the maple-feasting.
44 At twenty-five I came to Suma, knowing all sorrow of seafare, having none to attend my dreams, no one to hear the old stories.
Then I was recalled to the city. I passed from office to office. I was naidaijin in Miwotsukushi, I was dajodaijin in the lands of Otome, and daijotenno in Fuji no Uraba; for this I was called Hikam Kimi.
| Waki |
But tell me exactly where he lived. Tell me all that you know about him. |
| Shite |
One can’t place the exact spot; he lived all along here by the waves. If you will wait for the moonlight you might see it all in a mist. |
| Chorus |
He was in Suma in the old days— |
| Shite |
Stepping behind a screen or making some sign of departure, he completes the sentence of the chorus.—but now in the aery heaven. |
| Chorus |
To Waki.
Wait and the moon will show him.
That woodman is gone in the clouds.
|
| Waki |
That “woodman” was Genji himself, who was here talking live words. I will wait for the night. I will stay here to see what happens. Announcing his act.45 Then Fujiwara no Okinori lay down and heard the waves filled with music. |
Scene II
Scene II begins with the appearance of the Second Shite, that is to say, a bright apparition of Genji in supernatural form.
| Genji |
How beautiful this sea is! When I trod the grass here I was called “Genji the gleaming,” and now from the vaulting heaven I reach down to set a magic on mortals. I sing of the moon in this shadow, here on this sea-marge of Suma. Here I will dance Sei-kai-ha, the blue dance of the sea waves.
And then he begins to dance.
|
| Chorus |
Accompanying and describing the dance.
The flower of waves-reflected
Is on his white garment;
That pattern covers the sleeve.
The air is alive with flute-sounds,
With the song of various pipes
The land is a-quiver,
And even the wild sea of Suma
Is filled with resonant quiet.
Moving in clouds and in rain,
The dream overlaps with the real;
There was a light out of heaven,
There was a young man at the dance here;
Surely it was Genji Hikaru,
It was Genji Hikaru in spirit.
|
| Genji |
My name is known to the world;
Here by the white waves was my dwelling;
But I am come down out of sky
To put my glamour on mortals.
|
| Chorus |
Gracious is the presence of Genji,
It is like the feel of things at Suma.
|
| Genji |
Referring also to a change in the dance.
The wind is abated.
|
| Chorus |
A thin cloud— |
| Genji |
—clings to the clear-blown sky.
It seems like the springtime.
|
| Chorus |
He came down like Brahma, Indra, and the Four Kings visiting the abode of Devas and Men.46
He, the soul of the place.47
He, who seemed but a woodman,
He flashed with the honoured colours,
He the true-gleaming.
Blue-grey is the garb they wear here,
Blue-grey he fluttered in Suma;
His sleeves were like the grey sea-waves;
They moved with curious rustling,
Like the noise of the restless waves,
Like the bell of a country town
’Neath the nightfall.
|
Nishikigi
Characters
-
The Waki: a priest
-
The Shite, or Hero: ghost of the lover
-
Tsure: Ghost of the woman; they have both been long dead, and have not yet been united.
-
Chorus
The Nishikigi are wands used as a love charm.
Hosonuno is the name of a local cloth which the woman weaves.
First Part
| Waki |
There never was anybody heard of Mount Shinobu but had a kindly feeling for it; so I, like any other priest that might want to know a little bit about each one of the provinces, may as well be walking up here along the much travelled road.
I have not yet been about the east country, but now I have set my mind to go as far as the earth goes; and why shouldn’t I, after all? seeing that I go about with my heart set upon no particular place whatsoever, and with no other man’s flag in my hand, no more than a cloud has. It is a flag of the night I see coming down upon me. I wonder now, would the sea be that way, or the little place Kefu that they say is stuck down against it?
|
| Shite |
To Tsure. Times out of mind am I here setting up this bright branch, this silky wood with the charms painted in it as fine as the web you’d get in the grass-cloth of Shinobu, that they’d be still selling you in this mountain. |
| Shite and Tsure |
Tangled, we are entangled. Whose fault was it, dear? tangled up as the grass patterns are tangled up in this coarse cloth, or as the little Mushi that lives on and chirrups in dried seaweed. We do not know where are today our tears in the undergrowth of this eternal wilderness. We neither wake nor sleep, and passing our nights in a sorrow which is in the end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us? This thinking in sleep of someone who has no thought of you, is it more than a dream? and yet surely it is the natural way of love. In our hearts there is much and in our bodies nothing, and we do nothing at all, and only the waters of the river of tears flow quickly.
|
| Chorus |
Narrow is the cloth of Kefu, but wild is that river, that torrent of the hills, between the beloved and the bride.
The cloth she had woven is faded, the thousand one hundred nights were night-trysts watched out in vain.
|
| Waki |
Not recognizing the nature of the speakers.
Strange indeed, seeing these town-people here.
They seem like man and wife,
And the lady seems to be holding something
Like a cloth woven of feathers,
While he has a staff or a wooden sceptre
Beautifully ornate.
Both of these things are strange;
In any case,
|
