Diaries of Court Ladies
crossed the Hasé River. We stayed there for three days. This time we were too many to lodge in that small house on the other side of the Nara Pass, so we camped in the field. Our men passed the night lying on mukabaki[1] spread on the grass. They could not sleep for the dew which fell on their heads. The moon clear and more picturesque than elsewhere.
Even in our wandering journey,
The lonely moon accompanies us lighting us from the sky,
The waning moon I used to gaze at in the Royal City.
As I could do as I liked, I went even to distant temples for worship, and my heart was consoled through both the pleasures and fatigues of the way. Though it was half diversion, yet it [her prayers] gave me hope. I had no pressing sorrow in those days and tried to bring up my boy in the manner I thought best, and was impatient of passing time. The man I depended upon [her husband] wished to attain to happiness like other people, and the future looked promising. A dear friend of mine, who used to exchange poems with me and continued to write, through many changes of situation, although not so often as of old, married the Governor of Echizen and went down to that Province. After that all communication between us ceased, so I wrote her a poem finding the means of sending it with great difficulty:
Undying affection!
Can it end at last, overlaid with time
Even as snow covers the land in the Northern Province?
- ↑ A kind of leathern shield made of untanned deerskin worn hanging from the shoulder.
