POEM

The Reader was the Left Grand Controller, a fine-looking man whose voice as he read was marvelously awesome and impressive. He enjoyed especially high esteem as a scholar. The poems praised variously, with many elevated references, how nobly a young man whom lofty birth entitled to pursue only glory and its pleasures had befriended the fireflies at the window and the snow upon the bough. Every line had such quality, as all in those days wonderingly agreed, that one would have wished to have them known in Cathay as well. Needless to say, His Grace’s was especially accomplished, but it also conveyed a father’s love so movingly that all present wept while they hummed it.

(The Tale of Genji, chap. 21, p. 383)