Diaries of Court Ladies
spected. If I were forsaken by him in his palace, I should be laughed at."
After she retired this poem came:
I went along the path when night was opening.
Sodden were they,
The sleeves of the arm-pillow.
"That idle fancy of the sleeves he has not forgotten." This pleased her.
Her poem:
Your sleeves are wet with the dews on the grass of the morning path.
The sleeves of my arm-pillow are wet, but not with dew.
The next night the moon was very bright. Here and there people were gazing at it. The next morning the Prince wanted to send her a poem and was waiting for the page [to take it]. The lady, too, had noticed the whiteness of the hoar-frost [and sent this poem]:
There was frost on the sleeves of the arm-pillow,
And in the morning,
Lo! A frost-white world!
The Prince was sorry the lady had got ahead of him. He said to himself: "The night was passed yearning after the beloved and frost—"
Just then the page presented himself and His Highness said, with some temper, handing his letter to the page: "Her messenger has already come; I am beaten. I wish you had come earlier." The page ran to her, and said: "I had been summoned before your messenger got there. I was late and he is angry." The lady read the letter:
