“Lord,” said Aiyamé, “they come to bear us to my father’s house.”
He cried, “What is this foolishness? We will not go.”
“Indeed, and we must go,” said the lady.
“Go you, then,” said Konojo; “as for me, I stay here where I am happy.”
“Ah, lord,” she said, “ah, my dear, do you then love me less, who vowed to go with me, even to the Land of Yomi?”
Then he did all that she would. And he broke a blossoming bough from a tree that grew near by and laid it upon the roof of her kago.
Swiftly, swiftly they were borne, and the kago men sang as they went, a song to make labour light.
“I go to the house of the Beloved,
Her plum tree stands by the eaves;
It is full of blossom.
The dew lies in the heart of the flowers,
So they are the drinking-cups of the sparrows.
How do you go to your love’s house?
Even upon the wings of the night wind.
Which road leads to your love’s house?
All the roads in the world.”
This was the song of the kago men.