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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Certain Noble Plays of Japan, by Ezra Pound
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Certain Noble Plays of Japan
+       From The Manuscripts Of Ernest Fenollosa
+
+Author: Ezra Pound
+
+Commentator: William Butler Yeats
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2005  [EBook #8094]
+This file was first posted on June 14, 2003
+Last updated: May 1, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 those
+that 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 they
+will help me to explain a certain possibility of the Irish dramatic
+movement. I am writing these words with my imagination stirred by a visit
+to the studio of Mr. Dulac, the distinguished illustrator of the Arabian
+Nights. I saw there the mask and head-dress to be worn in a play of mine
+by the player who will speak the part of Cuchulain, and who wearing
+this noble half-Greek half-Asiatic face will appear perhaps like an image
+seen in revery by some Orphic worshipper. I hope to have attained the
+distance from life which can make credible strange events, elaborate
+words. I have written a little play that can be played in a room for so
+little money that forty or fifty readers of poetry can pay the price.
+There will be no scenery, for three musicians, whose seeming sun-burned
+faces will I hope suggest that they have wandered from village to village
+in some country of our dreams, can describe place and weather, and at
+moments action, and accompany it all by drum and gong or flute and
+dulcimer. Instead of the players working themselves into a violence of
+passion indecorous in our sitting-room, the music, the beauty of form and
+voice all come to climax in pantomimic dance.
+
+In fact with the help of these plays 'translated by Ernest Fenollosa and
+finished by Ezra Pound' I have invented a form of drama, distinguished,
+indirect and symbolic, and having no need of mob or press to pay its
+way--an aristocratic form. When this play and its performance run as
+smoothly as my skill can make them, I shall hope to write another of the
+same sort and so complete a dramatic celebration of the life of Cuchulain
+planned long ago. Then having given enough performances for I hope the
+pleasure of personal friends and a few score people of good taste, I
+shall record all discoveries of method and turn to something else. It is
+an advantage of this noble form that it need absorb no one's life, that
+its few properties can be packed up in a box, or hung upon the walls
+where they will be fine ornaments.
+
+
+II
+
+And yet this simplification is not mere economy. For nearly three
+centuries invention has been making the human voice and the movements of
+the body seem always less expressive. I have long been puzzled why
+passages, that are moving when read out or spoken during rehearsal, seem
+muffled or dulled during performance. I have simplified scenery, having
+'The Hour Glass' for instance played now before green curtains, now among
+those admirable ivory-coloured screens invented by Gordon Craig. With
+every simplification the voice has recovered something of its importance
+and 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 have
+still felt as if the sound came to me from behind a veil. The
+stage-opening, the powerful light and shade, the number of feet between
+myself and the players have destroyed intimacy. I have found myself
+thinking of players who needed perhaps but to unroll a mat in some
+Eastern garden. Nor have I felt this only when I listened to
+speech, but even more when I have watched the movement of a player or
+heard singing in a play. I love all the arts that can still remind me of
+their origin among the common people, and my ears are only comfortable
+when the singer sings as if mere speech had taken fire, when he appears
+to have passed into song almost imperceptibly. I am bored and wretched,
+a limitation I greatly regret, when he seems no longer a human being but
+an invention of science. To explain him to myself I say that he has
+become a wind instrument and sings no longer like active men, sailor or
+camel driver, because he has had to compete with an orchestra, where the
+loudest instrument has always survived. The human voice can only become
+louder by becoming less articulate, by discovering some new musical sort
+of roar or scream. As poetry can do neither, the voice must be freed
+from this competition and find itself among little instruments, only
+heard at their best perhaps when we are close about them. It should be
+again possible for a few poets to write as all did once, not for the
+printed page but to be sung. But movement also has grown less expressive,
+more declamatory, less intimate. When I called the other day upon a
+friend I found myself among some dozen people who were watching a group
+of Spanish boys and girls, professional dancers, dancing some national
+dance in the midst of a drawing-room. Doubtless their training had been
+long, laborious and wearisome; but now one could not be deceived, their
+movement was full of joy. They were among friends, and it all seemed
+but the play of children; how powerful it seemed, how passionate, while
+an even more miraculous art, separated from us by the footlights,
+appeared in the comparison laborious and professional. It is well to
+be close enough to an artist to feel for him a personal liking, close
+enough perhaps to feel that our liking is returned.
