“May it grow to a thousand fathoms,” said Genji.
“Mine it shall be, rich as the grasses beneath
The fathomless sea, the thousand−fathomed sea.”
Murasaki took out brush and paper and set down her answer:
“It may indeed be a thousand fathoms deep.
How can I know, when it restlessly comes and goes?”
She wrote well, but a pleasant girlishness remained.
(Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji)
