Sanuki no Suke’s Diary: Days of Imperial Mourning (7)

 

     On the fourth day of May, as evening fell, I saw people preparing to cover the eaves with sweet flags to gently purify the air. Last year on this day—when I had no such sorrows—they brought bundles of sweet flags into the courtyard facing the Imperial Breakfast Room. People climbed onto the roof of each building, filling them completely with the plants. It seemed as if all the sweet flags of Mizuno—the wetland where the Katsura, Uji, and Kizu Rivers meet—would be used up.

     The next day, too, the early summer rain fell from the sky, and the sweet flags on the eaves were dripping continuously.

The sweet flags on the eaves

Are drenched in early summer rain,

While my sleeves are soaked with endless sorrow,

Beneath the gloomy summer sky.

     That was all I could think of.

     More than ten days passed, and I recalled that around this time the previous year, the five-day lectures on the Golden Light Sutra had been held. I remembered how, about ten days after those lectures had ended, the late Emperor shared with me his deep admiration for the lectures.