The lady, being a married woman, was much upset, and lamented her lot. The messenger pressed her heartlessly for a reply, and, deciding that concealment was out of the question, she told her husband just what had happened. The Captain was understandably disturbed. “As a man I have an abhorrence of sending you,” he said, “but there is no point in presuming to admonish the Emperor. Things are not the same for one man as for another in this world, and in a way it is an honor. Let tongues wag if they will. Hurry and go,” he urged. She broke into tears, however, and protested repeatedly that it would never do. “These past three years,” he went on, “we have spent in the deepest love, as though we were made for each other, but for you to have been summoned in this way shows his attachment is not superficial. If you fail to go, out of pride, it is sure to look very bad, and who can say what will become of me? People will not think the worse of us for it. Hurry and go,” he insisted. Sobbing, the lady opened the letter, and beneath the words “Tonight without fail,” wrote in thick black ink the single word “wo,” and refolding the letter sent it by the messenger.
The Emperor, seeing the letter returned, and no different in appearance than before, was about to conclude reluctantly that it had been without effect, when he noticed that the knot was carelessly tied. He undid it and beheld the word “wo.” Ponder over it as he would, he could make nothing of it. He summoned several ladies-in-waiting who would be likely to know and asked them about the word. One of them said, “Long ago a certain prime minister wrote the word ‘moon’ and sent it to the daughter of Izumi Shikibu, a lady well versed in such matters. She may have spoken of it to her mother, for she readily understood and wrote beneath ‘moon’ the single word ‘wo.’ That is the allusion, I imagine. ‘Moon’ meant that he would be waiting that night for her to come. And in answer to a summons from above, men should reply ‘yo’, while women say ‘wo.’ The lady went to him, and he was more in love with her than ever. This lady too will surely come.”
The Emperor was much pleased at this and was filled with anticipation. The night grew later and later, but still he delayed retiring to his bedchamber. Just as he heard the watchmen’s cry—