+
+My play is made possible by a Japanese dancer whom I have seen dance in a
+studio and in a drawing-room and on a very small stage lit by an
+excellent stage-light. In the studio and in the drawing-room alone where
+the lighting was the light we are most accustomed to, did I see him as
+the tragic image that has stirred my imagination. There where no
+studied 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 as
+he 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' greatness
+can be but in their intimacy.
+
+
+III
+
+All imaginative art keeps at a distance and this distance once chosen
+must be firmly held against a pushing world. Verse, ritual, music and
+dance in association with action require that gesture, costume, facial
+expression, stage arrangement must help in keeping the door. Our
+unimaginative arts are content to set a piece of the world as we know it
+in a place by itself, to put their photographs as it were in a plush or a
+plain frame, but the arts which interest me, while seeming to separate
+from the world and us a group of figures, images, symbols, enable us to
+pass for a few moments into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been too
+subtle for our habitation. As a deep of the mind can only be approached
+through what is most human, most delicate, we should distrust bodily
+distance, mechanism and loud noise.
+
+It may be well if we go to school in Asia, for the distance from life in
+European art has come from little but difficulty with material. In
+half-Asiatic Greece, Kallimachos could still return to a stylistic management
+of the falling folds of drapery, after the naturalistic drapery of
+Phidias, and in Egypt the same age that saw the village Head-man carved
+in wood for burial in some tomb with so complete a naturalism saw, set up
+in public places, statues full of an august formality that implies
+traditional measurements, a philosophic defence. The spiritual painting
+of the 14th century passed on into Tintoretto and that of Velasquez into
+modern painting with no sense of loss to weigh against the gain, while
+the painting of Japan, not having our European Moon to churn the wits,
+has understood that no styles that ever delighted noble imaginations have
+lost their importance, and chooses the style according to the subject.
+In literature also we have had the illusion of change and progress, the
+art of Shakespeare passing into that of Dryden, and so into the prose
+drama, by what has seemed when studied in its details unbroken progress.
+Had we been Greeks, and so but half-European, an honourable mob would
+have martyred though in vain the first man who set up a painted scene, or
+who complained that soliloquies were unnatural, instead of repeating with
+a sigh, 'we cannot return to the arts of childhood however beautiful.'
+Only our lyric poetry has kept its Asiatic habit and renewed itself at
+its own youth, putting off perpetually what has been called its progress
+in a series of violent revolutions.
+
+Therefore it is natural that I go to Asia for a stage-convention, for
+more formal faces, for a chorus that has no part in the action and
+perhaps for those movements of the body copied from the marionette shows
+of the 14th century. A mask will enable me to substitute for the face of
+some common-place player, or for that face repainted to suit his own
+vulgar fancy, the fine invention of a sculptor, and to bring the audience
+close enough to the play to hear every inflection of the voice. A mask
+never seems but a dirty face, and no matter how close you go is still a
+work 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. In
+poetical painting & in sculpture the face seems the nobler for lacking
+curiosity, alert attention, all that we sum up under the famous word of
+the realists 'vitality.' It is even possible that being is only possessed
+completely by the dead, and that it is some knowledge of this that
+makes 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 at
+the end of its thousand wise years, awaiting in condescension the burning
+nest and what did it not gain from that immobility in dignity and in
+power?
+
+
+IV
+
+Realism is created for the common people and was always their peculiar
+delight, and it is the delight to-day of all those whose minds educated
+alone by school-masters and newspapers are without the memory of beauty
+and emotional subtlety. The occasional humorous realism that so much
+heightened the emotional effect of Elizabethan Tragedy, Cleopatra's old
+man with an asp let us say, carrying the tragic crisis by its contrast
+above the tide-mark of Corneille's courtly theatre, was made at the
+outset to please the common citizen standing on the rushes of the floor;
+but the great speeches were written by poets who remembered their patrons
+in the covered galleries. The fanatic Savonarola was but dead a century,
+and his lamentation in the frenzy of his rhetoric, that every prince of
+the Church or State throughout Europe was wholly occupied with the fine
+arts, had still its moiety of truth. A poetical passage cannot be
+understood without a rich memory, and like the older school of painting
+appeals to a tradition, and that not merely when it speaks of 'Lethe's
+Wharf' or 'Dido on the wild sea-banks' but in rhythm, in vocabulary; for
+the ear must notice slight variations upon old cadences and customary
+words, all that high breeding of poetical style where there is nothing
+ostentatious, nothing crude, no breath of parvenu or journalist.
