CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN: FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS OF ERNEST FENOLLOSA, CHOSEN AND FINISHED BY EZRA POUND, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS INTRODUCTION I In the series of books I edit for my sister I confine myself to thosethat have I believe some special value to Ireland, now or in the future. I have asked Mr. Pound for these beautiful plays because I think theywill help me to explain a certain possibility of the Irish dramaticmovement. I am writing these words with my imagination stirred by a visitto the studio of Mr. Dulac, the distinguished illustrator of the ArabianNights. I saw there the mask and head-dress to be worn in a play of mineby the player who will speak the part of Cuchulain, and who wearingthis noble half-Greek half-Asiatic face will appear perhaps like an imageseen in revery by some Orphic worshipper. I hope to have attained thedistance from life which can make credible strange events, elaboratewords. I have written a little play that can be played in a room for solittle money that forty or fifty readers of poetry can pay the price. There will be no scenery, for three musicians, whose seeming sun-burnedfaces will I hope suggest that they have wandered from village to villagein some country of our dreams, can describe place and weather, and atmoments action, and accompany it all by drum and gong or flute anddulcimer. Instead of the players working themselves into a violence ofpassion indecorous in our sitting-room, the music, the beauty of form andvoice all come to climax in pantomimic dance. In fact with the help of these plays 'translated by Ernest Fenollosa andfinished by Ezra Pound' I have invented a form of drama, distinguished, indirect and symbolic, and having no need of mob or press to pay itsway--an aristocratic form. When this play and its performance run assmoothly as my skill can make them, I shall hope to write another of thesame sort and so complete a dramatic celebration of the life of Cuchulainplanned long ago. Then having given enough performances for I hope thepleasure of personal friends and a few score people of good taste, Ishall record all discoveries of method and turn to something else. It isan advantage of this noble form that it need absorb no one's life, thatits few properties can be packed up in a box, or hung upon the wallswhere they will be fine ornaments. II And yet this simplification is not mere economy. For nearly threecenturies invention has been making the human voice and the movements ofthe body seem always less expressive. I have long been puzzled whypassages, that are moving when read out or spoken during rehearsal, seemmuffled or dulled during performance. I have simplified scenery, having'The Hour Glass' for instance played now before green curtains, now amongthose admirable ivory-coloured screens invented by Gordon Craig. Withevery simplification the voice has recovered something of its importanceand yet when verse has approached in temper to let us say 'Kubla Khan, 'or 'The Ode to the West Wind, ' the most typical modern verse, I havestill felt as if the sound came to me from behind a veil. The stage-opening, the powerful light and shade, the number of feet betweenmyself and the players have destroyed intimacy. I have found myselfthinking of players who needed perhaps but to unroll a mat in someEastern garden. Nor have I felt this only when I listened tospeech, but even more when I have watched the movement of a player orheard singing in a play. I love all the arts that can still remind me oftheir origin among the common people, and my ears are only comfortablewhen the singer sings as if mere speech had taken fire, when he appearsto have passed into song almost imperceptibly. I am bored and wretched, a limitation I greatly regret, when he seems no longer a human being butan invention of science. To explain him to myself I say that he hasbecome a wind instrument and sings no longer like active men, sailor orcamel driver, because he has had to compete with an orchestra, where theloudest instrument has always survived. The human voice can only becomelouder by becoming less articulate, by discovering some new musical sortof roar or scream. As poetry can do neither, the voice must be freedfrom this competition and find itself among little instruments, onlyheard at their best perhaps when we are close about them. It should beagain possible for a few poets to write as all did once, not for theprinted page but to be sung. But movement also has grown less expressive, more declamatory, less intimate. When I called the other day upon afriend I found myself among some dozen people who were watching a groupof Spanish boys and girls, professional dancers, dancing some nationaldance in the midst of a drawing-room. Doubtless their training had beenlong, laborious and wearisome; but now one could not be deceived, theirmovement was full of joy. They were among friends, and it all seemedbut the play of children; how powerful it seemed, how passionate, whilean even more miraculous art, separated from us by the footlights, appeared in the comparison laborious and professional. It is well tobe close enough to an artist to feel for him a personal liking, closeenough perhaps to feel that our liking is returned. My play is made possible by a Japanese dancer whom I have seen dance in astudio and in a drawing-room and on a very small stage lit by anexcellent stage-light. In the studio and in the drawing-room alone wherethe lighting was the light we are most accustomed to, did I see him asthe tragic image that has stirred my imagination. There where nostudied lighting, no stage-picture made an artificial world, he was able, as he rose from the floor, where he had been sitting crossed-legged or ashe threw out an arm, to recede from us into some more powerful life. Because that separation was achieved by human means alone, he receded, but to inhabit as it were the deeps of the mind. One realised anew, at every separating strangeness, that the measure of all arts' greatnesscan be but in their intimacy. III All imaginative art keeps at a distance and this distance once chosenmust be firmly held against a pushing world. Verse, ritual, music anddance in association with action require that gesture, costume, facialexpression, stage arrangement must help in keeping the door. Ourunimaginative arts are content to set a piece of the world as we know itin a place by itself, to put their photographs as it were in a plush or aplain frame, but the arts which interest me, while seeming to separatefrom the world and us a group of figures, images, symbols, enable us topass for a few moments into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been toosubtle for our habitation. As a deep of the mind can only be approachedthrough what is most human, most delicate, we should distrust bodilydistance, mechanism and loud noise. It may be well if we go to school in Asia, for the distance from life inEuropean art has come from little but difficulty with material. In half-Asiatic Greece Kallimachos could still return to a stylistic managementof the falling folds of drapery, after the naturalistic drapery ofPhidias, and in Egypt the same age that saw the village Head-man carvedin wood for burial in some tomb with so complete a naturalism saw, set upin public places, statues full of an august formality that impliestraditional measurements, a philosophic defence. The spiritual paintingof the 14th century passed on into Tintoretto and that of Velasquez intomodern painting with no sense of loss to weigh against the gain, whilethe painting of Japan, not having our European Moon to churn the wits, has understood that no styles that ever delighted noble imaginations havelost their importance, and chooses the style according to the subject. In literature also we have had the illusion of change and progress, theart of Shakespeare passing into that of Dryden, and so into the prosedrama, by what has seemed when studied in its details unbroken progress. Had we been Greeks, and so but half-European, an honourable mob wouldhave martyred though in vain the first man who set up a painted scene, orwho complained that soliloquies were unnatural, instead of repeating witha sigh, 'we cannot return to the arts of childhood however beautiful. 