survives in Japan, together with the poems of which the Lady Sei speaks.

“Then Her Majesty placed before her a volume of the Ancient and Modern Col- lection, and reading out the beginning of the verses, she said: ‘Now, what comes after that?’

“It was amusing to see our distress as we said among ourselves: ‘Some of these we have learned by keeping them in our heads night and day, and now we can’t remember them properly. The Lady Saisho remembers ten——if that can be called remembering !#while as for five or six~that’s not remembering at all! We are bound to say so to Her Majesty, but how can we let her proposal fall flat in such a dreadful way?’

“However, Her Majesty was graciously pleased presently to read out the endings, and then we all exclaimed: ‘Oh, but we know these quite well! How could we be so stupid?’

“Then Her Majesty said: ‘Everyone must have heard of the Lady Sennyo—den in the time of the Emperor Murakami. She was the daughter of the Lord Minis- ter of the Left. While she was still a maiden, her father gave her these instruc- tions: “This must be your course of study: First, you must learn calligraphy. Then learn to surpass all others in playing the harp. And lastly learn by heart all the twenty volumes of Ancient and Modern Verse!”

“ ‘His Majesty heard of this, and one day he took with him the Ancient and Modern Verse and, contrary to custom, ordered the screen to be set up, much to the surprise of the ladies.

“ ‘Then, spreading out before him a volume of verse, he asked her: “What poem was written by such and such a per- son, in such and such a month of such a year on such an occasion?”

“ ‘She must have felt confused beyond measure! His Majesty called out two of the ladies who knew the verses well, and ordered them to keep count with checker stones. Well, His Majesty pressed her with questions and though he did not go to the end, such was her skill that she did not make the slightest mistake. His Maj- esty was a little put out by this and he felt he must go on until he found her out in some mistake or something forgotten, however small. So he read to the tenth volume. Then he graciously said: “It is of no use!”, put the marker in the book and was pleased to retire to the imperial bed-chamber.

“ ‘That was very admirable. But af- 331‘ some time he was pleased to rise again and say: “It would be very bad to stop Without first settling this matter one way

By Eishi Srnith Collection

PRINCE GENJI, MURAsAKI’s

HERO, HAS BEEN FOR CEN-

TURIES A FAVORITE THEME WITH ARTISTS

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or another, and if I put oil’ the second ten volumes until tomorrow she may look them up meanwhile. So we must finish it tonight.” Lamps were then placed near His Majesty, and he read on far into the night. Nevertheless the Lady Sen- nyo—den finished by not once being de- feated by His Majesty’s questions.’ ”

And Sei Shonagon adds: “The Em- peror listened while the Empress told us this story and praised it, saying:

“ ‘How could he have read so much? I myself could not have even read three or four volumes through.’

“ ‘In olden times,’ said one of Her Majesty’s ladies, ‘even the common people had elegant tastes. You never hear of such things nowadays.’ ”

Olden times! And it was all nine hun- dred years ago! Perhaps it is as well for the peace of all concerned that tastes are not so elegant nowadays. It is difficult to know which deserves most sympathy ——-the exasperated Emperor or the tor- tured paragon. But it must be acknowl- edged that the Empress told her story very prettily!

Nine hundred years past, in old Kyoto, the court ladies were not cruel to their lovers. The manners of the time did not demand that they should be so, provided certain etiquettes were preserved. The Lady Sei has a vivid description of one of the daimyo whom she spied walking home after a night spent in the palace chamber of the lady of his heart. He is gay as a dragon—fly in magnificent purple trousers, a transparent robe over his white tunic and a fine red over-dress wet with the heavy dew. He swings along, humming scraps of verse from the Col- lection of a Myriad Leaves. Suddenly he perceives an open lattice and, peeping in, he sees a pretty woman whose lover has just left her (Can it have been the Lady Sei herself?). They exchange jests. It grows too late for lovers to be abroad; voices are heard and he runs off. It is a strange little vignette of things as old as love itself. A Japanese poem sums it up well:

“What does never change Since the days of the gods, Is the way a river runs. What does never change

Since the days of the gods, Is the way love flows.”

Here, as a sample, is a poem from the Collection of a Myriad Leaves, which the all-conquering daimyo may have been singing as he returned from his assigna- tion. In it is heard the wistful music, as from the spaces beyond the world, that echoes through the lonely beauty of Mr. Yeats’s verse. The kindred touch is a strange one, but it is there.

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