Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

The notes:

Sound of wind; wind blows hard as if it were determined to blow away the last leaves on the branch. It grows cloudy and threatening, rain patters slightly. I am hopelessly desolate.

Before the Autumn endsMy sleeves will be all rotted with tears,The slow rains cannot do more to them.

I am sad, but no one remarks it; the leaves of trees and plants change day by day and so affection in him. In anticipation I feel the dreariness of the long winter rains; the leaves are pitifully teased by the winds; the drops on the leaves which may vanish at any moment – how like they are to my own life!

The sight of the leaves ever reminds me strangely of my own sadness. I cannot go within, but lie on the veranda; mayhap my end is not far off. I feel a vague anger that others are in comfortable sleep and cannot sympathize with me. Just now I heard the faint cry of a wild goose.207 Others will not be touched by it, but I cannot endure the sound.

How many nights, alas! —Sleepless —Only the calls of the wild geese —

Let me not pass the time in this way. I will open the shutter and watch the moon declining towards the western horizon. It seems distant and serenely transparent. There is mist over the earth; together comes the sound of the morning bell and the crowing of cocks. There will be no moment like this in past or future. I feel that the colour of my sleeves is new to me.

Another with same thoughtsMay be gazing at the pale morning moonOf the Long-night month —No sight is more sorrowful.

Now there comes a knocking at the gate. What does it mean? Who passes the night with thoughts like mine?

There is one of like mind with meMusing upon the morning moon.But no way to find him out!

She had meant to send the last poem only to the Prince, but when she learned that it was His Highness himself who had come she sent all.

The Prince read and did not feel that his visit had been in vain, if she also had been awake and sadly dreaming. He wrote promptly and the letter was presented while she was gazing aimlessly. She opened it anxiously and read:

First poem:

She thinks her own sleeves only are wetBut another's also are rotting.

Second poem:

Dew-life soon to vanish away,Hangs long suspended in forgetfulness of selfOn the long-blooming chrysanthemum flower.

Third poem:

Sleepless the call of wild geese on the cloud-trackYet the pain is from your own heart.

Fourth poem:

There may be another with thoughts like mine,Who is gazing toward the sky of the morning moon.

Fifth poem:

Although not togetherYou too were gazing at the moonBelieving that I went this morning to your gate,Alas!

O that gate hard to be opened!

So her writing had not been uselessly sent!

Towards the moon-hidden day she had another letter. After excusing himself for his late neglect he wrote:

I have an awkward thing to ask you. There is a lady with whom I have been secretly intimate. She is going away to a distant province and I want to send her a poem which will touch her heart deeply. Everything you write touches me, so please compose a poem for me.

She was unwilling conceitedly to carry out his wishes, but she thought it too prudish to refuse him, so she wrote with the words: "How can I satisfy you?"

Her poem:

In the tears of regretYour image will linger longEven after chilly Autumn has gone by.

It is painful for me to write a heartfelt letter in your place.

And on the margin she wrote:

Leaving you, where can she go?For me no other life.

The Prince wrote back:

Very good poem is all that I can say. I cannot say that you have expressed my heart. Forsaking me she wanders away.

So let it be.Let me think of you, the unexcelled one.There is not another.

Thus I can live on.

It was the Tenth month and more than ten days had passed before the Prince came to her.

"The inner room is too dark and makes me restless. Let me sit here near the veranda." He said many heart-touching and tender words. She could not help being pleased. The moon was hidden and rain came pattering down; the scene was in harmony with their feeling. Her heart was disturbed with mingled emotions. The Prince perceived her feeling and thought: "Why is she so much slandered by others? She is always here alone sorrowing thus." He pitied her and startled the lady a little whose head was bowed in distress on her hand by reciting a poem:

It is not dripping rain nor morning dewYet here lying, strangely wet are the sleeves of the arm-pillow.

She was overwhelmed by feeling and could not speak, but he saw her tears glistening in the moonlight. He was touched and said: "Why do you not speak? Have my idle words displeased you?" She replied: "I do not know why, but I feel that my heart is anguished, though your words are in my ears. You will see," she went on lightly; "I shall never forget your poem on the sleeves of the arm-pillow."

