[49] Third month. It must be remembered that this was April according to the present calendar.
[50] Shime-nawa. A rope with tufts of straw or of cut paper at fixed intervals, hung before shrines in order to sanctify the place within. It is a relic of the straw-rope which Futodama-no-mikoto stretched behind the Sun-goddess to prevent her returning to the cave after Tajikarao-no-mikoto had pulled her out and thus re-illuminated the universe which had been plunged into darkness.
[51] See [special chapter] on this subject.
[52] Ch�y� no sekku. The 9th day of the 9th month (o.s.); a festival day of the chrysanthemum.
[53] This is a pun on the name of Mino province and the Japanese word for straw rain-coat (mino).
[54] Or “Nightless City,� the title of this book.
[55] This paragraph of course refers to the inmates of the Yoshiwara.
[56] The monastery of Ishi-yama was founded in 749 by the monk Ri�-ben Sūj�, at the command of Sh�mu Tenn�. It was destroyed by fire in 1078 and rebuilt a century later by Yoritomo. The present hon-d� (main hall) was built by Yodo-Gimi, the mother of Hideyori, towards the end of the 16th century. The little room to the right of the hon-d�, known as Genji-n� ma, is said to have been occupied by the famous authoress Murasaki Shikibu during the composition of her great romance, the “Genji Monogatari.� Ishiyama-dera is famous for the beauty of its maple-trees in autumn. (Murray’s Hand-Book of Japan.)
[57] Wife of an ancient Chinese King who was held by the enemy as a hostage in a foreign country.
[58] A family badge in the form of a tuft of five overlapping bamboo leaves with their apexes spreading downwards, and surmounted by three little flowers.