'Only our lyric poetry has kept its Asiatic habit and renewed itself atits own youth, putting off perpetually what has been called its progressin a series of violent revolutions. Therefore it is natural that I go to Asia for a stage-convention, formore formal faces, for a chorus that has no part in the action andperhaps for those movements of the body copied from the marionette showsof the 14th century. A mask will enable me to substitute for the face ofsome common-place player, or for that face repainted to suit his ownvulgar fancy, the fine invention of a sculptor, and to bring the audienceclose enough to the play to hear every inflection of the voice. A masknever seems but a dirty face, and no matter how close you go is still awork of art; nor shall we lose by staying the movement of the features, for deep feeling is expressed by a movement of the whole body. Inpoetical painting & in sculpture the face seems the nobler for lackingcuriosity, alert attention, all that we sum up under the famous word ofthe realists 'vitality. ' It is even possible that being is only possessedcompletely by the dead, and that it is some knowledge of this thatmakes us gaze with so much emotion upon the face of the Sphinx or Buddha. Who can forget the face of Chaliapine as the Mogul King in Prince Igor, when a mask covering its upper portion made him seem like a Phoenix atthe end of its thousand wise years, awaiting in condescension the burningnest and what did it not gain from that immobility in dignity and inpower? IV Realism is created for the common people and was always their peculiardelight, and it is the delight to-day of all those whose minds educatedalone by school-masters and newspapers are without the memory of beautyand emotional subtlety. The occasional humorous realism that so muchheightened the emotional effect of Elizabethan Tragedy, Cleopatra's oldman with an asp let us say, carrying the tragic crisis by its contrastabove the tide-mark of Corneille's courtly theatre, was made at theoutset to please the common citizen standing on the rushes of the floor;but the great speeches were written by poets who remembered their patronsin the covered galleries. The fanatic Savonarola was but dead a century, and his lamentation in the frenzy of his rhetoric, that every prince ofthe Church or State throughout Europe was wholly occupied with the finearts, had still its moiety of truth. A poetical passage cannot beunderstood without a rich memory, and like the older school of paintingappeals to a tradition, and that not merely when it speaks of 'Lethe'sWharf' or 'Dido on the wild sea-banks' but in rhythm, in vocabulary; forthe ear must notice slight variations upon old cadences and customarywords, all that high breeding of poetical style where there is nothingostentatious, nothing crude, no breath of parvenu or journalist. Let us press the popular arts on to a more complete realism, for thatwould be their honesty; and the commercial arts demoralise by theircompromise, their incompleteness, their idealism without sincerityor elegance, their pretence that ignorance can understand beauty. In thestudio and in the drawing-room we can found a true theatre of beauty. Poets from the time of Keats and Blake have derived their descent onlythrough what is least declamatory, least popular in the art ofShakespeare, and in such a theatre they will find their habitualaudience and keep their freedom. Europe is very old and has seen manyarts run through the circle and has learned the fruit of every flower andknown what this fruit sends up, and it is now time to copy the East andlive deliberately. V 'Ye shall not, while ye tarry with me, taste From unrinsed barrel the diluted wine Of a low vineyard or a plant illpruned, But such as anciently the Aegean Isles Poured in libation at their solemn feasts: And the same goblets shall ye grasp embost With no vile figures of loose languid boors, But such as Gods have lived with and have led. ' The Noh theatre of Japan became popular at the close of the 14th century, gathering into itself dances performed at Shinto shrines in honour ofspirits and gods or by young nobles at the court, and much old lyricpoetry, and receiving its philosophy and its final shape perhaps frompriests of a contemplative school of Buddhism. A small daimio or feudallord of the ancient capital Nara, a contemporary of Chaucer's, was theauthor, or perhaps only the stage-manager, of many plays. He brought themto the court of the Shogun at Kioto. From that on the Shogun and hiscourt were as busy with dramatic poetry as the Mikado and his with lyric. When for the first time Hamlet was being played in London Noh was made anecessary part of official ceremonies at Kioto, and young nobles andprinces, forbidden to attend the popular theatre in Japan as elsewherea place of mimicry and naturalism were encouraged to witness and toperform in spectacles where speech, music, song and dance created animage of nobility and strange beauty. When the modern revolution came, Noh after a brief unpopularity was played for the first time in certainceremonious public theatres, and 1897 a battleship was named Takasago, after one of its most famous plays. Some of the old noble families areto-day very poor, their men it may be but servants and labourers, butthey still frequent these theatres. 'Accomplishment' the word Noh means, and it is their accomplishment and that of a few cultured people whounderstand the literary and mythological allusions and the ancient lyricsquoted in speech or chorus, their discipline, a part of their breeding. The players themselves, unlike the despised players of the populartheatre, have passed on proudly from father to son an elaborate art, andeven now a player will publish his family tree to prove his skill. Oneplayer wrote in 1906 in a business circular--I am quoting from Mr. Pound's redaction of the Notes of Fenollosa--that after thirtygenerations of nobles a woman of his house dreamed that a mask wascarried to her from heaven, and soon after she bore a son who became aplayer and the father of players. His family he declared still possesseda letter from a 15th century Mikado conferring upon them a theatre-curtain, white below and purple above. There were five families of these players and, forbidden before theRevolution to perform in public, they had received grants of land orsalaries from the state. The white and purple curtain was no doubt tohang upon a wall behind the players or over their entrance door for