Page:Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan.djvu/80

 way of translation as there is a play upon words, literally it is something like this :]

The grove of "Longing After One's Child"; left; Father-caressed Mountain; [Chichibusan] hard Eastern way—

The grove of Longing After One's Child—

Hearing of it I think of the Father-caressed Mountain:

Towards it hard is the Eastern way

For a child left [here alone].

Thus I passed days in doing nothing, and I began to think of going to temples [making pilgrimages]. Mother was a person of extremely antiquated mind. She said: "Oh, dreadful is the Hatsusé Temple! What should you do if you were caught by some one at the Nara ascent? Ishiyama too! Sekiyama Pass [near Lake Biwa] is very dreadful! Kurama-san [the famous mountain], oh, dreadful to bring you there! You may go there when father comes back."

As mother says so, I can go only to Kiyomidzu Temple. My old habits of romantic indulgence were not dead yet, and I could not fix my mind on religious thoughts as I ought.

In the equinoctial week there was a great tumult [of festival], so great a noise that I was even afraid of it, and when I lay asleep I dreamt there was a priest within the enclosure before the altar, in blue garments with loose brocade hood and brocade shoes. He seemed to be the intendant of the temple: "You, being occupied with vain thoughts, are not praying for 38