+
+Let us press the popular arts on to a more complete realism, for that
+would be their honesty; and the commercial arts demoralise by their
+compromise, their incompleteness, their idealism without sincerity
+or elegance, their pretence that ignorance can understand beauty. In the
+studio 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 only
+through what is least declamatory, least popular in the art of
+Shakespeare, and in such a theatre they will find their habitual
+audience and keep their freedom. Europe is very old and has seen many
+arts run through the circle and has learned the fruit of every flower and
+known what this fruit sends up, and it is now time to copy the East and
+live 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 of
+spirits and gods or by young nobles at the court, and much old lyric
+poetry, and receiving its philosophy and its final shape perhaps from
+priests of a contemplative school of Buddhism. A small daimio or feudal
+lord of the ancient capital Nara, a contemporary of Chaucer's, was the
+author, or perhaps only the stage-manager, of many plays. He brought them
+to the court of the Shogun at Kioto. From that on the Shogun and his
+court 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 a
+necessary part of official ceremonies at Kioto, and young nobles and
+princes, forbidden to attend the popular theatre in Japan as elsewhere
+a place of mimicry and naturalism were encouraged to witness and to
+perform in spectacles where speech, music, song and dance created an
+image of nobility and strange beauty. When the modern revolution came,
+Noh after a brief unpopularity was played for the first time in certain
+ceremonious public theatres, and 1897 a battleship was named Takasago,
+after one of its most famous plays. Some of the old noble families are
+to-day very poor, their men it may be but servants and labourers, but
+they still frequent these theatres. 'Accomplishment' the word Noh means,
+and it is their accomplishment and that of a few cultured people who
+understand the literary and mythological allusions and the ancient lyrics
+quoted in speech or chorus, their discipline, a part of their breeding.
+The players themselves, unlike the despised players of the popular
+theatre, have passed on proudly from father to son an elaborate art, and
+even now a player will publish his family tree to prove his skill. One
+player wrote in 1906 in a business circular--I am quoting from Mr.
+Pound's redaction of the Notes of Fenollosa--that after thirty
+generations of nobles a woman of his house dreamed that a mask was
+carried to her from heaven, and soon after she bore a son who became a
+player and the father of players. His family he declared still possessed
+a 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 the
+Revolution to perform in public, they had received grants of land or
+salaries from the state. The white and purple curtain was no doubt to
+hang upon a wall behind the players or over their entrance door for the
+Noh stage is a platform surrounded upon three sides by the audience. No
+'naturalistic' effect is sought. The players wear masks and found their
+movements upon those of puppets: the most famous of all Japanese
+dramatists composed entirely for puppets. A swift or a slow movement and
+a long or a short stillness, and then another movement. They sing as much
+as they speak, and there is a chorus which describes the scene and
+interprets their thought and never becomes as in the Greek theatre a
+part of the action. At the climax instead of the disordered passion of
+nature there is a dance, a series of positions & movements which may
+represent a battle, or a marriage, or the pain of a ghost in the Buddhist
+purgatory. I have lately studied certain of these dances, with Japanese
+players, and I notice that their ideal of beauty, unlike that of Greece
+and like that of pictures from Japan and China, makes them pause at
+moments of muscular tension. The interest is not in the human form but in
+the rhythm to which it moves, and the triumph of their art is to express
+the rhythm in its intensity. There are few swaying movements of arms or
+body such as make the beauty of our dancing. They move from the hip,
+keeping constantly the upper part of their body still, and seem to
+associate with every gesture or pose some definite thought. They cross
+the stage with a sliding movement, and one gets the impression not of
+undulation but of continuous straight lines.