theNoh stage is a platform surrounded upon three sides by the audience. No'naturalistic' effect is sought. The players wear masks and found theirmovements upon those of puppets: the most famous of all Japanesedramatists composed entirely for puppets. A swift or a slow movement anda long or a short stillness, and then another movement. They sing as muchas they speak, and there is a chorus which describes the scene andinterprets their thought and never becomes as in the Greek theatre apart of the action. At the climax instead of the disordered passion ofnature there is a dance, a series of positions & movements which mayrepresent a battle, or a marriage, or the pain of a ghost in the Buddhistpurgatory. I have lately studied certain of these dances, with Japaneseplayers, and I notice that their ideal of beauty, unlike that of Greeceand like that of pictures from Japan and China, makes them pause atmoments of muscular tension. The interest is not in the human form but inthe rhythm to which it moves, and the triumph of their art is to expressthe rhythm in its intensity. There are few swaying movements of arms orbody such as make the beauty of our dancing. They move from the hip, keeping constantly the upper part of their body still, and seem toassociate with every gesture or pose some definite thought. They crossthe stage with a sliding movement, and one gets the impression not ofundulation but of continuous straight lines. The Print Room of the British Museum is now closed as a war-economy, so Ican only write from memory of theatrical colour-prints, where a ship isrepresented by a mere skeleton of willows or osiers painted green, or afruit tree by a bush in a pot, and where actors have tied on their maskswith ribbons that are gathered into a bunch behind the head. It is achild's game become the most noble poetry, and there is no observation oflife, because the poet would set before us all those things which we feeland imagine in silence. Mr. Ezra Pound has found among the Fenollosa manuscripts a storytraditional among Japanese players. A young man was following a statelyold woman through the streets of a Japanese town, and presently sheturned to him and spoke: 'Why do you follow me?' 'Because you are sointeresting. ' 'That is not so, I am too old to be interesting. ' But hewished he told her to become a player of old women on the Noh stage. 'Ifhe would become famous as a Noh player she said, he must not observelife, nor put on an old voice and stint the music of his voice. Hemust know how to suggest an old woman and yet find it all in the heart. ' VI In the plays themselves I discover a beauty or a subtlety that I cantrace perhaps to their threefold origin. The love-sorrows, the love offather and daughter, of mother and son, of boy and girl, may owe theirnobility to a courtly life, but he to whom the adventures happen, atraveller commonly from some distant place, is most often a Buddhistpriest; and the occasional intellectual subtlety is perhaps Buddhist. Theadventure itself is often the meeting with ghost, god or goddess at someholy place or much-legended tomb; and god, goddess or ghost remindsme at times of our own Irish legends and beliefs, which once it may bediffered little from those of the Shinto worshipper. The feather-mantle, for whose lack the moon goddess, (or should we callher fairy?) cannot return to the sky, is the red cap whose theft can keepour fairies of the sea upon dry land; and the ghost-lovers in 'Nishikigi'remind me of the Aran boy and girl who in Lady Gregory's story come tothe priest after death to be married. These Japanese poets too feel fortomb and wood the emotion, the sense of awe that our Gaelic speakingcountry people will some times show when you speak to them of CastleHackett or of some Holy Well; and that is why perhaps it pleases them tobegin so many plays by a Traveller asking his way with many questions, aconvention agreeable to me; for when I first began to write poeticalplays for an Irish theatre I had to put away an ambition of helping tobring again to certain places, their old sanctity or their romance. Icould lay the scene of a play on Baile's Strand, but I found no pause inthe hurried action for descriptions of strand or sea or the great yewtree that once stood there; and I could not in 'The King's Threshold'find room, before I began the ancient story, to call up the shallow riverand the few trees and rocky fields of modern Gort. But in the 'Nishikigi'the tale of the lovers would lose its pathos if we did not see thatforgotten tomb where 'the hiding fox' lives among 'the orchids and thechrysanthemum flowers. ' The men who created this convention were morelike ourselves than were the Greeks and Romans, more like us even thanare Shakespeare and Corneille. Their emotion was self-conscious andreminiscent, always associating itself with pictures and poems. Theymeasured all that time had taken or would take away and found theirdelight in remembering celebrated lovers in the scenery pale passionloves. They travelled seeking for the strange and for the picturesque: 'Igo about with my heart set upon no particular place, no more than acloud. I wonder now would the sea be that way, or the little place Kefuthat they say is stuck down against it. ' When a traveller asks his way ofgirls upon the roadside he is directed to find it by certain pine trees, which he will recognise because many people have drawn them. I wonder am I fanciful in discovering in the plays themselves (fewexamples have as yet been translated and I may be misled by accident orthe idiosyncrasy of some poet) a playing upon a single metaphor, asdeliberate as the echoing rhythm of line in Chinese and Japanesepainting. In the 'Nishikigi' the ghost of the girl-lover carries thecloth she went on weaving out of grass when she should have opened thechamber door to her lover, and woven grass returns again and again inmetaphor and incident. The lovers, now that in an aery body they mustsorrow for unconsummated love, are 'tangled up as the grass patterns aretangled. ' Again they are like an unfinished cloth: 'these bodies, havingno weft, even now are not come together, truly a shameful story, a taleto bring shame on the gods. ' Before they can bring the priest to the tombthey spend the day 'pushing aside the grass from the overgrown ways inKefu, ' and the countryman who directs them is 'cutting grass on thehill;' & when at last the prayer of the priest unites them in marriagethe bride says that he has made 'a dream-bridge over wild grass, over thegrass I dwell in;' and in the end bride and bridegroom show themselvesfor a moment 'from under the shadow of the love-grass. ' In 'Hagoromo' the feather-mantle of the fairy woman creates also itsrhythm of metaphor. In the beautiful day of opening spring 'the plumageof Heaven drops neither feather nor flame, ' 'nor is the rock of earthover-much worn by the brushing of the feathery skirt of the stars. ' Onehalf remembers a thousand Japanese paintings, or whichever comes firstinto the memory. That screen painted by Korin, let us say, shown latelyat the British Museum, where the same form is echoing in wave and incloud and in rock. In European poetry I remember Shelley's continuallyrepeated fountain and cave, his broad stream and solitary star. Inneglecting character which seems to us essential in drama, as do theirartists in neglecting relief and depth, when they arrange flowers