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The lattice had not yet been lowered when it was time for the lamps to be lit. The lamps were brought in, making the interior as plainly visible as if the door were open. The Empress was holding her lute lengthwise. She was dressed in a scarlet robe with several layered undergarments of glossy, pounded silk, the beauty of which defies description. It was a wonderful scene to see her sleeve draped over the jet black, glossy lute she was holding. Moreover, the contrast of the dazzling whiteness of her forehead as seen from the side was an incomparable sight to behold.
    I approached one of the women sitting nearby and said: “That woman with her face half hidden could not have been so beautiful. And she was a commoner.” The woman pressed through the many people gathered about, and reported to the Empress what I had said. The Empress laughed, saying: “Does she know the meaning of parting?” I found it very amusing when her words were relayed back to me.
    Sei Shònagon’s comparison alluded to the passage in Po Chü-i’s “Song of the Lute” where the poet sent for a lute-playing woman in a boat: “Only after repeated entreaties did she come, / Her face half hidden by the lute she clutched.” This incident probably took place when the regent’s household—
    that of the empress’ parents—was at the height of its prosperity. Even after Teishi’s family’s decline, however, when her life was abject and lonely save for the emperor’s love, Sei Shò-
    nagon’s descriptions never failed to endow her mistress with the abundant beauty of a flower that never fades. Such praises of course bespeak Sei Shònagon’s own strong-mindedness, but Empress Teishi’s perspicacious nature no doubt was also all the more finely honed as she sensed the impending, tragic decline of her parents’ family and their fall from political power. Her unusual comeliness perhaps indeed shone all the more brilliantly in her later years.
    In light of the fact that Teishi was the first woman presented to him at court, it is easily understandable that she remained Emperor Ichijò’s favorite. For that very reason Michinaga kept 22 c A Tale of False Fortunes a particularly vigilant eye on the empress, whom he saw as a future rival to his own daughter, though the latter was still of tender age. Teishi’s father, Michitaka, was no match for Michinaga, in whose heart lay a deeply hidden bold ambition for power.
    A Tale of Flowering Fortunes describes the various evil spirits that assailed Kaneie on his sickbed, but the name Ayame of Miwa, the medium who was possessed by the vengeful ghost of the third princess, appears only in A Tale of False Fortunes.
    Ayame of Miwa was the elder sister of Kureha of Miwa, the heroine of A Tale of False Fortunes. After Kaneie’s death, Michinaga invited Ayame to become a lady-in-waiting in his own household.
    Toyome, the mother of Ayame and Kureha, seemed to possess the greatest mediumistic powers among all of the shrine women serving the god of Kasuga, and it was she who usually received the oracle of the god. Now the god of Kasuga was the tutelary deity of the Fujiwara clan, whose members—including, of course, the head of the clan, the regent himself—made frequent pilgrimages. Toyome availed herself of one such occasion to offer Ayame to Regent Kaneie’s household as a junior lady-in-waiting. After hearing Toyome pronounce an auspicious oracle, Kaneie was in good humor and agreed to take Ayame into his household.
    As recorded in A Tale of False Fortunes, Toyome’s words to Kaneie at that time were as follows:
    I am truly grateful that Your Lordship should grant the request of one so inept as I, and that you are willing to take Ayame into your service. Ayame is now fifteen years old, and her younger sister Kureha is only twelve. When Kureha is a few years older, I hope that she too might attend His Lordship’s wife. If I can entrust my daughters to His Lordship, I shall have no worry about their