and remain here. May your journey be a safe one. Be careful lest, these terribly hot days, you get sunstroke on the way. In the winter months when the wind blows down the northern mountains, send me messages about yourself with the wind. I shall think only of the fact that you are alive and safe. If the weakening thread of my life should break, now will be our parting for this existence, and all I shall have to depend upon is the yet unseen world to come. Our ties are certain to endure through both worlds. Please never change your heart.” Thus she spoke of uncertainties; however wise her prayers may have seemed, the heart of this innocent maiden was pitiful.
Shino in spite of himself also felt downcast, and unable to comfort her could only nod. There was nothing else for him to say. Just then the first cock-crow announced the dawn, and Shino, pulling himself together, said, “In a few moments your parents will waken. Hurry! Hurry!”
Hamaji at last got up, and recited the poem,
“Yo mo akeba |
Now that dawn has come |
That poem was inspired by the casual love of a traveler, but now is the moment of separation with a departing husband. If the cocks do not crow the sky will not grow light; if the dawn does not come, no one will waken. Oh, hateful crowing of the cock! For us only are there no nights of meeting—between us stands an unyielding barrier. Even the moon at dawn brings only sorrow.”
As she murmured these words, about to leave, there was a cough outside the door and a faint rapping on the door. “The cocks have crowed, are you not awake yet?” It was his servant who called. Shino hastily answered and the man withdrew to the kitchen. “Quickly, before he returns!” Shino said, pushing her out. Hamaji, her eyelids swollen from weeping, looked back from the darkness
- ↑ Quoted from “The Tales of Ise,” 13. This tale is of a traveler in the north of Japan who spends one night with a country girl and then leaves her.