in avase in a thin row, they have made possible a hundred lovely intricacies. VII These plays arose in an age of continual war and became a part of theeducation of soldiers. These soldiers, whose natures had as much ofWalter Pater as of Achilles combined with Buddhist priests and womento elaborate life in a ceremony, the playing of football, the drinking oftea, and all great events of state, becoming a ritual. In the paintingthat decorated their walls and in the poetry they recited one discoversthe only sign of a great age that cannot deceive us, the most vivid andsubtle discrimination of sense and the invention of images more powerfulthan sense; the continual presence of reality. It is still true that theDeity gives us, according to His promise, not His thoughts or Hisconvictions but His flesh and blood, and I believe that the elaboratetechnique of the arts, seeming to create out of itself a superhuman lifehas taught more men to die than oratory or the Prayer Book. We onlybelieve in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain butin the whole body. The Minoan soldier who bore upon his arm the shieldornamented with the dove in the Museum at Crete, or had upon his head thehelmet with the winged horse, knew his rôle in life. When Nobuzanepainted the child Saint Kobo, Daishi kneeling full of sweet austerityupon the flower of the lotus, he set up before our eyes exquisite lifeand the acceptance of death. I cannot imagine those young soldiers and the women they loved pleasedwith the ill-breeding and theatricality of Carlyle, nor I think with themagniloquence of Hugo. These things belong to an industrial age, amechanical sequence of ideas; but when I remember that curious game whichthe Japanese called, with a confusion of the senses that had seemedtypical of our own age, 'listening to incense, ' I know that some amongthem would have understood the prose of Walter Pater, the painting orPuvis de Chavannes, the poetry of Mallarmé and Verlaine. When heroismreturned to our age it bore with it as its first gift technicalsincerity. VIII For some weeks now I have been elaborating my play in London where aloneI can find the help I need, Mr. Dulac's mastery of design and Mr. Ito'sgenius of movement; yet it pleases me to think that I am working for myown country. Perhaps some day a play in the form I am adapting forEuropean purposes shall awake once more, whether in Gaelic or in English, under the slope of Slieve-na-mon or Croagh Patrick ancient memories; forthis form has no need of scenery that runs away with money nor of atheatre-building. Yet I know that I only amuse myself with a fancy; forthough my writings if they be sea-worthy must put to sea, I cannot tellwhere they may be carried by the wind. Are not the fairy-stories of OscarWilde, which were written for Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon and for a fewladies, very popular in Arabia? W. B. Yeats, April 1916. NISHIKIGI NISHIKIGI, A PLAY IN TWO ACTS BY MOTOKIYO. PERSONS OF THE PLAY THE WAKI A priest THE SHITE, OR HERO Ghost of the lover TSURE Ghost of the woman; they have both been longdead, 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 thewoman weaves. NISHIKIGI Part First WAKIThere never was anybody heard of Mount Shinobu but had a kindly feelingfor it; so I, like any other priest that might want to know a little bitabout each one of the provinces, may as well be walking up here along themuch travelled road. I have not yet been about the east country, but now I have set my mind togo as far as the earth goes; and why shouldn't I, after all? seeing thatI go about with my heart set upon no particular place whatsoever, andwith no other man's flag in my hand, no more than a cloud has. It is aflag of the night I see coming down upon me. I wonder now, would the seabe that way, or the little place Kefu that they say is stuck down againstit? SHITE (to Tsure)Times out of mind am I here setting up this bright branch, this silkywood with the charms painted in it as fine as the web you'd get in thegrass-cloth of Shinobu, that they'd be still selling you in thismountain. SHITE AND TSURETangled, we are entangled. Whose fault was it, dear? tangled up as thegrass patterns are tangled up in this coarse cloth, or as the littleMushi that lives on and chirrups in dried sea-weed. We do not know whereare to-day our tears in the undergrowth of this eternal wilderness. Weneither wake nor sleep, and passing our nights in a sorrow which is inthe end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us? This thinking insleep of someone who has no thought of you, is it more than a dream? andyet surely it is the natural way of love. In our hearts there is much andin our bodies nothing, and we do nothing at all, and only the waters ofthe river of tears flow quickly. CHORUSNarrow is the cloth of Kefu, but wild is that river, that torrent of thehills, between the beloved and the bride. The cloth she had woven is faded, the thousand one hundred nights werenight-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, 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? WAKIYes, I know that the cloth of this place and the lacquers are famousthings. I have already heard of their glory, and yet I still wonder whythey have such great reputation. TSUREAh well now, that's a disappointment. Here they call the wood Nishikigi, 'and the woven stuff 'Hosonuno, ' and yet you come saying that you havenever heard why, and never heard the story. Is it reasonable? SHITENo, no, that is reasonable enough. What can people be expected to know ofthese affairs when it is more than they can do to keep abreast of theirown? BOTH (to the Priest)Ah well, you look like a person who has abandoned the world; it isreasonable enough that you should not know the worth of wands and clothswith love's signs painted upon them, with love's marks painted and dyed. WAKIThat is a fine answer. And you would tell me then that Nishikigi andHosonuno are names bound over with love? SHITEThey are names in love's list surely. Every day for a year, for threeyears come to their full, the wands Nishikigi were set up, until therewere 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 by-word. 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 seed-pod void of the seed, We had no meeting together. TSURELet him read out the story. CHORUSI 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. WAKIGo on, tell out all the story. SHITEThere is an old custom of this country. We make wands of meditation, anddeck them with symbols, and set them before a gate, when we are suitors. TSUREAnd we women take up a wand of the man we would meet with, and let theothers lie, although a man might come for a hundred nights, it may be, orfor a thousand nights in three years, till there were a thousand wandshere in the shade of this mountain. We know the funeral cave of such aman, one who had watched out the thousand nights; a bright cave, for theyburied him with all his wands. They have named it the 'Cave of the manycharms. ' 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? SHITESo be it, I will teach you the path. TSURETell 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 over-grown 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) Part Second (The Waki has taken the posture of sleep. His respectful visit to thecave 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 after-life 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 mostlysymbolical. Thus here the Shite, or Sh'te, announces his change ofcostume, and later the dance. ) CHORUS The three years are over and past: All that is but an old story. SHITE 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. CHORUS 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! SHITE There is at the root of hell No distinction between princes and commons; Wretched for me! 