from you no wages. I pray you let me receive them, so that I may pay my men." So saying, he presented his paper. The old bamboo-cutter, with his head bowed down in thought, wondered what the words of this workman might mean, while the Prince, beside himself with dismay, felt as if his heart were melting within him. When Kagayuhime heard this, she said, "Bring me that paper." It read as follows:—
"My Lord the Prince,—When you shut yourself up for more than a thousand days with us mean workmen, and made us fashion the wonderful jewel-branch, you promised to reward us with official appointments. As we were lately thinking over this, we remembered that you had told us that the branch was required by the lady Kaguyahime, whose lord you were to be, and it occurred to us that in this palace we should receive our reward."
Kaguyahime, whose heart had been growing sadder and sadder as the sun went down, bloomed into smiles. She called the old man to her and said, "Truly I had thought that it was no other than the real tree of Mount Hōrai. Now that we know that it is but a sorry counterfeit, give it back to him at once."
Compared with the later literature of the Heian period, the style of the Taketori is artless and unformed, but its naïve simplicity accords well with the subject-matter, and is not without a charm of its own.
The Ise Monogatari is one of the most admired productions of the older Japanese literature. Its style is clear and concise, and far surpasses in elegance that of the Taketori Monogatari.
It consists of a number of short chapters which have little connection with each other, except that they all
