Part 6

In the house there were only two men, for the rest had all gone to the Capital. Those two men did not sleep that night at all, but kept watch around the house. My maids who were in the recess [perhaps the outer part of the hut used as kitchen] asked, "Why do you walk about so?" and the men answered, "Why? we have rented our house to perfect strangers. What should we do if our kettles were stolen? Of course we cannot sleep!" I felt both dread and laughter to hear them.

In the early morning we left there and knelt before the great East Temple.[71] The temple at Iso-no-Kami was antique and on the verge of ruin. That night we lodged at Yamabé Temple. Although I was tired out, I recited sutras and went to sleep. In my dream I saw a very noble and pure woman. At her coming the wind blew deliciously. She found me out, and said, smiling, "For what purpose have you come?" I answered, "How could I help coming?" [since you are here], and she said, "You would better be in the Imperial Court, and become intimate with the Lady Hakasé." I was very much delighted and encouraged.

We crossed the river and arrived at the Hatsusé Temple at night. After purifying, I went up to the Temple. I remained three days, and slept expecting to start in the morning. At midnight I dreamt that a cedar twig[72] was thrown into the room as a token bestowed by the Inari god. I was startled, but waking found it only a dream.

We began our return journey after midnight, and as we could not find a lodging, we again passed a night in a very small house, which seemed to be a very curious one somehow. "Do not sleep! Something unexpected will happen!" "Don't be frightened!" "Lie down even without breathing!" This was said and I spent the night in loneliness and dread. I felt that I lived a thousand years that night, and when the day dawned I saw that we were in a robbers' den. People said that the mistress of that house lived by a strange occupation.

We crossed the Uji River in a high wind and the ferry-boat passed very near the fishing seine.

_Years have passed and only sounds of waters have come to my ears,_ _To-day, indeed, I may even count the ripples around the fishing net._

[This poem may seem a little obscure. It means that her own life had been lived long in a kind of dreamland of her own creating, but was gradually emerging into reality.]

If, as I am doing now, I continue to write down events four or five years after they have happened, my life will seem to be that of a pilgrim, but it is not so. I am jotting down the happenings of several years. In the spring I went to Kurama Temple. It was a soft spring day, with mist trailing over the mountain-side. The mountain people brought tokoro [a kind of root] as the only food and I found it good. When I left there flowers were already gone.

In Gods-absent month I went again, and the mountain views along the way were more beautiful than before, the mountain-side brocaded with the autumn colours. The stream, rushing headlong, boiled up like molten metal and then shattered into crystals.

When I reached the monastery the maple leaves, wet with a shower, were brilliant beyond compare.

_The pattern of the maple leaves in Autumn dyed with the rain--_ _Beautiful in the deep mountain!_

After two years or so I went again to Ishiyama. It seemed to be raining, and I heard some one saying rain is disagreeable on a journey, but on opening the door I found the waning moon lighting even the depths of the ravine. What I thought rain was the stream rippling below the roots of the trees.

_The sound of the mountain brook gives an illusion of rain drops,_ _Yet the calm of the waning moon shines over all._

The next time I went to Hasé Temple, my journey was not so solitary as before. Along the route various persons invited me to ceremonious dinners, and we made but slow progress. The autumn woods were beautiful at the Hahasono forest in Yamashiro. I crossed the Hasé River. We stayed there for three days. This time we were too many to lodge in that small house on the other side of the Nara Pass, so we camped in the field. Our men passed the night lying on mukabaki[73] spread on the grass. They could not sleep for the dew which fell on their heads. The moon clear and more picturesque than elsewhere.

_Even in our wandering journey,_ _The lonely moon accompanies us lighting us from the sky,_ _The waning moon I used to gaze at in the Royal City._

As I could do as I liked, I went even to distant temples for worship, and my heart was consoled through both the pleasures and fatigues of the way. Though it was half diversion, yet it [her prayers] gave me hope. I had no pressing sorrow in those days and tried to bring up my boy in the manner I thought best, and was impatient of passing time. The man I depended upon [her husband] wished to attain to happiness like other people, and the future looked promising. A dear friend of mine, who used to exchange poems with me and continued to write, through many changes of situation, although not so often as of old, married the Governor of Echizen and went down to that Province. After that all communication between us ceased, so I wrote her a poem finding the means of sending it with great difficulty:

_Undying affection!_ _Can it end at last, overlaid with time_ _Even as snow covers the land in the Northern Province?_

She wrote back:

_Even a little pebble does not cease to be,_ _Though pressed under the snow of Hakusan;_ _So is my affection even though hidden._

I went down to a hollow of Nishiyama [in the western hills of Kioto]. There were flowers blooming in confusion. It was beautiful, yet lonely. There was no sight of man. A tranquil haze enclosed us.