'tis the saying. WAKI 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? TSURE 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. SHITE 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. SHITE 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 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. SHITE 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. .. . SHITEThe sound of the loom. TSURE It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets, A thin sound like the Autumn. SHITEIt was what you would hear any night. TSURE Kiri. SHITE Hatari. TSURE Cho. SHITE 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 grass in the field; sho, Churr, isho, like the whir of a loom: churr. CHORUS (antistrophe) Let be, they make grass-cloth in Kefu, Kefu, the land's end, matchless in the world. SHITE 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 pass, Nor fade nor die out. SHITE 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 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. SHITE 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, 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. .. . SHITE Were set up a thousand times; Then, now, and for always. CHORUSShall I ever at last see into that room of hers, which no other sight hastraversed? SHITE Happy at last and well-starred, Now comes the eve of betrothal: We meet for the wine-cup. CHORUS How glorious the sleeves of the dance, That are like snow-whirls! SHITETread out the dance. CHORUS Tread out the dance and bring music. This dance is for Nishikigi. SHITE This dance is for the evening plays, And for the weaving. CHORUS For the tokens between lover and lover: It is a reflecting in the wine-cup. CHORUS 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. To-day's wind moves in the pines; A wild place, unlit, and unfilled. HAGOROMO HAGOROMO, A PLAY IN ONE ACT. PERSONS OF THE PLAY THE PRIEST Hakuryo A FISHERMAN A TENNIN CHORUS HAGOROMO The plot of the play 'Hagoromo, the Feather-mantle' is as follows. Thepriest finds the Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a Tennin, anaerial spirit or celestial dancer, hanging upon a bough. She demandsits return. He argues with her, and finally promises to return it, if shewill teach him her dance or part of it. She accepts the offer. The Chorusexplains the dance as symbolical of the daily changes of the moon. Thewords about 'three, five and fifteen' refer to the number of nights inthe moon's changes. In the finale, the Tennin is supposed to disappearlike a mountain slowly hidden in mist. The play shows the relation of theearly Noh to the God-dance. PRIEST Windy road of the waves by Miwo, Swift with ships, loud over steersmen's voices. Hakuryo, taker of fish, head of his house, Dwells upon the barren pine-waste of Miwo. A FISHERMANUpon a thousand heights had gathered the inexplicable cloud, swept by therain. The moon is just come to light the low house. A clean and pleasanttime surely. There comes the breath-colour of spring; the waves rise in aline below the early mist; the moon is still delaying above, though we'veno skill to grasp it. Here is a beauty to set the mind above itself. CHORUS I shall not be out of memory Of the mountain road by Kiyomi, Nor of the parted grass by that bay, Nor of the far-seen pine-waste Of Miwo of wheat stalks. Let us go according to custom. Take hands against the wind here, for itpresses the clouds and the sea. Those men who were going to fish areabout to return without launching. Wait a little, is it not spring? willnot the wind be quiet? this wind is only the voice of the lasting pine-trees, ready for stillness. See how the air is soundless, or would be, were it not for the waves. There now, the fishermen are putting out witheven the smallest boats. PRIESTNow I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark in Subara; I see all thatthey speak of on the shore. An empty sky with music, a rain of flowers, strange fragrance on every side; all these are no common things, nor isthis cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree. As I approach to inhale itscolour I am aware of mystery. Its colour-smell is mysterious. I see thatit is surely no common dress. I will take it now and return and make it atreasure in my house, to show to the aged. TENNINThat cloak belongs to someone on this side. What are you proposing to dowith it? PRIESTThis? this is a cloak picked up. I am taking it home, I tell you. TENNIN That is a feather-mantle not fit for a mortal to bear, Not easily wrested from the sky-traversing spirit, Not easily taken or given. I ask you to leave it where you found it. PRIESTHow, is the owner of this cloak a Tennin? so be it. In this downcast ageI should keep it, a rare thing, and make it a treasure in the country, athing respected. Then I should not return it. TENNINPitiful, there is no flying without the cloak of feathers, no returnthrough the ether. I pray you return me the mantle. PRIESTJust from hearing these high words, I, Hakuryo have gathered more and yetmore force. You think, because I was too stupid to recognise it, that Ishall be unable to take and keep hid the feather-robe, that I shall giveit back for merely being told to stand and withdraw? TENNIN A Tennin without her robe, A bird without wings, How shall she climb the air? PRIESTAnd this world would be a sorry place for her to dwell in? TENNINI am caught, I struggle, how shall I?. .. PRIESTNo, Hakuryo is not one to give back the robe. TENNINPower does not attain. .. . PRIESTTo get back the robe. CHORUSHer coronet [1] jewelled as with the dew of tears, even the flowers thatdecorated her hair drooping, and fading, the whole chain of weaknesses[2] of the dying Tennin can be seen actually before the eyes. Sorrow! [Footnote 1: Vide examples of state head-dress of kingfisher feathers, inthe South Kensington Museum. ] [Footnote 2: The chain of weaknesses, or the five ills, diseases of theTennin: namely, the hanakadzusa withers; the Hagoromo is stained; sweatcomes from the body; both eyes wink frequently; she feels very weary ofher palace in heaven. ] TENNINI look into the flat of heaven, peering; the cloud-road is all hidden anduncertain; we are lost in the rising mist; I have lost the knowledge ofthe road. Strange, a strange sorrow! CHORUSEnviable colour of breath, wonder of clouds that fade along the sky thatwas our accustomed dwelling; hearing the sky-bird, accustomed and wellaccustomed, hearing the voices grow fewer, the wild geese fewer and feweralong the highways of air, how deep her longing to return. Plover andseagull are on the waves in the offing. Do they go, or do they return?She reaches out for the very blowing of the spring wind against heaven. PRIEST (to the Tennin)What do you say? now that I can see you in your sorrow, gracious, ofheaven, I bend and would return you your mantle. TENNINIt grows clearer. No, give it this side. PRIESTFirst tell me your nature, who are you, Tennin? give payment with thedance of the Tennin, and