Thus the pitiful sad night was passed, and the Prince saw that she had no other lover. He was sorry to go away from her in the early dawn, and immediately sent a message: "How are you to-day? Are the tears dry this morning?"

Her answer:

In the morning they were dry,For only in a dreamWere the sleeves of the arm-pillow wet.

He read it and smiled at the word "arm-pillow" which she had said she should never forget.

His poem:

You say it was only in a dreamThat the sleeves were wet with tears:Yet I cannot dry them – the sleeves of the arm-pillow.

I have never experienced so sorrow-sweet an autumnal night. Was it the influence of the time?

After that he could not live without seeing her, and visited her oftener. As he saw her more intimately he saw that she was not a faithless woman. Her helpless situation touched his heart more and more, and he became deeply sympathetic with her. Once he said to her: "Even though you live on thus in solitude, I shall never forget you, but it would be better to come to my palace. All these slanderous rumours are due to your living alone. I for my part never met any men [here]; is it because I come from time to time? Yet others tell me very improper things about you which should not be heard; it made me unspeakably sad to turn away from your shut gate. Remembering that you are living in loneliness I sometimes have made a decision; yet being old-fashioned in my ways I hesitated to tell you of it because I anticipated the profound sadness with which you would hear these rumours; nevertheless, I cannot continue our relations in this way. I fear that the rumour might become true; then I should not be allowed to come, and you would become for me like the moon in the Heavenly way. If you really feel the loneliness you speak of, please come to me. There are many persons living there [in his palace], yet you will have no feeling of constraint. As I have been unhappy in my domestic relations, I do not linger in that desolate region [the house of his Princess]; but am always alone, performing religious services; I hope that my loneliness may be lessened by talking with you whose mind is in sympathy with mine."

Her feeling was opposed to such a thing; she had never told him about the late Prince. Yet there was no mountain retreat to which she could fly from World-troubles and her present condition seemed like a never-ending night. There had been many men who had wanted her; hence many strange reports were flying about. She could have confidence in no one but the Prince, so she was much tempted.

She thought: "He has his wife, yet she lives in a detached house, the nurse does all for him. If I show my affection and take pride in it, I shall be much blamed; my wish is that he should hide me from the world."

"Though to be visited by you is a rare occurrence, such a time soothes my heart; there is nothing else. So let anything happen, I will yield to your every wish. Elsewhere they are saying ugly things about us; if they see the fact accomplished, how much harder their words will be!"

"Those harsh words will be said about me, not you, at any rate. I will find you a completely retired house where we can talk tranquilly." He gave her much hope, and went away in the depths of night – the barred door [outer strong gate of lattice work] had been left open [for that purpose].

She thought within herself, being much troubled: "If I continue to live alone, I can keep myself respected. If I were forsaken by him in his palace, I should be laughed at."

After she retired this poem came:

I went along the path when night was opening.Sodden were they,The sleeves of the arm-pillow.

"That idle fancy of the sleeves he has not forgotten." This pleased her.

Her poem:

Your sleeves are wet with the dews on the grass of the morning path.The sleeves of my arm-pillow are wet, but not with dew.

The next night the moon was very bright. Here and there people were gazing at it. The next morning the Prince wanted to send her a poem and was waiting for the page [to take it]. The lady, too, had noticed the whiteness of the hoar-frost [and sent this poem]:

There was frost on the sleeves of the arm-pillow,And in the morning,Lo! A frost-white world!

The Prince was sorry the lady had got ahead of him. He said to himself: "The night was passed yearning after the beloved and frost – "

Just then the page presented himself and His Highness said, with some temper, handing his letter to the page: "Her messenger has already come; I am beaten. I wish you had come earlier." The page ran to her, and said: "I had been summoned before your messenger got there. I was late and he is angry." The lady read the letter:

The moon last night was very bright,

In a frosty morningI awaitWith hope unwarrantedOne who cannot be expected.

His letter seemed not to have been suggested by hers, and she was pleased that His Highness had been in the same mood with herself.

Her poem:

I did not sleep, gazing at the moon all nightBut the dawning of the dayWas in whiteness of hoar-frost.