_Far from towns, in the heart of the mountain,_ _The cherry blooms, and wastes its blooms away_ _With none to see._

When the sorrow of the World[74] troubled my heart I made a retreat in the Uzumasa Temple. To me there arrived a letter from one who served the Princess. While I was answering it the temple bell was heard.

_The outer world of many sorrows_ _Is not to be forgotten even here._ _At the sound of the evening bell_ _Lonely grows my heart._

To the beautifully tranquil palace of the Princess I went one day to talk with two congenial friends. The next day, finding life rather tedious, I thought longingly of them and sent a poem:[75]

_Knowing the place of our meeting to be the sea of tears,_ _Where memories ripple, and affections flow back,_ _Yet we ventured into it--and my longing for you grew stronger_ _than ever._

One wrote back:

_We ventured into that sea,_ _To find the pearls of consolement,_ _No pearls, but drops of sad, sweet tears we found!_

And the other:

_Who would venture into the sea of tears_ _Seeking for the chance with zealous care,_ _Had not the flowers of lovely vision floated in it!_

That friend being of the same mind with me, we used to talk over every joy and sorrow of the world, but she went down to the Province of Chikuzen in Kyushu [extreme southwest of old Japan]. On a moon-bright night I went to bed thinking of her with longing, for in the palace we had been wont not to sleep on such a night, but to sit up gazing into the sky. I dreamed that we were in the palace and saw each other as we had done in reality. I awoke startled; the moon was then near the western ridge of the mountain and I thought "I would I had not wakened"[76] [quoting from a famous poem].

_Tell her, oh, western-going moon,_ _That dreaming of her I could sleep no more,_ _But all the night_ _My pillow was bedewed with loving tears._

In the Autumn [1056] I had occasion to go down to the Province of Izumi.[77] From Yodo the journey was very picturesque. We passed a night at Takahama. It was dark, and in the depths of the night I heard the sound of an oar, and was told that a singer had come. My companions called her boat to come alongside ours. She was lighted by a distant fire, her sleeves were long, she shaded her face with a fan and sung. She was charming. The next evening, when the sun was still on the mountain-top, we passed the beach of Sumiyoshi. It was seen all in mist, and pine branches, the surface of the sea, and the beach where waves rolled up, combined to make a scene more beautiful than a picture.

_It is an evening of Autumn_ _--The seashore of Sumiyoshi!_ _Can words describe it?_ _What can be compared with it?_

Even after the boat was towed along, I looked back again and again, never satiated.

In the Winter I returned to Kioto. We took our boat at Ōé Bay. That night a tempest raged with such fury that the very rocks seemed to be shaken. The god of Thunder[78] came roaring, and the sound of dashing waves, the tumult of the wind, the horrors of the sea, made me feel that life was coming to an end. But they dragged the boat ashore, where we spent the night. The rain stopped, but not the wind, and we could not start. We passed five or six days on these wide-stretching sands. When the wind had gone down a little, I looked out, rolling up the curtain of my cabin. The evening tide was rising swiftly and cranes called to each other in the bay.

People of the Province came in crowds to see us, and said that if the boat had been outside the bay that night it would have been seen no more. Even the thought terrified me.

_Off Ishitsu, in the wild sea_ _The boat driven before the storm_ _Fades away and is seen no more._

_The wild gusts drive the boat--_ _Into the wild sea she disappears--_ _Off Ishitsu!_

I devoted myself in various ways for the World [her husband]. Even in serving at Court one had like-wise to devote one's self unceasingly. What favor could one win by returning to the parents' home from time to time?

As I advanced in age I felt it unbecoming to behave as young couples do. While I was lamenting I grew ill, and could not go out to temples for worship. Even this rare going out was stopped, and I had no hope of living long, but I wanted to give my younger children a safer position while I was alive.

I grieved and waited for the delightful thing [an appointment] for my husband. In Autumn he got a position,[79] but not so good a one as we had hoped, and we were much disappointed. It was not so distant as the place from which he had returned, so he made up his mind to go, and we hastily made preparations. He started from the house where his daughter had recently gone to live.[80] It was after the tenth of the Gods-absent month. I could not know what had happened after he started, but all seemed happy on that day. He was accompanied by our boy. My husband wore a red coat and pale purple kimono,[81] and aster-coloured hakama [divided skirt], and carried a long sword. The boy wore blue figured clothes and red hakama, and they mounted their horses beside the veranda.

When they had gone out noisily I felt very, very lonely. As I had heard the Province was not so distant I was less hopeless than I had been before.

The people who accompanied him to see him off returned the next day and told me that they had gone down with great show [of splendour] and, then continuing, said they had seen human fire[82] this morning starting [from the company] and flying towards the Capital. I tried to suppose it to be from some one of his retinue. How could I think the worst? I could think of nothing but how to bring up these younger ones.

