To dream under dream we return.
Three years. … And the meeting comes now!
This night has happened over and over,
And only now comes the tryst.
Look there to the cave
Beneath the stems of the Suzuki.
From under the shadows of the love-grass,
See, see how they come forth and appear
For an instant. … Illusion!
There is at the root of hell
No distinction between princes and commons;
Wretched for me! ’tis the saying.
Strange, what seemed so very old a cave
Is all glittering-bright within,
Like the flicker of fire.
It is like the inside of a house.
They are setting up a loom,
And heaping up charm-sticks. No,
The hangings are out of old time.
Is it illusion, illusion?
Our hearts have been in the dark of the falling snow,
We have been astray in the flurry.
You should tell better than we
How much is illusion;
You who are in the world.
We have been in the whirl of those who are fading.
Indeed in old times Narihira said,
—and he has vanished with the years—
“Let a man who is in the world tell the fact.”
It is for you, traveller,
To say how much is illusion.
Let it be a dream, or a vision,
Or what you will, I care not.
Only show me the old times over-past and snowed under—
Now, soon, while the night lasts.
Look then, the old times are shown,
Faint as the shadow-flower shows in the grass that bears it;
And you’ve but a moon for lantern.
The woman has gone into the cave.
She sets up her loom there
For the weaving of Hosonuno,
Thin as the heart of Autumn.
The suitor for his part, holding his charm-sticks,
Knocks on a gate which was barred.
In old time he got back no answer,
No secret sound at all
Save. …
It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets,
A thin sound like the Autumn.
Kiri.
Hatari.
Cho.
Cho.
Mimicking the sound of crickets.
Kiri, hatari, cho, cho,
Kiri, hatari, cho, cho.
The cricket sews on at his old rags,
With all the new grass in the field; sho,
Churr, isho, like the whir of a loom: churr.
Let be, they make grass-cloth in Kefu,
Kefu, the land’s end, matchless in the world.
That is an old custom, truly,
But this priest would look on the past.
The good priest himself would say:
Even if we weave the cloth, Hosonuno,
And set up the charm-sticks
For a thousand, a hundred nights,
Even then our beautiful desire will not pass,
Nor fade nor die out.
Even today the difficulty of our meeting is remembered,
And is remembered in song.
That we may acquire power,
Even in our faint substance,
We will show forth even now,
And though it be but in a dream,
Our form of repentance.
Explaining the movement of the Shite and Tsure.
There he is carrying wands,
And she has no need to be asked.
See her within the cave,
With a cricket-like noise of weaving.
The grass-gates and the hedge are between them;
That is a symbol.
Night has already come on.
Now explaining the thoughts of the man’s spirit.
Love’s thoughts are heaped high within him,
As high as the charm-sticks,
As high as the charm-sticks, once coloured,
Now fading, lie heaped in this cave.
And he knows of their fading. He says:
I lie a body, unknown to any other man,
Like old wood buried in moss.
It were a fit thing
That I should stop thinking the love-thoughts.
The charm-sticks fade and decay,
And yet,
The rumour of our love
Takes foot and moves through the world.
We had no meeting
But tears have, it seems, brought out a bright blossom
Upon the dyed tree of love.
Tell me, could I have foreseen
Or known what a heap of my writings
Should lie at the end of her shaft-bench?
A hundred nights and more
Of twisting, encumbered sleep,
And now they make it a ballad,
Not for one year or for two only
But until the days lie deep
As the sand’s depth at Kefu,
Until the year’s end is red with Autumn,
Red like these love-wands,
A thousand nights are in vain.
And I stand at this gate-side.
You grant no admission, you do not show yourself
Until I and my sleeves are faded.
By the dew-like gemming of tears upon my sleeve,
Why will you grant no admission?
And we all are doomed to pass,
You, and my sleeves and my tears.
And you did not even know when three years had come to an end.
Cruel, ah cruel!
The charm-sticks. …
Were set up a thousand times;
Then, now, and for always.
Happy at last and well-starred,
Now comes the eve of betrothal:
We meet for the wine-cup.
How glorious the sleeves of the dance,
That are like snow-whirls!
Tread out the dance and bring music.
This dance is for Nishikigi.
This dance is for the evening plays,
And for the weaving.
For the tokens between lover and lover:
It is a reflecting in the wine-cup.
Ari-aki,
The dawn!
Come, we are out of place;
Let us go ere the light comes.
To the Waki.
We ask you, do not awake,
We all will wither away,
The wands and this cloth of a dream.
Now you will come out of sleep,
You tread the border and nothing
Awaits you: no, all this will wither away.
There is nothing here but this cave in the field’s midst.
Today’s wind moves in the pines;
A wild place, unlit, and unfilled.
The Mountain She-Devil
Hyakma Yamauba, a singer.
Yamauba, the mountain she-devil, appearing at first in the play as an old woman.
Chorus. This chorus sometimes speaks in place of the characters, sometimes explains the meaning of their movements.
| Servant | We seek a temple for its blessed shadow of light. I am from the capital; the lady with me here is a renowned singer commonly called Hyakma Yamauba. She is known |
