Hōjōki (An Account of My Hut), completed by Kamo no Chōmei in 1212, opens: Yuku kawa no nagare wa taezu shite, shikamo moto no mizu ni arazu. “The flow of the river never ceases, and yet it is never the same water.”
The book goes on to record the disasters of its time: the great fire of Angen, the famine of Yōwa and the great earthquake of Genryaku.