He came back in the Deutzia month of the next year and passed the Summer and Autumn at home, and on the twenty-fifth of the Long-night month he became ill.

1058. On the fifth day of the Tenth month all became like a dream.[83] My sorrows could be compared to nothing in this world.

Now I knew that my present state had been reflected in the mirror offered to the Hasé Temple [about twenty-five years before by her mother] where some one was seen weeping in agony. The reflection of the happier one had not been realized. That could never be in the future.

On the twenty-third we burnt his remains with despairing hearts, my boy, who went down with him last Autumn, being dressed exquisitely and much attended, followed the bier weeping in black clothes with hateful things [mourning insignia] on them. My feeling when I saw him going out can never be expressed. I seemed to wander in dreams and thought that human life must soon cease here. If I had not given myself up to idle fictions [she herself had written several] and poetry, but had practised religious austerities night and day, I would not have seen such a dream-world.

At Hasé Temple a cedar branch was cast down to me by the Inari god and this thing [the loss of her husband] would not have happened if I had visited the Inari shrine on my way home. The dreams which I had seen in these past years which bid me pray to the Heaven Illuminating Honoured Goddess meant that I should have been in the Imperial Court as a nurse, sheltered behind the favour of the King and Queen--so the dream interpreter interpreted my dream, but I could not realize this. Only the sorrowful reflection in the mirror was realized unaltered. O pitiful and sorrowful I! Thus nothing could happen as I willed, and I wandered in this world doing no virtuous deed for the future life.

Life seemed to survive sorrows, but I was uneasy at the thought that things would happen against my will, even in the future life. There was only one thing I could rely on.

_Ceaseless tears--clouded mind:_ _Bright scene--moon-shadow._

On the thirteenth of the Tenth month [1055] I dreamed one night this dream:

There in the garden of my house at the farthest ledge stood Amitabha Buddha! He was not seen distinctly, but as if through a cloud. I could snatch a glimpse now and then when the cloud lifted. The lotus-flower pedestal was three or four feet above the ground; the Buddha was about six feet high.

Golden light shone forth; one hand was extended, the fingers of the other were bent in form of benediction. None but I could see him, yet I felt such reverence that I dared not approach the blind to see him better. None but I might hear him saying, "Then this time I will go back, and afterwards come again to receive you." I was startled and awoke into the fourteenth day. _This dream only was my hope for the life to come._[84]

I had lived with my husband's nephews, but after that sad event we parted not to meet again. One very dark night I was visited by the nephew who was living at Rokuhara; I could not but welcome so rare a guest.

_No moon, and darkness deepens_ _Around Obásuté. Why have you come?_ _It cannot be to see the moon!_[85]

After that time [the death of her husband] an intimate friend stopped all communication.

_She may be thinking that I_ _Am no more in this world, yet my days_ _Are wasted in weeping._ _Weeping, alas!_

In the Tenth month I turned, my eyes full of tears, towards the intensely bright moon.

_Even into the mind always clouded with grief,_ _There is cast the reflection of the bright moon._

Years and months passed away. Whenever I recollected the dream-like incident [of his death] my mind was troubled and my eyes filled so that I cannot think distinctly of those days.

My people went to live elsewhere and I remained alone in my solitary home. I was tired of meditation and sent a poem to one who had not called on me for a long time.

_Weeds grow before my gate_ _And my sleeves are wet with dew,_ _No one calls on me,_ _My tears are solitary--alas!_

She was a nun and she sent an answer:

_The weeds before a dwelling house_ _May remind you of me!_ _Bushes bury the hut_ _Where lives the world-deserted one,_

[1] Her father Takasué was appointed Governor of Kazusa in 1017, and the authoress, who was then nine years old, was brought from Kiōto to the Province.

[2] Prince Genji: The hero of Genji-monogatari, a novel by Murasaki-Shikibu.

[3] Yakushi Buddha: "The Buddha of healing," or Sanscrit, Bhaisajyaguru-Vaiduryaprabhah.

[4] Original, Nagatsuki, September.

[5] Ancient ladies avoided men's eyes and always sat behind sudaré (finely split bamboo curtain) through which they could look out without being seen.

[6] High personages, Governors of Provinces or other nobles, travelled with a great retinue, consisting of armed horsemen, foot-soldiers, and attendants of all sorts both high and low, together with the luggage necessary for prolonged existence in the wilderness. From Tokyo to Kiōto nowadays the journey is about twelve hours. It took about three months in the year 1017.

[7] Futoi River is called the River Edo at present.

[8] Matsusato, now called Matsudo.

[9] Kagami's rapids, now perhaps Karameki-no-se.

