The Spring Lover and the Autumn Lover

Many and many a time the carp leapt in the garden fish-pond. Many and many a time a scarlet pomegranate flower fluttered and dropped from the tree. Many and many a time the lady shook her head and a lover went his way, sad and sorry.

Now it happened that the God of Autumn went to try his fortune with the Princess. He was a brave young man indeed. Ardent were his eyes; the colour flamed in his dark cheek. He was girded with a sword that ten men could not lift. The chrysanthemums of autumn burned upon his coat in cunning broidery. He came and bent his proud head to the very ground before the Princess, then raised it and looked her full in the eyes. She opened her sweet red lips—waited—said nothing—but shook her head.

So the God of Autumn went forth from her presence, blinded with his bitter tears.

He found his younger brother, the God of Spring.

“How fares it with you, my brother?” said the God of Spring.

“Ill, ill indeed, for she will not have me. She is the proud lady. Mine is the broken heart.”

“Ah, my brother!” said the God of Spring.

“You’d best come home with me, for all is over with us,” said the God of Autumn.

But the God of Spring said, “I stay here.”

“What,” cried his brother, “is it likely, then, that she will take you if she’ll have none of me? Will she love the smooth cheeks of a child and flout the man full grown? Will you go to her, brother? She’ll laugh at you for your pains.”

“Still I will go,” said the God of Spring.

“A wager! A wager!” the God of Autumn cried. “I’ll give you a cask of saké if you win her—saké for the merry feast of your wedding. If you lose her, the saké will be for me. I’ll drown my grief in it.”

“Well, brother,” said the God of Spring, “I take the wager. You’ll have your saké like enough indeed.”

“And so I think,” said the God of Autumn, and went his ways.

Then the young God of Spring went to his mother, who loved him.

“Do you love me, my mother?” he said.

She answered, “More than a hundred existences.”

“Mother,” he said, “get me for my wife the Princess, the Fairest of the Fair.