Diaries of Court Ladies
Words cannot express my fear[1] in the midst of it. Clouds rolled beneath our feet. Halfway over there was an open space with a few trees. Here we saw a few leaves of aoi[2] [Asarum caulescens]. People praised it and thought strange that in this mountain, so far from the human world, was growing such a sacred plant. We met with three rivers in the mountain and crossed them with difficulty. That day we stopped at Sekiyama. Now we are in Suruga Province. We passed a place called Iwatsubo [rock-urn] by the barrier of Yokobashiri. There was an indescribably large square rock through a hole in which very cold water came rushing out.
Mount Fuji is in this Province. In the Province where I was brought up [from which she begins this journey] I saw that mountain far towards the West. It towers up painted with deep blue, and covered with eternal snow. It seems that it wears a dress of deep violet and a white veil over its shoulders. From the little level place of the top smoke was going up. In the evening we even saw burning fires there.[3] The Fuji River comes tumbling down from that mountain. A man of the Province came up to us and told us a story.
"Once I went on an errand. It was a very hot day, and I was resting on the bank of the stream when I
- ↑ Fear of evil spirits which probably lived In the wild, and of robbers who certainly did.
- ↑ Aoi, or Futaba-aoi. At the great festival of the Kamo shrine in Kioto the processionists crowned their heads with the leaves of this plant, so it must have been well known.
- ↑ Mount Fuji was then an active volcano.
