Legendary Narrative
Seimu is regarded by historians as a "legendary emperor" and there is a paucity of information about him. There is insufficient material available for further verification and study. The name Seimu Tennō was assigned to him posthumously by later generations.
If Seimu did exist, there is no evidence to suggest that the title tennō was used during the time period to which his reign has been assigned. It is much more likely that he was a chieftain, or local clan leader, and the polity he ruled would have only encompassed a small portion of modern day Japan.
His father was Emperor Keikō and his mother was Yasaka no Iri Bime no Mikoto, a granddaughter of Emperor Sujin and a first cousin of his father.
The actual site of Seimu's grave is not known. This emperor is traditionally venerated at a memorial Shinto shrine (misasagi) at Nara.
The Imperial Household Agency designates this location as Seimu's mausoleum. It is formally named Saki no Tatanami no misasagi.
Seimu's tomb can be visited today at Misasagi-cho, Nara City.
Read more about this topic: Emperor Seimu
Famous quotes containing the words legendary and/or narrative:
“By many a legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as by events which have passed before their eyes, these people have been taught to look upon white men with abhorrence.... I can sympathize with the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to guard all the passes to his valley with the point of his levelled spear, and, standing upon the beach, with his back turned upon his green home, to hold at bay the intruding European.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)