Diaries of Court Ladies
water." "Is it the first time," I asked, "that you have tasted the satisfying sweetness of a mountain well drunk from the hollow of your hand?" She said, "It is sweeter than to drink from a shallow spring, which becomes muddy even from the drops which fall from the hand which has scooped it up."[1] We came home from the temple in the full brightness of evening sunshine, and had a clear view of Kioto below us.
My friend, who had said that a spring becomes muddy even with drops falling into it, had to go back to the Capital.
I was sorry to part with her and sent word the next morning:
When the evening sun descends behind the mountain peak,
Will you forget that it is I who gaze with longing
Towards the place where you are?
The holy voices of the priests reciting sutras in their morning service could be heard from my house and I opened the door. It was dim early dawn; mist veiled the green forest, which was thicker and darker than in the time of flowers or red leaves. The sky seemed clouded this lovely morning. Cuckoos were singing on the near-by trees.
O for a friend—that we might see and listen together!
O the beautiful dawn in the mountain village!—
The repeated sound of cuckoos near and far away.
On that moon-hidden day cuckoos sung clamorously on trees towards the glen. "In the Royal City poets
- ↑ This conversation in the original is a play upon words which cannot be translated.