You are angry with the page. He is very sorry, and it awakes my pity.

The morning sun shines on the frostSo, like the sun, your face.

Two or three days passed without a word from him. Her heart was in his promise which gave her hope, but she could not sleep for anxiety. While lying awake in bed, she heard a knocking at the gate. It was just dawn. "What can it be?" she wondered, and sent a servant to inquire. It was the Prince's letter. It was an unusual hour for it and she wondered sorrowfully whether the Prince had been conscious of her emotion. She opened her shutter and read this letter in the moonlight:

Do you see that the little night opens 208And on the ridge of the mountain, serenely bright,Shines the moon of a night of Autumn?

The bridge across the garden pond was clearly seen in the moonlight. The door was shut, and she thought of the messenger outside the gate and hastened her answer:.

The night opens and I cannot sleep,Yet I am dreaming dreams,And, loving them, the moon I do not see.

The Prince thought the answer not invented, and that it would be amusing to have her near him, to respond to his every fancy. After two days he came quietly in a palanquin for women. It was the first time she had shown herself to him in full209 daylight, but it would be unfriendly to creep away and hide, so she went to welcome him, creeping a little nearer to the entrance. He excused himself for the absence of those days and said: "Make up your mind quickly as to the thing I spoke of the other day. I am always uneasy in these wanderings, yet more uneasy when I cannot see you. O troublesome are the ways of this absurd world!"

She replied: "I wish to yield to your mind, whatever it may be, yet my thoughts are troubled when I anticipate my fate and see myself neglected by you afterwards."

He said: "Try it, I can come very seldom." And he went away. On the hedge there was a beautiful mayumi210 and the Prince, leaning against the balustrade:

Our words are like these leaves,Ever coloured deeper and deeper —

And she took it up [completing the 31-syllable poem he had begun]:

Although it is only the pearl dew that deepens them.

The Prince was pleased and thought her not without taste.

He seemed very elegant. He was attired as usual, his underdress exquisite. Her eye was much charmed, and she thought that she was too frivolous [to be thinking about it].

Next day he wrote:

Yesterday I was sorry that you were embarrassed, yet the more attracted by it.

She answered:

The Goddess of Mount Katuragi 211 would have felt so too —There is no bridge across the way of Kumé.

I did not know what to do.

The messenger came back with his poem:

Were my devotion to be rewardedHow could I stop,Though bridge were none at Katuragi San.

After that he came oftener, and her tiresome days were lightened.

But her old friends also sent letters and visited her, too, so she wanted to go to the Prince's palace at once, lest some unlucky thing should occur; yet her heart was anxious and hesitating.

One day he sent word: "Maple trees of the mountain are very beautiful. Come! let us go together to see them." She answered, "I shall be glad to do it." But the appointed day came and his Highness wrote: "To-day I must confine myself for a religious service." But that night it stormed, and the leaves were all gone from the trees. She waked and wrote to the Prince how sorry she was that they could not have gone the previous day.

His answer:

In the Godless month 212 it stormed —To-day I dream and dreamAnd wonder if the storm was within my heart.

She returned:

Was it a rainstorm? How my sleeves are wet!I cannot tell – but muse profoundly.

After the night storm there are no more maple leaves. O that we could have gone to the mountain yesterday!

His Highness returned:

O that we might have gone to see the maple leaves, for this morning it is useless to think of it.

And on the margin there was a poem:

Though I believeNo maple leaves are hanging on the boughs,Yet we may go to seeIf scattering ones remain.

And she answered:

Were the mountains of evergreens to change into red leaves,Then we would go to see themWith tranquil, tranquil hearts.My poem will make you laugh!

The night came and the Prince visited her. As her dwelling was in an unlucky direction,213 he came to take her out of it.

"For these forty-five days I shall stop at my cousin's, the Lieutenant-General of the Third Rank, on account of the unlucky direction [of my own house]. It is rather embarrassing to take you to that unfamiliar place." Yet he dared to take her there. The palanquin was drawn into its shelter [small house built for it]; the Prince got out and walked away alone, and she felt very lonesome. When all were asleep he came to take her in and talked about various things. The guards, who were curious about it, were walking to and fro. Ukon-no-Zo and the page waited near the Prince. His feeling for her was so intense at this moment that all the past seemed dull. When day dawned he took her back to her own home, and hurriedly returned himself to get back before people woke up.

