It rains during the morning. No visitors today. I feel lonely and amuse myself by writing at random. These are the words:
Who mourns makes grief his master.
Who drinks makes pleasure his master.
The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, "I shall be unhappy without loneliness," shows that he made loneliness his master. He also wrote:
In the mountain village
who are you calling yobuko-bird?
I thought you lived alone.
There's nothing so intriguing as living alone. Chosho, the recluse, said:
If one's guest enjoys a half-day's leisure,
His host loses a half-day's leisure.
Sodo is always moved by these words. I, too, feel it.
Not this melancholy,
cuckoo,
but your solitary song.
!