After this night the Lady Aya, that had been so fresh and fair and dancing gay as a wave of the sea, fell into a pale melancholy. By day she sighed, and by night she wept. She smiled no more as she beheld her rich wedding-garments, and she would not play any more with her maidens upon the garden gallery. She wandered like a shadow, or lay speechless in her bower. And all the wise men and all the wise women of that country-side were not able to heal her of her sickness.
Then the maid Sada, weeping and hiding her face with her sleeve, went to the Lord of the House and told him of the moonlight adventure and the fair youth of the peony bed.
“Ah me,” she said, “my sweet mistress pines and dies for the love of this beautiful young man.”
“Child,” said the daimyo, “how you talk! My daughter’s garden is well guarded by walls and by men-at-arms. It is not possible that any stranger should enter it. What, then, is this tale of the moon and a samurai in peony garments and all manner of other foolishness, and how will such a tale sound in the ears of the Lord of Ako?”
But Sada wept and said, “My mistress will die.”
“To fight in the field, to flatter at Court and to speak in Council, all these are easy,” said the daimyo, “but preserve me from the affairs of my women, for they are too hard for me.”
With that he made a search of all the castle and the castle grounds, but not a trace did he find of any stranger in hiding.
That night the Lady Aya called piteously for the cooler air, so they bore her out on to her garden gallery, where she lay in O Sada’s arms. A minstrel of the household took his biwa, and to soothe her he made this song:
“Music of my lute—
Is it born, does it die,
Is it truth or a lie?
Whence, whence and where,
Enchanted air?
Music of my lute
Is mute.
“Sweet scents in the night—
Do they float, do they seem,
Are they essence of dream,
Or thus are they said
The thoughts of the Dead?
Sweet scents in the night
Delight.”