Of Old Japan
[1042 A.D.] I went in [to the shrine] privately, for I know Lady Hakasé[1] who was taking care of this shrine. The perpetual lights before the altar burned dimly. She [the Lady Hakasé] grew wondrously old and holy; she seems not like a mortal, but like a divine incarnation, yet she spoke very gracefully.
The moon was very bright on the following night and the Princess's ladies passed the time in talking and moon-gazing, opening the doors [outer shutters] of the Fujitsubo.[2] The footsteps of the Royal consort of Umetsubo going up to the King's apartment were so exquisitely graceful as to excite envy. "Had the late Queen[3] been living, she could not walk so grandly," some one said. I composed a poem:
She is like the Moon, who, opening the gate of Heaven, goes up over the clouds.
We, being in the same heavenly Palace, pass the night in remembering the footfalls of the past.
The ladies who are charged with the duty of introducing the court nobles seem to have been fixed upon, and nobody notices whether simple-hearted countrywomen like me exist or not. On a very dark night in the beginning of the Gods-absent month, when sweet-voiced reciters were to read sutras throughout the night, another lady and I went out towards the entrance door of the Audience Room to listen to
- ↑ Hakasé is LL.D., so she might have been daughter of a scholar.
- ↑ Special house devoted to use of a King's wife.
- ↑ The Princess, whom our lady served, was the daughter of King Goshijaku's Queen. The Queen died 1039. After this the Royal Consort Umetsubo won the King's favour.