She could no longer disregard the earnest and condescending wish of His Highness, and she could no more treat him with indifference. She made up her mind to go to live with him. She received kind advice against it, but did not listen. As she had been unhappy, she wanted to yield herself to good fortune; yet when she thought of the court servitude she hesitated and said to herself: "It is not my inmost wish. I yearn for a retired religious life far away from worldly troubles. What shall I do when I am forsaken by the Prince? People will laugh at my credulity. Or shall I live on as I am? Then I can associate with my parents and brothers; moreover, I can look after my child,214 who seems now like an encumbrance." Nevertheless, at last she wanted to go, and she did not write her heart to the Prince, for she thought he would know everything about her if they should live together. Her old friends sent letters, yet she did not answer them saying [to herself]: "There is nothing to write."

A letter from the Prince – in it was written: "I was a fool to believe in you." His words were few. There was an old poem:

You are faithless, yet I will not complain.As the silent seaDeep is the hate in my heart.

Her heart was broken. There were many extraordinary rumours about her, yet there were days when she believed that no harm could come of a false rumour. Some one must have slandered her, suspecting that she was yielding to the earnest desires of the Prince and going to live at the palace.

She was sad, but could not write to him. She was ashamed to think of what the Prince might have heard. The Prince, seeing that she did not explain herself, wrote to her again:

Why do you not answer? Now I believe in the rumour. How swiftly your heart changes! I heard something I did not believe, and wrote to you that you might wipe away such unpleasant thoughts from my mind.

These words opened [i.e. lightened] her bosom a little. She wanted to know what he had heard and suddenly the wish to see him came to her.

O could you come to me this instant! I hunger to see thee, but cannot go because I am buried in slander.

The Prince wrote back:

You are too afraid of slanders and I read your mind in this caution. I am angry about it.

She thought he was teasing her, yet it saddened her, and she replied:

I cannot help it, please come in any case!

He returned:

I say to myself, "I will not suspect, I will not resent," but my heart does not follow my will.

Her answer:

Your enmity will never cease. I rely upon you, yet I suspect your faithfulness.

In the evening the Prince came. He said: "I wrote to you not believing the story. If you wish not to have such things said of you, come!"

She replied: "Then take me there!" But when it was dawn His Highness returned alone. He wrote to her continually, yet he seldom visited her. Once there was a great storm – the Prince did not inquire for her. She thought His Highness did not sympathize with her solitude, so wrote to him in the evening:

The season of the withering frost is sad,The autumnal wind ragesAnd the sighing of the reed never stops.

The Prince's answer was:

The solitary reed which none but me remembersHow it is sighing in the raging wind!

I am even ashamed to confess how much my mind is completely occupied with you.

She was pleased, indeed. The Prince sent his palanquin, saying that he was going to the hidden rendezvous to avoid the unlucky direction of his house. The lady went thither, thinking she would follow every wish of his. They talked tranquilly for many days and nights, and her unrest was chased away. She was now not unwilling to live with him, but when the time for avoiding the unlucky direction was over, she was sent back to her home. There she thought of him more longingly than ever, and sent a poem:

In this hour of longingReflection brings to mind each day gone byAnd in each oneWas less of sorrow.

He replied:

Sorrows of love were less each yesterday,But how can those vanished days be caught again?

There is no other way but to resolve to come to me.

She was still cautious and could not take things so easily. She passed many days in musing. By this time the coloured leaves [of Autumn] had all fallen. The sky was clear and bright. One evening as the sun was setting she felt very lonely and wrote to him:

You art always my consolation,Yet with the end of day sadness comes.

He replied:

All are sad when the day ends,Yet are you sadder than any —You who wait?

I can sympathize with you and I am coming.

The next morning the frost was very white; he sent to inquire for her, asking, "How are you feeling now?" She sent a poem:

Not in repose was the night passed;But the frosty morningBrought its own charm,Incomparable.

