Father's letter:

"I wandered through the Province [Hitachi, now Ibaraki-
ken] going into every Shinto shrine and saw a wide field with
a beautiful river running through it.^ There was a beautiful
wood. My first thought was of you, and to make you see it,
and I asked the name of that grove. 'The grove of Longing
After One's Child ' was the answer. I thought of the one who
had first named it and was extremely sad. Alighting from
my horse I stood there for two hours.
After leaving —

Like me he must have yearned

Sorrowful to see —

The forest of Longing After One's Child."

To see that letter is a sadder thing than to have
seen the forest.
[The poem sent in return presents difficulties in the

» The Tone River.
37



Diaries of Court Toadies

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.
