And never, never shall you win to her,—because she is the phantom light of long-expired suns,—because she was shaped by the beating of infinite millions of hearts that are dust,—because her witchery was made in the endless ebb and flow of the visions and hopes of youth, through countless forgotten cycles of your own incalculable past.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nowaki is the name given to certain destructive storms usually occurring toward the end of autumn. All the chapters of the Genji Monogatari have remarkably poetical and effective titles. There is an English translation, by Mr. Kenchō Suyematsu, of the first seventeen chapters.
[2] The Kurando, or Kurōdo, was an official intrusted with the care of the imperial records.
[3] A chō is about one-fifteenth of a mile.
[4] Hagi is the name commonly given to the bush-clover. Ominameshi is the common term for the valeriana officinalis.
[5] That is to say, there are now many people who go every night to the graveyards, to decorate and prepare the graves before the great Festival of the Dead.
[6] Most of these names survive in the appellations of well-known districts of the present Tōkyō.
[7] Katabira is a name given to many kinds of light textures used for summer-robes. The material is usually hemp, but sometimes, as in the case referred to here, of fine silk. Some of these robes are transparent, and very beautiful.—Hakata, in Kyūshū, is still famous for the silk girdles made there. The fabric is very heavy and strong.