+
+The Print Room of the British Museum is now closed as a war-economy, so I
+can only write from memory of theatrical colour-prints, where a ship is
+represented by a mere skeleton of willows or osiers painted green, or a
+fruit tree by a bush in a pot, and where actors have tied on their masks
+with ribbons that are gathered into a bunch behind the head. It is a
+child's game become the most noble poetry, and there is no observation of
+life, because the poet would set before us all those things which we feel
+and imagine in silence.
+
+Mr. Ezra Pound has found among the Fenollosa manuscripts a story
+traditional among Japanese players. A young man was following a stately
+old woman through the streets of a Japanese town, and presently she
+turned to him and spoke: 'Why do you follow me?' 'Because you are so
+interesting.' 'That is not so, I am too old to be interesting.' But he
+wished he told her to become a player of old women on the Noh stage. 'If
+he would become famous as a Noh player she said, he must not observe
+life, nor put on an old voice and stint the music of his voice. He
+must 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 can
+trace perhaps to their threefold origin. The love-sorrows, the love of
+father and daughter, of mother and son, of boy and girl, may owe their
+nobility to a courtly life, but he to whom the adventures happen, a
+traveller commonly from some distant place, is most often a Buddhist
+priest; and the occasional intellectual subtlety is perhaps Buddhist. The
+adventure itself is often the meeting with ghost, god or goddess at some
+holy place or much-legended tomb; and god, goddess or ghost reminds
+me at times of our own Irish legends and beliefs, which once it may be
+differed little from those of the Shinto worshipper.
+
+The feather-mantle, for whose lack the moon goddess, (or should we call
+her fairy?) cannot return to the sky, is the red cap whose theft can keep
+our 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 to
+the priest after death to be married. These Japanese poets too feel for
+tomb and wood the emotion, the sense of awe that our Gaelic speaking
+country people will some times show when you speak to them of Castle
+Hackett or of some Holy Well; and that is why perhaps it pleases them to
+begin so many plays by a Traveller asking his way with many questions, a
+convention agreeable to me; for when I first began to write poetical
+plays for an Irish theatre I had to put away an ambition of helping to
+bring again to certain places, their old sanctity or their romance. I
+could lay the scene of a play on Baile's Strand, but I found no pause in
+the hurried action for descriptions of strand or sea or the great yew
+tree 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 river
+and 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 that
+forgotten tomb where 'the hiding fox' lives among 'the orchids and the
+chrysanthemum flowers.' The men who created this convention were more
+like ourselves than were the Greeks and Romans, more like us even than
+are Shakespeare and Corneille. Their emotion was self-conscious and
+reminiscent, always associating itself with pictures and poems. They
+measured all that time had taken or would take away and found their
+delight in remembering celebrated lovers in the scenery pale passion
+loves. They travelled seeking for the strange and for the picturesque: 'I
+go about with my heart set upon no particular place, no more than a
+cloud. I wonder now would the sea be that way, or the little place Kefu
+that they say is stuck down against it.' When a traveller asks his way of
+girls 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 (few
+examples have as yet been translated and I may be misled by accident or
+the idiosyncrasy of some poet) a playing upon a single metaphor, as
+deliberate as the echoing rhythm of line in Chinese and Japanese
+painting. In the 'Nishikigi' the ghost of the girl-lover carries the
+cloth she went on weaving out of grass when she should have opened the
+chamber door to her lover, and woven grass returns again and again in
+metaphor and incident. The lovers, now that in an aery body they must
+sorrow for unconsummated love, are 'tangled up as the grass patterns are
+tangled.' Again they are like an unfinished cloth: 'these bodies, having
+no weft, even now are not come together, truly a shameful story, a tale
+to bring shame on the gods.' Before they can bring the priest to the tomb
+they spend the day 'pushing aside the grass from the overgrown ways in
+Kefu,' and the countryman who directs them is 'cutting grass on the
+hill;' & when at last the prayer of the priest unites them in marriage
+the bride says that he has made 'a dream-bridge over wild grass, over the
+grass I dwell in;' and in the end bride and bridegroom show themselves
+for a moment 'from under the shadow of the love-grass.'