His answer contained many touching words, and a poem:

To think alone is [not life].If you were thinking the same thoughts —

She answered:

You are you and I am I,Yet between your heart and mine is no separation.Make no such distinctions.

The lady caught cold. Though not serious she suffered. The Prince often inquired for her and at last she answered, saying:

A little better. The thread of life thinned down and it seemed to be going to break, but now it is dear to me because of you. Is it because I am deep in sin?

He wrote back:

Gladly do I hear it:The thread of your lifeCannot easily be broken,For it is tied together,With pledges of long-enduring affection.

The end of the year was at hand. The first day of the Frost month seemed like a day of early spring, but the next morning it snowed. The Prince sent a poem:

Since the god-age it has snowed,It is a known thing,Yet that snow seems very fresh this morning!

She returned an answer:

First snow! I see it young every winter,Yet my face grows oldAs Winter comes.

Days were passed in exchanging these nothings. Again his letter:

I become impatient to see you, and just now wanted to go to you, but my friends have met here to compose poems together.

She wrote:

Had you no time to come?Then I would go to you.O that I knew { an even way of love.{ the art of composing poems.

He was pleased.

Come to my house. Here is the even way and here's the way to see each other.

That night he visited her, and talked touchingly of many things. "Would you be sad," he said, "if I should desert my house and become a monk?" He spoke sadly, and she wondered why such a thought had entered his mind, and whether it could be true or not. Overcome with melancholy she wept. Outside was tranquil rain and snow: they slept not at all, but talked together with feeling throughout the night as if the world were all forgotten. She felt that his affection was deeper than she had suspected. He seemed to feel everything in her, and could sympathize with her every emotion. In that case she could accomplish her determination from the beginning [to go to become a nun]. So she made up her mind, but said nothing and sat lamenting. He saw her feeling and said:

Lovers' fancy of a moment held us both through the night,

And she continued:

Tears came to their eyes,And without was the rain.

In the morning he talked of merrier things than usual, and went back. Though she had no faith in it [i.e. the convent], yet she had been thinking of it to comfort her solitude. Now her mind was confused, trying to think how to realize it, and she told her perplexed feeling to the Prince:

On waking I cannot think.I wish that those were only dreams [of which we talked last night].

And on the margin she wrote:

We made our vows so earnestly,Yet must these vows yieldTo the common fate of the changing world.

I am sorry to think of it.

The Prince read it and made answer:

I wanted to write to you first —

I will not think it real,Those sad things were only dreamsDreamed in a night of dreams.

I wish that you would think so too. You dwell too much upon nothing.

Only life is fickle:We know not how it will end.But promises shall endureAs long as the pine-tree at Suminoye. 215

O my beloved, I spoke to you of what I did not heartily wish. You are too literal. I am sorry for that.

Yet the lady's thought lingered over that sad intention and she lamented much. Once she was making haste to set out when she received the Prince's letter:

Oh, I longed for it, though I had just seen itA yamato-nadeshiko 216 growing in the hedge of a mountain-dwelling.

It was painful to her present mind, yet she replied:

If you love, come and see,Even the thousand swift gods will not forbidThose who follow in the Way.

He smiled over the poem. As he was reading sutras those days he sent the following poem:

The way of meeting is not god-forbidden.But I am on the seat of the LawAnd cannot leave it.

Her answer:

Then will I go thither to seek you,Only do you enlarge the seat!

Once it snowed heavily and he sent her a poem affixed to a branch covered with snow:

Snow falls, and on all the branchesPlum flowers are in bloom,Though it is not yet spring.

This was unexpected and she wrote back:

Thinking that plum flowers were in bloomI broke the branch,And snow scattered like the flowers.

The next morning early he sent a poem:

These winter nights lovers keep vigil.Lying on one's lonely bedDay dawnsAnd the eyelids have not met.

Her answer:

Can it be true?On Winter nights eyes are shut in ice [frozen tears]And midnight hours are desolate.I wait for dawn, although no joy is in it.

What the Prince had been thinking of he wrote in heart-dwindling words, saying, "I think I cannot live out my life in this world," so she wrote back: