The Kyokusui no utage (or kokusui no en) 曲水の宴, a court occasion when poets would seat themselves beside a stream, and sake cups would be floated down to them. When the cup reached each poet, he would take it from the water, drink the sake, and recite a poem he had composed for the occasion. The earliest record of this being carried out in Japan is in 485, to celebrate the accession of Emperor Kenzō 顕宗天皇, although there then appears to have been a gap of just over two hundred years until it became a regular part of the Court’s activities in the Nara period, usually taking place on the Third day of the Third Month.