they could just catch sight of Murasaki’s apartments, marked by the deeper green of the willow boughs that swept her courtyards, and by the shimmer of her flowering orchards, which even at this distance seemed to shed their fragrance amid the isles and rocks. In the world outside, the cherry-blossom was almost over; but here it seemed to laugh at decay, and round the palace even the wistaria that ran along the covered alleys and porticos was all in bloom, but not a flower past its best; while here, where the boats were tied, mountain-kerria poured its yellow blossom over the rocky cliffs in a torrent of colour that was mirrored in the waters of the lake below. Water-birds of many kinds played in and out among the boats or fluttered hither and thither with tiny twigs or flower sprays in their beaks, and love-birds roamed in pairs, their delicate markings blending, in reflection, with the frilled pattern of the waves. Here, like figures in a picture of fairyland, they spent the day gazing in rapture, and envied the woodman[1] on whose axe green leaves at last appeared.
Many trifling poems were interchanged, such as: ‘When the wind blows, even the wave-petals, that are no blossoms at all, put on strange colours; for this is the vaunted cape, the Cliff of Kerria Flowers.’[2] And ‘To the Rapids of Idé[3] surely the channels of our spring lake must bend; for where else hang the kerria-flowers so thick across the rocks?’ Or this: ‘Never again will I dream of the Mountain[4] on the Tortoise’s Back, for here in this boat have I found a magic that shall preserve both me and my name forever from the onset of mortality.’ And again: ‘In the soft spring sunshine even the spray that falls from the rower’s
- ↑ See vol. ii, p. 292.
- ↑ Yamabuki no Saki, a place in Ōmi, referred to in the Gossamer Diary. See vol. ii, p. 28.
- ↑ A place in Yamashiro, also famous for its kerria flowers.
- ↑ Hōrai, fairyland, the Immortal Island.
