remains of Semimaru’s hut, and cross the Tanagami River to visit the tomb of Sarumaru.[1] On the way back, according to the season, I admire the cherry blossoms or the autumn leaves, pick fern-shoots or fruit, both to offer to the Buddha and to use in my house.
If the evening is still, in the moonlight that fills the window I long for old friends or wet my sleeve with tears at the cries of the monkeys.[2] Fireflies in the grass thickets might be mistaken for fishing-lights off the island of Maki; the dawn rains sound like autumn storms blowing through the leaves. And when I hear the pheasants’ cries, I wonder if they call their father or their mother; when the wild deer of the mountain approach me unafraid, I realize how far I am from the world. And when sometimes, as is the wont of old age, I waken in the middle of the night, I stir up the buried embers and make them companions in solitude.
It is not an awesome mountain, but its scenery gives me endless pleasure regardless of the season, even when I listen in wonder to the hooting of the owls.[3] How much more even would the sights mean to someone of deeper thought and knowledge!
When I first began to live here I thought it would be for just a little while, but five years have already passed. My temporary retreat has become rather old as such houses go: withered leaves lie deep by the eaves and moss has spread over the floor. When, as chance has had it, news has come to me from the capital, I have learned how many of the great and mighty have died since I withdrew to this mountain. And how to reckon the numbers of lesser folk? How many houses have been destroyed by the numerous conflagrations? Only in a hut built for the moment can one live without fears. It is very small, but it holds a bed where I may lie at night and a seat for me in the day; it lacks nothing as a place for me to dwell. The hermit crab chooses to live in little shells because
- ↑ Semimaru was a poet of the Heian Period who lived in a hut near the Barrier of Ausakayama. See page 92. Sarumaru-dayū was an early Heian poet, but nothing is known about him. For a later description of roughly the same area, see Bashō’s “Unreal dwelling,” page 374.
- ↑ This paragraph is full of allusions to old poems which it would be tedious to explain.
- ↑ From a poem by Saigyō: “The mountain is remote; I do not hear the voices of the birds I love, but only the eerie cries of the owl.”
