earth her Presence is a Cherry Tree. For my lost child was dedicate to her, and he was brought up with the name of Cherry Blossom. So as the Goddess is called the Lady of the Blossom, and this child I seek is named Cherry Blossom, and this river is the Cherry Blossom River, I fain would save these fallen blooms that bear the name I love.
| Priest |
Oh! Admirable Reason! True indeed
a Cause there is to each Result,34
and this has brought thee up from Tsukushi
far Eastward to the cherry river here.
|
| Woman |
This river for its very distance famed.
What says the verse than Tsurayuki made?
|
| Priest |
’Tis true, for Tsurayuki sang of old,
hearing that in a land he had not seen,
|
| Woman |
in Hitachi, there ran a stream men call
|
| Priest |
The River of Blossoms, the Sakuragawa,
|
| Chorus |
Methinks, when Spring has come,
The waters rise, and ever beat the waves,
More than their wont upon the banks
Of the River of Blossoms.
Today the Flowers and the Poet too
have vanished like the snow, and left
only a name behind; the river still
flows on and shallow after shallow bears
its foaming blossom where the waves beat white.
⋮
|
| Villager |
To Madwoman. Alas! A sudden blast35 from the mountain tops is scattering the blossoms on the Sakuragawa. |
| Woman |
What sayest thou? The evening breeze
down from the mountains brings the blooms?
’Tis well. I’ll catch them in my net
before they float away.
|
| Priest |
See, see, the blast from the hills
on every tree top beating down,
|
| Woman |
the flood of flowers rising white
|
| Priest |
and the waves that break from above.
|
| Woman |
Are they blossoms?
|
| Priest |
Are they snow?
|
| Woman |
Are they waves?
|
| Priest |
Are they flowers?
|
| Woman |
The hovering clouds
|
| Priest |
by the river breeze
|
| Chorus |
are scattered and the waves flow on,
waves of the River of Blossoms,
let me catch them as they pass!
⋮
The waters flow,36 the flowers fall,
forever lasts the Spring.
The moon shines cold, the wind blows high,
the cranes do not fly home.
The flowers that grow in the rocks
are scarlet, and light up the stream.
The trees that grow by the caverns
are green and contain the breeze.
The blossoms open like brocade,
the brimming pools are deep and blue.
|
| Woman |
My straying footsteps brought me here
|
| Chorus |
to the river that rouses a longing within.
“The shade of a tree,37 the flow of a stream”—
Alike the name, alike the place,
they must be together bound
by a Link of former Life.
The water is the mirror of the flowers,
but as the year grows old
and blossoms fade and fall,
then can ye say the mirror tarnisheth?
What shall we do,
well knowing that the blossoms fade
and later turn to dust?
’Tis vain to hold
them blossoms which in truth are dreams.
For from the treetops
scattered and come to naught they fall,
fall on the waters, and, alas,
vanish as bubbles and are gone.
What looked like clouds
were the swift eddies and the silent pools
of blossoms on Miyoshino.
⋮
But though I catch them in my net,
the cherries, the flowers, the clouds and the waves,
are but the blossoms from the trees.
Not these indeed I seek,
but my beloved son,
not these indeed, but my beloved son,
my Sakura, my Flower.
⋮
|
| Priest |
Strange, O how strange
are this mad woman’s words to hear!
Comest thou perchance from Tsukushi?
|
| Woman |
Why dost thou ask this thing of me,
whom none until today have known,
whether I come from Tsukushi?
|
| Priest |
Why should we hide it from thee? Lo!
The bloom of love that doth not fade!
Behold thy Sakura.
|
| Woman |
That name I hear—
Is it a dream? I cannot tell—
Which is my child?
|
| Chorus |
The days of three long years have passed
and many a league has lain between
Mother and Son,
|
| Woman |
and his form has changed.
|
| Chorus |
But on that familiar face
|
| Woman |
looking with earnest gaze I see
the bright and blooming countenance
of Sakura, my blossom!
⋮
|
|
They depart together. |
Kinuta
Introduction
In Kinuta (“The Silk-board”) the plot is as follows:
The Waki, a country gentleman, has tarried long in the capital. He at last sends the Tsure, a maidservant, home with a message to his wife. The servant talks on the road. She reaches the Waki’s house and talks with the Shite (the wife). The chorus comments. Finally, the wife dies. The chorus sing a death-song, after which the husband returns. The second Shite, the ghost of the wife, then appears, and continues speaking alternately with the chorus until the close.
Characters
-
Waki, a country gentleman.
-
Tsure, the servant-maid Yugiri.
-
Shite, the wife.
-
Second Shite, ghost of the wife.
| Husband |
I am of Ashiya of Kinshu, unknown and of no repute. I have been loitering on in the capital entangled in many litigations. I went for a casual visit, and there I have been tarrying for three full years. Now I am anxious, overanxious, about affairs in my home. I shall send Yugiri homeward; she is a maid in my employ. Ho! Yugiri! I am worried. I shall send you down to the country. You will go home and tell them that I return at the end of this year. |
| Maidservant |
I will go, Sir, and say that then you are surely coming. She starts on her journey. The day is advancing, and I, in my travelling clothes, travel with the day. I do not know the lodgings, I do not know the dreams upon the road, I do not know the number of the dreams that gather for one night’s pillow. At length I am come to the village—it is true that I was in haste—I am come at last to Ashiya. I think I will call out gently. “Is there any person or thing in this house? Say that Yugiri is here in the street, she has just come back from the city.” |
| Wife |
Sorrow!—
Sorrow is in the twigs of the duck’s nest
And in the pillow of the fishes,
At being held apart in
|
