Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn

Author:Lafcadio Hearn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8048-3662-3
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

["Being on my way to pay a visit, I found that which I took to be a flower: therefore here I spend the day. . . . Why, in the time before dawn, the dawn-blush tint should glow — that, indeed, I know not"]1

Without a moment's hesitation, she answered him in these verses: —

"Izuru hi no

Honoméku iro wo

Waga sodé ni

Tsutsumaba asu mo

Kimiya tomaran."

["If with my sleeve I hide the faint fair color of the dawning sun, — then, perhaps, in the morning my lord will remain."]1

Then Tomotada knew that she accepted his admiration; and he was scarcely less surprised by the art with which she had uttered her feelings in verse, than delighted by the assurance which the verses conveyed. He was now certain that in all this world he could not hope to meet, much less to win, a girl more beautiful and witty than this rustic maid before phrases having a double meaning. But the art of its construction would need considerable space to explain, and could scarcely interest the Western reader. The meaning which Tomotada desired to convey might be thus expressed: — "While journeying to visit my mother, I met with a being lovely as a flower; and for the sake of that lovely person, I am passing the day here. . . . Fair one, wherefore that dawnlike blush before the hour of dawn? — can it mean that you love me?" him; and a voice in his heart seemed to cry out urgently, "Take the luck that the gods have put in your way!" In short he was bewitched — bewitched to such a degree that, without further preliminary, he asked the old people to give him their daughter in marriage, — telling them, at the same time, his name and lineage, and his rank in the train of the Lord of Noto.

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