Taira no Sadafun 平定文 (d. 923) was the son of Taira no Yoshikaze 平好風 and received the Taira surname at the same time as his father when both were demoted from the imperial family.
In his court career he occupied both military and administrative offices, passing through the positions of Attendant (utoneri 内舎人) in the Ministry of Central Affairs, Provisional Junior Secretary in the Bureau of Horses, Right Division (u me gon-shōjō 右馬権少允), Junior Lieutenant in the Military Guards, Right Division (uhyōe shōjō 右兵衛少尉), Assistant Governor of Mikawa (mikawa no suke 三河介), Chamberlain (jijû 侍従) in the Ministry of Central Affairs, Assistant Director of the Bureau of Horses, Right Division (u me no suke 右馬助) and ending up as Assistant Captain in the Military Guards, Left Division (sa hyôe no suke 左兵衛佐) at junior fifth rank, upper grade.
During his life he is known to have sponsored as least two poetry competitions and to have been on friendly terms with more famous poets such as Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之 and Ōshikōchi no Mitsune 凡河内躬恒, and he is one of the ‘36 Poetic Sages’(sanjū rokkasen 三十六歌仙) but today he is best remembered for his poetic exchanges with many of the beauties of his day, including Ise 伊勢, Kan’in no Go 閑院の御, the Ki Wet Nurse (ki no menoto 紀乳母) and the Daughter of Ariwara no Muneyana (在原棟梁女), which led to the rise of a host of anecdotes about his amorous adventures under his nickname Heichû 平中, eventually compiled together into the Heichû Monogatari 平中物語.
On WakaPoetry.net, the following poems are by Sadafun:
KKS IV: 238 | KKS IV: 243 | KKS V: 279 | SIS VIII: 481 SIS XVII: 1091 SIS VIII: 1185 SIS: XIX: 1211 SIS XX: 1308 |