it combed! I am greatly concerned that you are so frivolous. At your age some girls are so different. When your late mother was married at the age of twelve she had an extraordinary amount of good sense. But now if you were to lose me, what would become of you?' And she burst out weeping. Genji, at this sight, was moved unawares to sorrow for her. The little girl, child as she was, looked at her, and with downcast eyes bent her head to the ground, so that her hair fell loosely forward, showing a lustre that was very beautiful.
'There is no sky [weather] to dry up
The dew [of my tears] at leaving behind
The tender herb
That knows not where shall be its abode
When it has reached full growth.'
"So the nun. 'True,' said the other waiting-woman [not the girl's nurse], and with tears answered her—
'So long as the first blades of grass
Know not what will be their future when grown up,
How can the dew
Think of becoming dried?'"
This notice may be fitly closed by the following poem, in which Motoöri in his old age expressed his intention of returning, if time permitted, to the study of the Genji:—
"So dearly do I love them,
Again I would come to see
The violets on the plains of spring
Which I left ungathered—
Though to-day I may not pluck them."
The author of the Genji Monogatari wrote a diary called Murasaki no Shikibu Nikki, which has come down to us. It is not without merit, but its fame has been wholly eclipsed by that of her greater work.
