Of Old Japan
After some days one of my relatives sent me a romance entitled "The Prince Yearning after the Buried," with the following note: "The late lady had asked me to find her this romance. At that time I thought it impossible, but now to add to my sorrow, some one has just sent it to me."
I answered:
What reason can there be that she
Strangely should seek a romance of the buried?
Buried now is the seeker
Deep under the mosses.
My sister's nurse said that since she had lost her, she had no reason to stay and went back to her own home weeping.
Thus death or parting separates us each from the other,
Why must we part? Oh, world too sad for me!
"For remembrance of her I wanted to write about her," began a letter from her nurse—but it stopped short with the words, "Ink seems to have frozen up, I cannot write any more."[1]
How shall I gather memories of my sister?
The stream of letters is congealed.
No comfort may he found in icicles.
So I wrote, and the answer was:
Like the comfortless plover of the beach
In the sand printing characters soon to be washed away,
Unable to leave a more enduring trace in this fleeting world.
- ↑ The continuous writing of the cursive Japanese characters is often compared to a meandering river. "Ink seems to have frozen up" means that her eyes are dim with tears, and no more she can write continuously and flowingly.
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