I will return you your mantle. TENNINReadily and gladly, and then I return into heaven. You shall have whatpleasure you will, and I will leave a dance here, a joy to be new amongmen and to be memorial dancing. Learn then this dance that can turn thepalace of the moon. No, come here to learn it. For the sorrows of theworld I will leave this new dancing with you for sorrowful people. Butgive me my mantle, I cannot do the dance rightly without it. PRIESTNot yet, for if you should get it, how do I know you'll not be off toyour palace without even beginning your dance, not even a measure? TENNINDoubt is fitting for mortals; with us there is no deceit. PRIESTI am again ashamed. I give you your mantle. CHORUSThe young maid now is arrayed; she assumes the curious mantle; watch howshe moves in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment. PRIESTThe heavenly feather-robe moves in accord with the wind. TENNINThe sleeves of flowers are being wet with the rain. PRIESTThe wind and the sleeve move together. CHORUS It seems that she dances. Thus was the dance of pleasure, Suruga dancing, brought to the sacred east. Thus was it when the lords of the everlasting Trod the world, They being of old our friends. Upon ten sides their sky is without limit, They have named it on this account, 'the enduring. ' TENNINThe jewelled axe takes up the eternal renewing, the palace of the moon-god is being renewed with the jewelled axe, and this is always recurring. CHORUS (commenting on the dance) The white kiromo, the black kiromo, Three, five into fifteen, The figure that the Tennin is dividing. There are heavenly nymphs, Amaotome, [3] One for each night of the month, And each with her deed assigned. [Footnote 3: Cf. 'Paradiso, ' xxiii, 25. 'Quale nei plenilunii sereniTrivia ride tra le ninfe eterne. '] TENNINI also am heaven-born and a maid, Amaotome. Of them there are many. Thisis the dividing of my body, that is fruit of the moon's tree, Katsuma. [4] This is one part of our dance that I leave to you here in your world. [Footnote 4: A tree something like the laurel. ] CHORUSThe spring mist is widespread abroad; so perhaps the wild olive's flowerwill blossom in the infinitely unreachable moon. Her flowery head-ornament is putting on colour; this truly is sign of the spring. Not skyis here, but the beauty; and even here comes the heavenly, wonderfulwind. O blow, shut the accustomed path of the clouds. O, you in the formof a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine-waste of Miwoputs on the colour of spring. The bay of Kiyomi lies clear before thesnow upon Fuji. Are not all these presages of the spring? There are butfew ripples beneath the piny wind. It is quiet along the shore. There isnaught but a fence of jewels between the earth and the sky, and the godswithin and without, [5] beyond and beneath the stars, and the moonunclouded by her lord, and we who are born of the sun. This aloneintervenes, here where the moon is unshadowed, here in Nippon, the sun'sfield. [Footnote 5: 'Within and without, ' gei, gu, two parts of the temple] TENNINThe plumage of heaven drops neither feather nor flame to its owndiminution. CHORUSNor is this rock of earth over-much worn by the brushing of that feather-mantle, the feathery skirt of the stars: rarely, how rarely. There is amagic song from the east, the voices of many and many: and flute andshae, filling the space beyond the cloud's edge, seven-stringed; dancefilling and filling. The red sun blots on the sky the line of the colour-drenched mountains. The flowers rain in a gust; it is no racking stormthat comes over this green moor, which is afloat, as it would seem, inthese waves. Wonderful is the sleeve of the white cloud, whirlingsuch snow here. TENNINPlain of life, field of the sun, true foundation, great power! CHORUSHence and for ever this dancing shall be called, 'a revel in the east. 'Many are the robes thou hast, now of the sky's colour itself, and now agreen garment. SEMI-CHORUSAnd now the robe of mist, presaging spring, a colour-smell as thiswonderful maiden's skirt--left, right, left! The rustling of flowers, theputting-on of the feathery sleeve; they bend in air with the dancing. SEMI-CHORUSMany are the joys in the east. She who is the colour-person of the moontakes her middle-night in the sky. She marks her three fives with thisdancing, as a shadow of all fulfilments. The circled vows are at full. Give the seven jewels of rain and all of the treasure, you who go fromus. After a little time, only a little time, can the mantle be upon thewind that was spread over Matsubara or over Ashilaka the mountain, though the clouds lie in its heaven like a plain awash with sea. Fuji isgone; the great peak of Fuji is blotted out little by little. It meltsinto the upper mist. In this way she (the Tennin) is lost to sight. KUMASAKA KUMASAKA, A PLAY IN TWO ACTS BY UJINOBU, ADOPTED SON OF MOTOKIJO. PERSONS OF THE PLAY A PRIEST FIRST SHITE, OR HERO The apparition of Kumasaka in the form of an old priest SECOND SHITE The apparition of Kumasaka in his true form. CHORUS This chorus sometimes speaks what the chiefcharacters are thinking, sometimes it describesor interprets the meaning of their movements. Plot: the ghost of Kumasaka makes reparation forhis brigandage by protecting the country. Hecomes back to praise the bravery of the young manwho killed him in single combat. KUMASAKA Part First PRIESTWhere shall I rest, wandering, weary of the world? I am a city-bredpriest, I have not seen the east counties, and I've a mind to go there. Crossing the hills, I look on the lake of Omi, on the woods of Awatsu. Going over the long bridge at Seta, I rested a night at Noje, and anotherat Shinohara, and at the dawn I came to the green field, Awono in Miwo. Inow pass Akasaka at sunset. SHITE (In the form of an old priest)I could tell that priest a thing or two. PRIESTDo you mean me, what is it? SHITEA certain man died on this day. I ask you to pray for him. PRIESTAll right, but for whom shall I pray? SHITEI will not tell you his name, but his grave lies in the green fieldbeyond that tall pine tree. He cannot enter to the gates of Paradise, andso I ask you to pray. PRIESTBut I do not think it is proper to pray unless you tell me his name. SHITENo, no; you can pray the prayer, Ho kai shijo biodo riaku; that would do. PRIEST (praying)Unto all mortals let there be equal grace, to pass from this life ofagony by the gates of death into law, into the peaceful kingdom. SHITE (saying first a word or two)If you pray for him, -- CHORUS (continuing the sentence)If you pray with the prayer of 'Exeat' he will be thankful, and you neednot be aware of his name. They say that prayer can be heard for even thegrass and the plants, for even the sand and the soil here; and they willsurely hear it, if you pray for an unknown man. SHITEWill you enter? This is my cottage. PRIESTThis is your house? Very well, I will hold the service in your house; butI see no picture of Buddha nor any wooden image in this cottage, nothingbut a long spear on one wall and an iron stick in place of a priest'swand, and many arrows. What are these for? SHITE (thinking)Yes, this priest is still in the first stage of faith. (aloud) As yousee, there are many villages here: Zorii, Awohaka, and Akasaka. But thetall grass of Awo-no-ga-kara grows round the roads between them, and theforest is thick at Koyasu and Awohaka, and many robbers come out underthe rains. They attack the baggage on horseback, and take the clothing ofmaids and servants who pass here. So I go out with this spear. PRIESTThat's very fine, isn't it? CHORUSYou will think it very strange for a priest to do this; but even Buddhahas the sharp sword of Mida, and Aijen Miowo has arrows, and Tamon, taking his long spear, throws down the evil spirits. SHITEThe deep love. CHORUS--is excellent. Good feeling and keeping order are much more excellentthan the love of Bosatsu. 