been there before, was much affected by the lonely uninhabited look of the place.
At the foot of the western mountains they came to a small temple. This was the Jakkō-in. It might be described by the lines: “The roof tiles were broken, and the mist, entering, lit perpetual incense; the doors had fallen from their hinges and the moonbeams were its sanctuary lamps.”[1] The pond and trees of its ancient garden were dignified; the young grass grew thick and the green shoots of the willow were tangled. The water plants on the pond, floating in the little waves, might have been mistaken for brocade. On the island the purple of the flowering wistaria mingled with the green of the pine; the late-blooming cherry among the young leaves was even more wonderful than the early blossoms. From the clouds of kerria roses that were flowering in profusion on the bank came the call of the cuckoo, a note of welcome in honor of His Majesty’s visit.
The sound of the water was pleasant as it fell from the clefts of the timeworn rocks, and the ivied walls and beetling crags would have defied the brush of the painter. When His Majesty came to the cell of the former Empress, ivy was growing on the eaves and the morning-glory was climbing up them; the hare’s-foot fern and the day lily mingled together, and here and there was a useless gourd-plant; here was the grass that grew thick in the path of Yen Yüan and the white goosefoot that keeps men at a distance, and here too was the rain that moistened the door of Yüan Hsien.[2] The cedar boards of the roof were gaping, so that the rain, the hoar-frost, and the dew of evening vied with the moonbeams in gaining entrance, and the place appeared almost uninhabitable. Behind was the mountain and in front was the moor, and the bamboo grasses rustled loudly in the wind. As is the way with those who have no friends in the world, she seldom heard any news from the capital, but instead the cry of the monkeys as they sprang from tree to tree and the sound of the wood-cutter’s axe.
