In this I could not but see the hand of Heaven, and my only anxiety was lest too great an inequality of rank should divide you. But since the birth of this child, that fear has not so much troubled me, for I feel that your union is fated to be a lasting one. A child of Royal Blood cannot, we must allow, pass all its days in a village by the sea, and though this parting costs me dear I am determined never again to tamper with the world that I have renounced. Princes are the lamps that light this world, and though they may for a time be destined to cast confusion upon the quiet of rusticity, soon they must perforce return to their true firmament; while those whom they have left smile back, as I do now, into the lowly Sphere[1] from whence they sprang. Should you hear that I am dead, do not tease yourselves concerning the welfare of my soul, and above all, while less than death divides us, do not worry over what may be befalling me.' Thus he poured out all that was passing through his mind and at last he added in conclusion: 'You may be sure that each of the six times of Prayer, till the day when the smoke rises from my pyre, I shall pray with all my heart for the happiness of the little princess. . . .'
Hitherto he had spoken with great self-possession; but now his face began to pucker.
There was so much baggage to be transported that a vast quantity of wagons would have been required had the whole party proceeded by road. To send some of the stuff by road and the rest by sea was in many ways inconvenient; moreover Genji's retainers did not wish to be recognized on the journey, and for all these reasons it seemed best that the whole party should proceed by water. They set sail at the hour of the Dragon, and soon their ship, like that of the old poet's story,[2] was lost amid the morning mists far out
- ↑ The metaphor is of souls sinking back into lower incarnations.
- ↑ See Waley, Japanese Poetry (Oxford, 1920), p. 56.
