1 The events of this chapter are synchronous with those of the last.

2 Wine, zithern and song—in allusion to a poem by Po Chü-i.

3 Evidently a quotation.

4 Chūjō’s child by Yūgao.

5 Used to scent clothes with.

6 The bell which the Zen-master strikes when it is time for his pupils to fall into silent meditation.

7 To Lady Rokujō.

8 Pi-sē. See Hetherington, Early Ceramic Wares of China, pp. 71–73.

9 Manyōshū, 893.

10The Bodhisattva Samantabhadra rides on a white elephant with a red trunk.

11 Suyetsumuhana, by which name, the princess is subsequently alluded to in the story.

12 I.e. the redness of the princess’s nose.

13 A popular song about a lady who suffered from the same defect as the princess.

14 Genji’s poem is an allusion to a well-known uta which runs: ‘Must we who once would not allow even the thickness of a garment to part us be now far from each other for whole nights on end?’

15 He used to splash his cheeks with water from a little bottle in order that she might think he was weeping at her unkindness. She exposed this device by mixing ink with the water.

16 The reference of course is to the princess. ‘Though fair the tree’ refers to her high birth.