after genji has an affair with yugao, she actually dies in his arms because of the vengeance of lady rokujo. "holding a fan permeated with faint scent "of fragrant incense, the owner of the house "offers genji a blossom of the evening faces "glittering with pale dew. "in a brief dream, he is bound together with yugao, "a flower ever more beautiful. when he awakes, he feels keenly the chilly winds of midnight." so in this poem, there's such sadness. actually, this is quite typical of many, many japanese songs. they are about particularly a woman's sadness-- deep, deep sadness, and it's expressed through nature. even in contemporary pieces, there is a drawing on the narrative and drawing on themes of nature, so a great example is a piece by tadao sawai called "tori no yo ni" written in 1985. he says, "how would it feel to fly free in the sky as a bird flies? "humans have invented airplanes, but we are not free to feel the clouds as we pass through them." mr. sawai is composing a contemporary piece for koto, a traditional instrument, but he continues the tradition of writing with some expressi