One wrote back:
We ventured into that sea,
To find the pearls of consolement,
No pearls, but drops of sad, sweet tears we found!
And the other:
Who would venture into the sea of tears
Seeking for the chance with zealous care,
Had not the flowers of lovely vision floated in it!
That friend being of the same mind with me, we used to talk over every joy and sorrow of the world, but she went down to the Province of Chikuzen in Kyushu [extreme southwest of old Japan]. On a moon-bright night I went to bed thinking of her with longing, for in the palace we had been wont not to sleep on such a night, but to sit up gazing into the sky. I dreamed that we were in the palace and saw each other as we had done in reality. I awoke startled; the moon was then near the western ridge of the mountain and I thought "I would I had not wakened"[76] [quoting from a famous poem].
Tell her, oh, western-going moon,
That dreaming of her I could sleep no more,
But all the night
My pillow was bedewed with loving tears.
In the Autumn [1056] I had occasion to go down to the Province of Izumi.[77] From Yodo the journey was very picturesque. We passed a night at Takahama. It was dark, and in the depths of the night I heard the sound of an oar, and was told that a singer had come. My companions called her boat to come alongside ours. She was lighted by a distant fire, her sleeves were long, she shaded her face with a fan and sung. She was charming. The next evening, when the sun was still on the mountain-top, we passed the beach of Sumiyoshi. It was seen all in mist, and pine branches, the surface of the sea, and the beach where waves rolled up, combined to make a scene more beautiful than a picture.
It is an evening of Autumn
—The seashore of Sumiyoshi!
Can words describe it?
What can be compared with it?
Even after the boat was towed along, I looked back again and again, never satiated.
In the Winter I returned to Kioto. We took our boat at Ōé Bay. That night a tempest raged with such fury that the very rocks seemed to be shaken. The god of Thunder[78] came roaring, and the sound of dashing waves, the tumult of the wind, the horrors of the sea, made me feel that life was coming to an end. But they dragged the boat ashore, where we spent the night. The rain stopped, but not the wind, and we could not start. We passed five or six days on these wide-stretching sands. When the wind had gone down a little, I looked out, rolling up the curtain of my cabin. The evening tide was rising swiftly and cranes called to each other in the bay.