落窪物語

OCHIKUBO MONOGATARI

Long ago there was a Middle Counsellor who had a

number of daughters. He procured husbands for the eldest

and her next sister, assigning them respectively to

quarters in the Western and Eastern compartments

of his palace where they lived sumptuous lives.

The third and fourth daughters were raised with equal care

and were about to receive the rites of coming of age.

On the other hand, however, there was another young daughter

who had been born to one of the younger palace women

he had been frequenting, but who was now motherless.

The Counsellor's wife, the mistress of the house,

for some reason quite unfathomable to me,

even refused to consider this child as one who

belonged to the class of servants in the house,

and confined her to a dark, damp cellar of miniscule

dimensions located in a narrow hallway

off the main reception halls. She was not given

any one of a number of names of respect in the household.

Some name had to be assigned, and so it was decided that

She be called by the name 'Lady of the Root Cellar.'

Translation by Kenneth L. Richard