"You can choose any servant you like to accompany you, and I can let you have as many koban as you desire."
Otohime answered: "Neither horse nor kago do I need, nor any servant; I need only the dress of a pilgrim,—leggings and gown,—and a mendicant's wallet."
For Otohime held it her duty to set out by herself all alone, just as Shuntoku had done.
So she left home, saying farewell to her parents, with eyes full of tears: scarcely could she find voice to utter the word "good-by."
Over mountains and mountains she passed, and again over mountains; hearing only the cries of wild deer and the sound of torrent-water.
Sometimes she would lose her way; sometimes she would pursue alone a steep and difficult path; always she journeyed sorrowing.
At last she saw before her—far, far away—the pine-tree called Kawama-matsu, and the two rocks called Ota(1); and when she saw those rocks, she thought of Shuntoku with love and hope.
Hastening on, she met five or six persona going to Kumano; and she asked them: "Have you not met on your way a blind youth, about sixteen years old?"
They made answer: "No, not yet; but should we meet him anywhere, we will tell him whatever you wish."
This reply greatly disappointed Otohime; and she began to think that all her efforts to find her lover might be in vain; and she became very sad.