[10] Common gromwell, _Lithospermum._

[11] Takeshiba: Now called Shibaura, place-name in Tokyo near Shinagawa. Another manuscript reads: "This was the manor house of Takeshiba."

[12] Misu: finer sort of sudaré used in court or in Shinto shrine. Cf. note 2, p. 4.

[13] Seta Bridge is across the river from Lake Biwa, some seven or eight miles from Kioto.

[14] In those days noblemen's and ladies' dresses were perfumed.

[15] Dera or tera = temple.

[16] The original text may also be understood as follows: "After that the guards of the watch-fire were allowed to live with their wives in the palace."

[17] In the _Isé-monogatari_ (a book of Narihira's poetical works) the Sumida River is said to be on the boundary between Musashi and Shimofusa. So the italicized words seem to be the authoress's mistake, or more probably an insertion by a later smatterer of literary knowledge who inherited the manuscript.

Narihira's poem is addressed to a sea-gull called _Miyakodori,_ which literally means _bird of the capital_. Narihira had abandoned Kioto and was wandering towards the East. Just then his heart had been yearning after the Royal City and also after his wife, and that feeling must have been intensified by the name of the bird. (Cf. The _Isé-monogatari_, Section 9.)

_Miyakodori! alas, that word_ _Fills my heart again with longing,_ _Even you I ask, O bird,_ _Does she still live, my beloved?_

[18] According to "Sagami-Fūdoki," or "The Natural Features of Sagami Province," this district was in ancient times inhabited by Koreans. The natives could not distinguish a Korean from a Chinese, hence the name of _Chinese Field_. A temple near Oiso still keeps the name of Kōraiji, or the Korean temple.

[19] This seems to be the last line of a kind of song called _Imayo,_ perhaps improvised by the singers; its meaning may be as follows: "You compare us with singers of the Western Provinces; we are inferior to those in the Royal City; we may justly be compared with those in Osaka."

[20] Hakoné Mountain has now become a resort of tourists and a place of summer residence.

[21] Fear of evil spirits which probably lived in the wild, and of robbers who certainly did.

[22] Aoi, or Futaba-aoi. At the great festival of the Kamo shrine in Kioto the processionists crowned their heads with the leaves of this plant, so it must have been well known.

[23] Mount Fuji was then an active volcano.

[24] The Princess was Sadako, daughter of King Sanjo, afterwards Queen of King Goshujaku[1037-1045].

[25] Lacquered boxes, sometimes of great beauty, containing india ink and inkstone, brushes, rolls of paper.

[26] Plum-trees bloom between the first and second months of the old calendar.

[27] By pestilence. People were often attacked by contagious diseases in those days, and they, who did not know about the nature of infection, called it by the name of "world-humor" or "world-disease," attributing its cause to the ill-humor of some gods or spirits.

[28] In those days windows were covered with silk and could not be seen through.

[29] Fujiwara-no-Yukinari: One of the three famous calligraphers of that time.

[30] Place where cremation was performed.

[31] It is a Buddhist custom to go into retreat from time to time.

[32] Some of these books are not known now.

[33] A kind of screen used in upper-class houses: see illustration.

[34] Her lamp was rather like an Italian one--a shallow cup for oil fixed to a tall metal stem, with a wick projecting to one side.

[35] Sadharmpundarika Sutra, or Sutra of the Lotus, in Sanscrit.

[36] In October it was the custom for all local gods to go for a conference to the residence of the oldest native god, in the Province of Idzumo; hence, _Gods-absent month_. This Province of Idzumo, full of the folklore of old Japan, has become well known to the world through the writings of Lafcadio Hearn.

[37] According to the superstition of those days people believed that every house was presided over by an earth god, which occupied the hearth in Spring, the gate in Summer, the well in Autumn, and the garden in Winter. It was dangerous to meet him when he changed his abode. So on that day the dwellers went out from their houses.

[38] Readers are urged to read the delightful essay of Lafcadio Hearn called "The Romance of the Milky Way" (Chogonka). Here it must suffice to relate the story of "Tanabata-himé" and the herdsman. Tanabata-tsume was the daughter of the god of the sky. She rejoiced to weave garments for her father and had no greater pleasure than that, until one day Hikiboshi, a young herdsman, leading an ox, passed by her door. Divining her love for him, her father gave his daughter the young herdsman for her husband, and all went well, until the young couple grew too fond of each other and the weaving was neglected. Thereupon the great god was displeased and "they were sentenced to live apart with the Celestial River between them," but in pity of their love they were permitted to meet one night a year, on the seventh day of the Seventh month. On that night the herdsman crosses the River of Heaven where Tanabata-tsume is waiting for him on the other side, but woe betide if the night is cloudy or rainy! Then the waters of the River of Heaven rise, and the lovers must wait full another year before the boat can cross.