'I think of these matters and know little ofanything else. It is from my own heart that I am lost, wandering. But ifI begin talking I shall keep on talking until dawn. Go to bed, goodfather; I will sleep too. ' He seemed to be going to his bedroom, butsuddenly his figure disappeared, and the cottage became a field of grass. The priest passes the night under the pine trees. PRIESTI cannot sleep out the night. Perhaps if I held my service during thenight under this pine tree. .. . (He begins his service for the dead man. ) * * * * * Part Second SECOND SHITEThere are winds in the east and south; the clouds are not calm in thewest; and in the north the wind of the dark evening blusters; and underthe shade of the mountain-- CHORUSThere is a rustling of boughs and leaves. SECOND SHITEPerhaps there will be moon-shine to-night, but the clouds veil the sky;the moon will not break up their shadow. 'Have at them!' 'Ho there!''Dash in!' That is the way I would shout, calling and ordering my menbefore and behind, my bowmen and horsemen. I plundered men of theirtreasure, that was my work in the world, and now I must go on; it issorry work for a spirit. PRIESTAre you Kumasaka Chohan? Tell me the tale of your years. SECOND SHITE (now known as Kumasaka)There were great merchants in Sanjo, Yoshitsugu, and Nobutaka; theycollected treasure each year; they sent rich goods up to Oku. It was thenI assailed their trains. Would you know what men were with me? PRIESTTell me the chief men, were they from many a province? KUMASAKAThere was Kakusho of Kawachi, there were the two brothers Suriharitaro;they have no rivals in fencing. (omotenchi, face to face attack) PRIESTWhat chiefs came to you from the city? KUMASAKAEmoi of Sanjo, Kozari of Mibu. PRIESTIn the fighting with torches and in mêlée-- KUMASAKAThey had no equals. PRIESTIn northern Hakoku? KUMASAKAWere Aso no Matsuwaka and Mikune no Kure. PRIESTIn Kaga? KUMASAKANo, Chohan was the head there. There were seventy comrades who were verystrong and skilful. CHORUSWhile Yoshitsugu was going along in the fields and on the mountains weset many spies to take him. KUMASAKALet us say that he is come to the village of Ubasike. This is the bestplace to attack him. There are many ways to escape if we are defeated, and he has invited many guests and has had a great feast at the inn. PRIESTWhen the night was advanced the brothers Yoshitsugu and Nobutaka fellasleep. KUMASAKABut there was a small boy with keen eyes, about sixteen or seventeenyears old, and he was looking through a little hole in the partition, alert to the slightest noise. PRIESTHe did not sleep even a wink. KUMASAKAWe did not know it was Ushiwaka. PRIESTIt was fate. KUMASAKAThe hour had come. PRIESTBe quick! KUMASAKAHave at them! CHORUS (describing the original combat, now symbolized in the dance)At this word they rushed in, one after another. They seized the torches;it seemed as if gods could not face them. Ushiwaka stood unafraid; heseized a small sword and fought like a lion in earnest, like a tigerrushing, like a bird swooping. He fought so cleverly that he felled thethirteen who opposed him; many were wounded besides. They fled withoutswords or arrows. Then Kumasaka said, 'Are you the devil? Is it a god whohas struck down these men with such ease? Perhaps you are not a man. However, dead men take no plunder, and I'd rather leave this truck ofYoshitsugu's than my corpse. ' So he took his long spear and was about tomake off. KUMASAKA--But Kumasaka thought-- CHORUS (taking it up)What can he do, that young chap, if I ply my secret arts freely? Be hegod or devil, I will grasp him and grind him. I will offer his body assacrifice to those whom he has slain. So he drew back, and holdinghis long spear against his side he hid himself behind the door and staredat the young lad. Ushiwaka beheld him, and holding his sword at his sidehe crouched at a little distance. Kumasaka waited likewise. They bothwaited, alertly; then Kumasaka stepped forth swiftly with his left foot, and struck out with the long spear. It would have run through an ironwall. Ushiwaka parried it lightly, swept it away, left volted. Kumasakafollowed and again lunged out with the spear, and Ushiwaka parriedthe spear-blade quite lightly. Then Kumasaka turned the edge of hisspear-blade towards Ushiwaka and slashed at him, and Ushiwaka leaped tothe right. Kumasaka lifted his spear and the two weapons were twistedtogether. Ushiwaka drew back his blade. Kumasaka swung with his spear. Ushiwaka led up and stepped into shadow. Kumasaka tried to find him, and Ushiwaka slit through the back-chink ofhis armour; this seemed the end of his course, and he was wroth to beslain by such a young boy. KUMASAKASlowly the wound-- CHORUS--seemed to pierce; his heart failed; weakness o'ercame him. KUMASAKAAt the foot of this pine tree-- CHORUSHe vanished like a dew. And so saying, he disappeared among the shades of the pine tree atAkasaka, and night fell. KAGEKIYO KAGEKIYO, A PLAY IN ONE ACT, BY MOTOKIYO PERSONS OF THE PLAY SHITE Kagekiyo old and blind TSURE Hime his daughter, called also Hitomaru TOMO Her attendant WAKI A villager CHORUS The scene is in Hinga. KAGEKIYO HIME AND TOMO (chanting)What should it be; the body of dew, wholly at the mercy of wind? HIME I am a girl named Hitomaru from Kamega-engayatsu, My father, Akushichi-bioye Kagekiyo, Fought by the side of Heike, And is therefore hated by Genji. He was banished to Miyazaki in Hinga, To waste out the end of his life. Though I am unaccustomed to travel, I will try to go to my father. HIME AND TOMO (describing the journey as they walk across the bridge andthe stage) Sleeping with the grass for our pillow, The dew has covered our sleeves. (singing) Of whom shall I ask my way As I go out from Tagami province? Of whom in Totomi? I crossed the bay in a small hired boat And came to Yatsuhashi in Mikawa: Ah when shall I see the City-on-the-cloud? TOMOAs we have come so fast, we are now in Miyazaki of Hinga. It is here you should ask for your father. KAGEKIYO (in another corner of the stage)Sitting at the gate of the pine wood, I wear out the end of my years. Icannot see the clear light, I know not how the time passes. I sit here inthis dark hovel, with one coat for the warm and the cold, and my body isbut a frame-work of bones. CHORUSMay as well be a priest with black sleeves. Now having left the world insorrow, I look upon my withered shape. There is no one to pity me now. HIMESurely no one can live in that ruin, and yet a voice sounds from it. Abeggar perhaps, let us take a few steps and see. KAGEKIYOMy eyes will not show it me, yet the autumn wind is upon us. HIMEThe wind blows from an unknown past, and spreads our doubts through theworld. The wind blows, and I have no rest, nor any place to find quiet. KAGEKIYONeither in the world of passion, nor in the world of colour, nor in theworld of non-colour, is there any such place of rest; beneath the one skyare they all. Whom shall I ask, and how answer? TOMOShall I ask the old man by the thatch? KAGEKIYOWho are you? TOMOWhere does the exile live? KAGEKIYOWhat exile? TOMOOne who is called Akushichi-bioye Kagekiyo, a noble who fought underHeike. KAGEKIYOIndeed? I have heard of him, but I am blind, I have not looked in hisface. I have heard of his wretched condition and pity him. You had betterask for him at the next place. TOMO (to Hime)It seems that he is not here, shall we ask further?