+
+In 'Hagoromo' the feather-mantle of the fairy woman creates also its
+rhythm of metaphor. In the beautiful day of opening spring 'the plumage
+of Heaven drops neither feather nor flame,' 'nor is the rock of earth
+over-much worn by the brushing of the feathery skirt of the stars.' One
+half remembers a thousand Japanese paintings, or whichever comes first
+into the memory. That screen painted by Korin, let us say, shown lately
+at the British Museum, where the same form is echoing in wave and in
+cloud and in rock. In European poetry I remember Shelley's continually
+repeated fountain and cave, his broad stream and solitary star. In
+neglecting character which seems to us essential in drama, as do their
+artists in neglecting relief and depth, when they arrange flowers in a
+vase 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 the
+education of soldiers. These soldiers, whose natures had as much of
+Walter Pater as of Achilles combined with Buddhist priests and women
+to elaborate life in a ceremony, the playing of football, the drinking of
+tea, and all great events of state, becoming a ritual. In the painting
+that decorated their walls and in the poetry they recited one discovers
+the only sign of a great age that cannot deceive us, the most vivid and
+subtle discrimination of sense and the invention of images more powerful
+than sense; the continual presence of reality. It is still true that the
+Deity gives us, according to His promise, not His thoughts or His
+convictions but His flesh and blood, and I believe that the elaborate
+technique of the arts, seeming to create out of itself a superhuman life
+has taught more men to die than oratory or the Prayer Book. We only
+believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but
+in the whole body. The Minoan soldier who bore upon his arm the shield
+ornamented with the dove in the Museum at Crete, or had upon his head the
+helmet with the winged horse, knew his rôle in life. When Nobuzane
+painted the child Saint Kobo, Daishi kneeling full of sweet austerity
+upon the flower of the lotus, he set up before our eyes exquisite life
+and the acceptance of death.
+
+I cannot imagine those young soldiers and the women they loved pleased
+with the ill-breeding and theatricality of Carlyle, nor I think with the
+magniloquence of Hugo. These things belong to an industrial age, a
+mechanical sequence of ideas; but when I remember that curious game which
+the Japanese called, with a confusion of the senses that had seemed
+typical of our own age, 'listening to incense,' I know that some among
+them would have understood the prose of Walter Pater, the painting or
+Puvis de Chavannes, the poetry of Mallarmé and Verlaine. When heroism
+returned to our age it bore with it as its first gift technical
+sincerity.
+
+
+VIII
+
+For some weeks now I have been elaborating my play in London where alone
+I can find the help I need, Mr. Dulac's mastery of design and Mr. Ito's
+genius of movement; yet it pleases me to think that I am working for my
+own country. Perhaps some day a play in the form I am adapting for
+European purposes shall awake once more, whether in Gaelic or in English,
+under the slope of Slieve-na-mon or Croagh Patrick ancient memories; for
+this form has no need of scenery that runs away with money nor of a
+theatre-building. Yet I know that I only amuse myself with a fancy; for
+though my writings if they be sea-worthy must put to sea, I cannot tell
+where they may be carried by the wind. Are not the fairy-stories of Oscar
+Wilde, which were written for Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon and for a few
+ladies, very popular in Arabia?
+
+W. B. Yeats, April 1916.
+
+
+
+
+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 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.
+
+
+
+NISHIKIGI
+
+
+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 sea-weed. We do not know where
+are to-day 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, 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 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.
+
+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 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)
+
+
+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 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 mostly
+symbolical. Thus here the Shite, or Sh'te, announces his change of
+costume, 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....
+
+SHITE
+The sound of the loom.
+
+TSURE
+
+  It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets,
+  A thin sound like the Autumn.
+
+SHITE
+It 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.
+
+CHORUS
+Shall I ever at last see into that room of hers, which no other sight has
+traversed?
+
+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!
+
+SHITE
+Tread 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. The
+priest finds the Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a Tennin, an
+aerial spirit or celestial dancer, hanging upon a bough. She demands
+its return. He argues with her, and finally promises to return it, if she
+will teach him her dance or part of it. She accepts the offer. The Chorus
+explains the dance as symbolical of the daily changes of the moon. The
+words about 'three, five and fifteen' refer to the number of nights in
+the moon's changes. In the finale, the Tennin is supposed to disappear
+like a mountain slowly hidden in mist. The play shows the relation of the
+early 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 FISHERMAN
+Upon a thousand heights had gathered the inexplicable cloud, swept by the
+rain. The moon is just come to light the low house. A clean and pleasant
+time surely. There comes the breath-colour of spring; the waves rise in a
+line below the early mist; the moon is still delaying above, though we've
+no 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 it
+presses the clouds and the sea. Those men who were going to fish are
+about to return without launching. Wait a little, is it not spring? will
+not 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 with
+even the smallest boats.
