Gosetchi was a great holiday succeeded by two days of feasting. The dancing girls (of the diary) were all daughters of persons of high rank, three being daughters of courtiers and two daughters of province governors. Tradition says that when King Tenmu was at his palace of Yoshino, heavenly maidens came down and danced before him fluttering the long celestial sleeves of their feathery dresses five times. This was the origin of the dance.
[77] Each dancer was attended by helpers who were sometimes persons of degree. Their duties were to arrange trains and costumes in the postures of the dance.
[78] Her father was Keeper of the Seal. Her aunt was one of the queens.
[79] See signs of the zodiac, of Old Japan.
[80] The name of a detached hall in the Imperial Palace.
[81] Like the knights' tents in the tournaments each girl's apartment was distinguished by special devices of cloths or banners hung before it.
[82] Horai: an island of eternal life and felicity supposed to exist in the eastern ocean. Horai symbolizes changelessness, and it must have been intended as a hint at the impropriety of Sakyō's changed position.
[83] Festival of the ancient gods, for which preparation was made the day before by fasting.
[84] This incident was very well known and is mentioned in several of the writings of the period. The mirror is the symbol of the soul of a Japanese woman. With the mirror Sakyō sent a poem:
Alas! the waving moss deceived your vision.
The clear mirror is never tarnished:
Therefore look deep.