Plays

I wonder what they call them. Tsure

This is a narrow cloth called “Hosonuno,”
It is just the breadth of the loom.

Shite

And this is merely wood painted,
And yet the place is famous because of these things.
Would you care to buy them from us?

Waki Yes, I know that the cloth of this place and the lacquers are famous things. I have already heard of their glory, and yet I still wonder why they have such great reputation. Tsure Ah well now, that’s a disappointment. Here they call the wood “Nishikigi,” and the woven stuff “Hosonuno,” and yet you come saying that you have never heard why, and never heard the story. Is it reasonable? Shite No, no, that is reasonable enough. What can people be expected to know of these affairs when it is more than they can do to keep abreast of their own? Both To the Priest. Ah well, you look like a person who has abandoned the world; it is reasonable enough that you should not know the worth of wands and cloths with love’s signs painted upon them, with love’s marks painted and dyed. Waki That is a fine answer. And you would tell me then that Nishikigi and Hosonuno are names bound over with love? Shite They are names in love’s list surely. Every day for a year, for three years come to their full, the wands Nishikigi were set up, until there were a thousand in all. And they are in song in your time, and will be. “Chidzuka” they call them. Tsure

These names are surely a byword.
As the cloth Hosonuno is narrow of weft,
More narrow than the breast,
We call by this name any woman
Whose breasts are hard to come nigh to.
It is a name in books of love.

Shite ’Tis a sad name to look back on. Tsure

A thousand wands were in vain.
A sad name, set in a story.

Shite

A seedpod void of the seed,
We had no meeting together.

Tsure Let him read out the story. Chorus

I

At last they forget, they forget.
The wands are no longer offered,
The custom is faded away.
The narrow cloth of Kefu
Will not meet over the breast.
’Tis the story of Hosonuno,
This is the tale:
These bodies, having no weft,
Even now are not come together.
Truly a shameful story,
A tale to bring shame on the gods.

II

Names of love,
Now for a little spell,
For a faint charm only,
For a charm as slight as the binding together
Of pine-flakes in Iwashiro,
And for saying a wish over them about sunset,
We return, and return to our lodging.
The evening sun leaves a shadow.

Waki Go on, tell out all the story. Shite There is an old custom of this country. We make wands of meditation, and deck them with symbols, and set them before a gate, when we are suitors. Tsure And we women take up a wand of the man we would meet with, and let the others lie, although a man might come for a hundred nights, it may be, or for a thousand nights in three years, till there were a thousand wands here in the shade of this mountain. We know the funeral cave of such a man, one who had watched out the thousand nights; a bright cave, for they buried him with all his wands. They have named it the “Cave of the many charms.” Waki

I will go to that love-cave,
It will be a tale to take back to my village.
Will you show me my way there?

Shite So be it, I will teach you the path. Tsure Tell him to come over this way. Both

Here are the pair of them
Going along before the traveller.

Chorus

We have spent the whole day until dusk
Pushing aside the grass
From the overgrown way at Kefu,
And we are not yet come to the cave.
O you there, cutting grass on the hill,
Please set your mind on this matter.
“You’d be asking where the dew is
While the frost’s lying here on the road.
Who’d tell you that now?”
Very well then don’t tell us,
But be sure we will come to the cave.

Shite

There’s a cold feel in the autumn.
Night comes.⁠ ⁠…

Chorus

And storms; trees giving up their leaf,
Spotted with sudden showers.
Autumn! our feet are clogged
In the dew-drenched, entangled leaves.
The perpetual shadow is lonely,
The mountain shadow is lying alone.
The owl cries out from the ivies
That drag their weight on the pine.
Among the orchids and chrysanthemum flowers
The hiding fox is now lord of that love-cave,
Nishidzuka,
That is dyed like the maple’s leaf.
They have left us this thing for a saying.
That pair have gone into the cave.

Sign for the exit of Shite and Tsure.

Second Part

	The Waki has taken the posture of sleep. His respectful visit to the cave is beginning to have its effect.
Waki	Restless. It seems that I cannot sleep For the length of a pricket’s horn. Under October wind, under pines, under night! I will do service to Butsu. He performs the gestures of a ritual.
Tsure	Aie! honoured priest! You do not dip twice in the river Beneath the same tree’s shadow Without bonds in some other life. Hear sooth-say, Now is there meeting between us, Between us who were until now In life and in afterlife kept apart. A dream-bridge over wild grass, Over the grass I dwell in. O honoured! do not awake me by force. I see that the law is perfect.
Shite	Supposedly invisible. It is a good service you have done, sir, A service that spreads in two worlds, And binds up an ancient love That was stretched out between them. I had watched for a thousand days. Take my thanks, For this meeting is under a difficult law. And now I will show myself in the form of Nishikigi. I will come out now for the first time in colour.
	The characters announce or explain their acts, as these are mostly symbolical. Thus here the Shite, or Sh’te, announces his change of costume, and later the dance.
Chorus	The three