(they pass on) KAGEKIYOStrange, I feel that woman who has just passed is the child of that blindman. Long ago I loved a courtezan in Atsuta, one time when I was in thatplace. But I thought our girl-child would be no use to us, and I left herwith the head man in the valley of Kamega-engayatsu; and now she has goneby me and spoken, although she does not know who I am. CHORUS Although I have heard her voice, The pity is that I cannot see her. And I have let her go by Without divulging my name. This is the true love of a father. TOMO (at further side of the stage)Is there any native about? VILLAGERWhat do you want with me? TOMODo you know where the exile lives? VILLAGERWhat exile is it you want? TOMOAkushichi-bioye Kagekiyo, a noble of Heike's party. VILLAGERDid you not pass an old man under the edge of the mountain, as you werecoming that way? TOMOA blind beggar in a thatched cottage. VILLAGERThat fellow was Kagekiyo. What ails the lady? she shivers. TOMOA question you might well ask. She is the exile's daughter. She wanted tosee her father once more, and so came hither to seek him. Will you takeus to Kagekiyo? VILLAGERBless my soul! Kagekiyo's daughter. Come, come, never mind, young miss. Now I will tell you, Kagekiyo went blind in both eyes, and so he shavedhis crown and called himself 'The Blind man of Hinga. ' He begs a bit fromthe passers, and the likes of us keep him; he'd be ashamed to tell youhis name. However, I'll come along with you, and then I'll call out, 'Kagekiyo;' and if he comes, you can see him and have a word with him. Let us along, (they cross the stage, and the villager calls) Kagekiyo, Ohthere, Kagekiyo! KAGEKIYONoise, noise! Someone came from my home to call me, but I sent them on. Icouldn't be seen like this. Tears like the thousand lines in a rainstorm, bitter tears soften my sleeve. Ten thousand things rise in adream, and I wake in this hovel, wretched, just a nothing in the wideworld. How can I answer when they call me by my right name? CHORUSDo not call out the name he had in his glory. You will move the bad bloodin his heart, (then taking up Kagekiyo's thought) I am angry. KAGEKIYOLiving here. .. . CHORUS (going on with Kagekiyo's thought)I go on living here, hated by the people in power. A blind man withouthis staff, I am deformed, and therefore speak evil; excuse me. KAGEKIYOMy eyes are darkened. CHORUSThough my eyes are dark I understand the thoughts of another. Iunderstand at a word. The wind comes down from the pine trees on themountain, and snow comes down after the wind. The dream tells of myglory, I am loth to wake from the dream. I hear the waves running in theevening tide, as when I was with Heike. Shall I act out the old ballad? KAGEKIYO (to the villager)I had a weight on my mind, I spoke to you very harshly, excuse me. VILLAGERYou're always like that, never mind it. Has anyone been here to see you? KAGEKIYONo one but you. VILLAGERGo on, that is not true. Your daughter was here. Why couldn't you tellher the truth, she being so sad and so eager. I have brought her backnow. Come now, speak with your father. Come along. HIMEO, O, I came such a long journey, under rain, under wind, wet with dew, over the frost; you do not see into my heart. It seems that a father'slove goes when the child is not worth it. KAGEKIYOI meant to keep it concealed, but now they have found it all out. I shalldrench you with the dew of my shame, you who are young as a flower. Itell you my name, and that we are father and child; yet I thought thiswould put dishonour upon you, and therefore I let you pass. Do not holdit against me. CHORUSAt first I was angry that my friends would no longer come near me. Butnow I have come to a time when I could not believe that even a child ofmy own would seek me out. (singing) Upon all the boats of the men of Heike's faction Kagekiyo was the fighter most in call, Brave were his men, cunning sailors, And now even the leader Is worn out and dull as a horse. VILLAGER (to Kagekiyo)Many a fine thing is gone, sir; your daughter would like to ask you. .. . KAGEKIYOWhat is it? VILLAGERShe has heard of your old fame in Uashima. Would you tell her the ballad? KAGEKIYOTowards the end of the third month it was, in the third year of Juei. Wemen of Heike were in ships, the men of Genji were on land. Their war-tents stretched on the shore. We awaited decision. And Noto-no-KamiNoritsune said: 'Last year in the hills of Harima, & in Midzushima, andin Hiyodorigoye of Bitchiu, we were defeated time and again, forYoshitsine is tactful and cunning. ' 'Is there any way we can beat them?'(Kagekiyo thought in his mind) 'This Hangan Yoshitsine is neither god nora devil, at the risk of my life I might do it. ' So he took leave ofNoritsune and led a party against the shore, and all the men of Genjirushed on them. CHORUSKagekiyo cried, 'You are haughty. ' His armour caught every turn of thesun. He drove them four ways before them. KAGEKIYO (excited and crying out)Samoshiya! Run, cowards! CHORUSHe thought, how easy this killing. He rushed with his spear-haft grippedunder his arm. He cried out, 'I am Kagekiyo of the Heike. ' He rushed onto take them. He pierced through the helmet vizards of Miyonoya. Miyonoyafled twice, and again; and Kagekiyo cried, 'You shall not escape me!' Heleaped and wrenched off his helmet. 'Eya!' The vizard broke and remainedin his hand and Miyonoya still fled afar, and afar, and he looked backcrying in terror, 'How terrible, how heavy your arm!' And Kagekiyo calledat him, 'How tough the shaft of your neck is!' And they both laughed outover the battle, and went off each his own way. CHORUSThese were the deeds of old, but oh, to tell them! To be telling themover now in his wretched condition. His life in the world is weary, he isnear the end of his course. 'Go back, ' he would say to his daughter. 'Pray for me when I am gone from the world, for I shall then count uponyou as we count on a lamp in the darkness . .. We who are blind. ' 'I willstay, ' she said. Then she obeyed him, and only one voice is left. We tell this for the remembrance. Thus were the parent and child. END NOTES Ernest Fenollosa has left this memorandum on the stoicism of the lastplay: I asked Mr. Hirata how it could be considered natural or dutifulfor the daughter to leave her father in such a condition. He said, 'that the Japanese would not be in sympathy with such sternness now, butthat it was the old Bushido spirit. The personality of the old man isworn out, no more good in this life. It would be sentimentality forher to remain with him. No good could be done. He could well restrain hislove for her, better that she should pray for him and go on with the workof her normal life. ' Of the plays in this book, 'Nishikigi' has appeared in 'Poetry, ''Hagoromo' in 'The Quarterly Review, ' and 'Kumasaka, ' in 'The Drama;' tothe editors of which periodicals I wish to express my acknowledgment. Ezra Pound.