Abdication

From the 14th century Japanese text, “Essays in Idleness” (tsurezuregusa 徒然草) composed by Buddhist monk Kenkō:

The moment during the ceremony of abdication of the throne when the Sword, Jewels, and Mirror [the Imperial regalia, which still exist, btw] are offered to the new emperor is heartbreaking in the extreme. When the newly retired emperor abdicated in the spring [of 1318] he wrote this poem, I understand:

Translation by Professor Donald Keene

Original Japanese	Romanization	Translation by Donald Keene
殿守の	tonomori no	Even menials
とものみやつこ	tomo no miyakko	Of the palace staff treat me
よそにして	yoso ni shite	As a stranger now;
はらはぬ庭に	harawanu niwa ni	In my unswept garden lie
花ぞ散りしく	hana zo chirishiku	The scattered cherry blossoms.

Then Kenkō writes in the same passage:

What a lonely feeling the poem seems to convey — people are too distracted by all the festivities of the new reign for anyone to wait on the retired emperor. This is precisely the kind of occasion when a man’s true feelings are apt to be revealed.