Certain Noble Plays of Japan Part 3

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.

WAKI

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.

s.h.i.+TE

Look then, the old times are shown, Faint as the shadow-flower shows in the gra.s.s that bears it; And you've but a moon for lanthorn.

TSURE

The woman has gone into the cave.

She sets up her loom there For the weaving of Hosonuno, Thin as the heart of Autumn.

s.h.i.+TE

The suitor for his part, holding his charm-sticks, Knocks on a gate which was barred.

TSURE

In old time he got back no answer, No secret sound at all Save....

s.h.i.+TE The sound of the loom.

TSURE

It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets, A thin sound like the Autumn.

s.h.i.+TE It was what you would hear any night.

TSURE

Kiri.

s.h.i.+TE

Hatari.

TSURE

Cho.

s.h.i.+TE

Cho.

CHORUS (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 gra.s.s in the field; sho, Churr, isho, like the whir of a loom: churr.

CHORUS (antistrophe)

Let be, they make gra.s.s-cloth in Kefu, Kefu, the land's end, matchless in the world.

s.h.i.+TE

That is an old custom, truly, But this priest would look on the past.

CHORUS

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 pa.s.s, Nor fade nor die out.

s.h.i.+TE

Even to-day the difficulty of our meeting is remembered, And is remembered in song.

CHORUS

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 s.h.i.+te 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 gra.s.s-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.

s.h.i.+TE

Tell me, could I have foreseen Or known what a heap of my writings Should lie at the end of her shaft-bench?

CHORUS

A hundred nights and more Of twisting, enc.u.mbered 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 pa.s.s, 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....

s.h.i.+TE