WAKI-TSURE"To begin the story, I am in the service of his

Excellency the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa.

As the story has it, our previous Emperor and his nurse,

the Lady Nii, met their doom, leaving not a trace,

together with the entire Heike clan, in the sea and

on the beach of Hayatomo in the province of Nagato,

near Kyushu. The Empress, who is now a nun and lives

in retirement, tried to throw herself into the sea as well,

but was rescued. What a pitiful way for her life

to have been saved! The brothers Noriyori and Yoshitsune,

the former the Governor of the Province of Mikawa,

and the latter the illustrious Great Commander,

accompanied the Lady and the Three Imperial Regalia

safely back to the capital. While all this was occurring,

and while the Empress should have been returned

to the palace, she preferred instead to pray

for the departed souls of both the former

Emperor Antoku, her son,

and his nurse Lady Nii, and to live in rejection

of the melancholy secular world by retiring to live

as a nun at the Jakkoin (The Cloister of Lonely Light)

in Ohara. It is to that place that I now

make announcements, here and there along the road

leading through the hills, of the Cloistered Emperor's

decree that an imminent visit of condolence

be made on her Majesty."

(Translation by KLR)