Diaries of Court Ladies
No moon, and darkness deepens
Around Obásuté. Why have you come?
It cannot be to see the moon![1]
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.
- ↑ The point of this is in the name of the place, Obásuté, which may be translated, "Aunt Casting Away," or "Cast-Away-Aunt." It is a place famous for the beauty of its scenery in moonlight.
