Winter clothes are begun on the first day of the tenth month.

From a poem to a dead lady, by Liu Yü-hsi (a.d. 772–842). I saw you first standing at the window of Yü Liang’s tower; Your waist was slender as the willow-trees that grow at Wu-ch‘ang. My finding you and losing you were both like a dream; Oh tell me if your soul dwells in the rain, or whether in the clouds above! end stanza end poem end container

A husband in mourning may not wear winter clothes. The mourning lasts for three months.

Fujitsubo.

Murasaki quotes the line in the form in which it occurs in Japanese MSS. of Po Chü-i’s poem. The Chinese editions have a slightly different text. Cf. Giles’s translation, History of Chinese Literature, p. 172.

On the Day of the Boar in the tenth month it was the custom to serve little cakes of seven different kinds, to wit: Large bean, mungo, dolicho, sesamun, chestnut, persimmon, sugar-starch.

On the third night after the first cohabitation it was the custom to offer up small cakes (all of one kind and colour) to the god Izanagi and his sister Izanami.