The Emperor, still shading his eyes, replied;
“I saw a maiden so beautiful that her Shining Majesty would be a black blot beside her. As she went, the Spring and all its sweetness blew from her garments. Her robe was green with small gold flowers. Her eyes were closed, but she resembled a cherry tree, snowy with bloom and dew. Her voice was like the singing flowers of Paradise.”
The Dainagon looked at him with fear and compassion;
“Augustness, how should such a lady carry in her arms a bundle of firewood?”
“She bore in her hands three lotos flowers, and where each foot fell I saw a lotos bloom and vanish.”
They retraced their steps through the wood; His Majesty radiant as Prince Fireshine with the joy that filled his soul; the Dainagon darkened as Prince Firefade with fear, believing that the strange music of Semimaru had bewitched His Majesty, or that the maiden herself might possibly have the power of the fox in shape-changing and bewildering the senses.
Very sorrowful and careful was his heart for he loved his Master.
That night His Majesty dreamed that he stood before the kakemono of the Amida Buddha, and that as he raised his eyes in adoration to the Blessed Face, he beheld the images of Fugen and Fudo, rise up and bow down before that One Who Is. Then, gliding in, before these Holinesses stood a figure, and it was the wood-cutter’s daughter homely and blinded. She stretched her hands upward as though invoking the supreme Buddha, and then turning to His Majesty she smiled upon him, her eyes closed as in bliss unutterable. And he said aloud.
“Would that I might see her eyes!” and so saying awoke in a great stillness of snow and moonlight.
Having waked, he said within himself