wake, and to tell the Emperor all about
him, but he will already be impatiently awaiting my return," said the
messenger. And she prepared to depart.

"It would be a relief to me to tell you how a mother laments over her
departed child. Visit me, then, sometimes, if you can, as a friend,
when you are not engaged or pressed for time. Formerly, when you came
here, your visit was ever glad and welcome; now I see in you the
messenger of woe. More and more my life seems aimless to me. From the
time of my child's birth, her father always looked forward to her
being presented at Court, and when dying he repeatedly enjoined me to
carry out that wish. You know that my daughter had no patron to watch
over her, and I well knew how difficult would be her position among
her fellow-maidens. Yet, I did not disobey her father's request, and
she went to Court. There the Emperor showed her a kindness beyond our
hopes. For the sake of that kindness she uncomplainingly endured all
the cruel taunts of envious companions. But their envy ever deepening,
and her troubles ever increasing, at last she passed away, worn out,
as it were, with care. When I think of the matter in that light, the
kindest favors seem to me fraught with misfortune. Ah! that the blind
affection of a mother should make me talk in this way!"

"The thoughts of his Majesty may be even as your own," said the Miobu.
"Often when he alluded to his overpowering affection for her, he said
that perhaps all this might have been because their love was destined
not to last long. And that though he ever strove not to injure any
subject, yet for Kiri-Tsubo, and for her alone, he had sometimes
caused the ill-will of others; that when all this has been done, she
was no more! All this he told me in deep gloom, and added that it made
him ponder on their previous existence."

The night was now far advanced, and again the Miobu rose to take
leave. The moon was sailing down westward and the cool breeze was
waving the herbage to and fro, in which numerous _mushi_ were
plaintively singing.[12] The messenger, being still somehow unready to
start, hummed--

"Fain would one weep the whole night long,
As weeps the Sudu-Mushi's song,
Who chants her melancholy lay,
Till night and darkness pass away."

As she still lingered, the lady took up the refrain--

"To the heath where the Sudu-Mushi sings,
From beyond the clouds[13] one comes from on high
And more dews on