit her there in secret, but even before he arrived the Princess had divined that he was coming by noticing a spider building its web in the roots of a dwarf bamboo plant.

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