+
+PRIEST
+Now I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark in Subara; I see all that
+they 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 is
+this cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree. As I approach to inhale its
+colour I am aware of mystery. Its colour-smell is mysterious. I see that
+it is surely no common dress. I will take it now and return and make it a
+treasure in my house, to show to the aged.
+
+TENNIN
+That cloak belongs to someone on this side. What are you proposing to do
+with it?
+
+PRIEST
+This? 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.
+
+PRIEST
+How, is the owner of this cloak a Tennin? so be it. In this downcast age
+I should keep it, a rare thing, and make it a treasure in the country, a
+thing respected. Then I should not return it.
+
+TENNIN
+Pitiful, there is no flying without the cloak of feathers, no return
+through the ether. I pray you return me the mantle.
+
+PRIEST
+Just from hearing these high words, I, Hakuryo have gathered more and yet
+more force. You think, because I was too stupid to recognise it, that I
+shall be unable to take and keep hid the feather-robe, that I shall give
+it 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?
+
+PRIEST
+And this world would be a sorry place for her to dwell in?
+
+TENNIN
+I am caught, I struggle, how shall I?...
+
+PRIEST
+No, Hakuryo is not one to give back the robe.
+
+TENNIN
+Power does not attain....
+
+PRIEST
+To get back the robe.
+
+CHORUS
+Her coronet [1] jewelled as with the dew of tears, even the flowers that
+decorated 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, in
+the South Kensington Museum.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The chain of weaknesses, or the five ills, diseases of the
+Tennin: namely, the hanakadzusa withers; the Hagoromo is stained; sweat
+comes from the body; both eyes wink frequently; she feels very weary of
+her palace in heaven.]
+
+TENNIN
+I look into the flat of heaven, peering; the cloud-road is all hidden and
+uncertain; we are lost in the rising mist; I have lost the knowledge of
+the road. Strange, a strange sorrow!
+
+CHORUS
+Enviable colour of breath, wonder of clouds that fade along the sky that
+was our accustomed dwelling; hearing the sky-bird, accustomed and well
+accustomed, hearing the voices grow fewer, the wild geese fewer and fewer
+along the highways of air, how deep her longing to return. Plover and
+seagull 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, of
+heaven, I bend and would return you your mantle.
+
+TENNIN
+It grows clearer. No, give it this side.
+
+PRIEST
+First tell me your nature, who are you, Tennin? give payment with the
+dance of the Tennin, and I will return you your mantle.
+
+TENNIN
+Readily and gladly, and then I return into heaven. You shall have what
+pleasure you will, and I will leave a dance here, a joy to be new among
+men and to be memorial dancing. Learn then this dance that can turn the
+palace of the moon. No, come here to learn it. For the sorrows of the
+world I will leave this new dancing with you for sorrowful people. But
+give me my mantle, I cannot do the dance rightly without it.
+
+PRIEST
+Not yet, for if you should get it, how do I know you'll not be off to
+your palace without even beginning your dance, not even a measure?
+
+TENNIN
+Doubt is fitting for mortals; with us there is no deceit.
+
+PRIEST
+I am again ashamed. I give you your mantle.
+
+CHORUS
+The young maid now is arrayed; she assumes the curious mantle; watch how
+she moves in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment.
+
+PRIEST
+The heavenly feather-robe moves in accord with the wind.
+
+TENNIN
+The sleeves of flowers are being wet with the rain.
+
+PRIEST
+The 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.'
+
+TENNIN
+The 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 sereni
+Trivia ride tra le ninfe eterne.']
+
+TENNIN
+I also am heaven-born and a maid, Amaotome. Of them there are many. This
+is 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.]
+
+CHORUS
+The spring mist is widespread abroad; so perhaps the wild olive's flower
+will blossom in the infinitely unreachable moon. Her flowery
+head-ornament is putting on colour; this truly is sign of the spring. Not
+sky is here, but the beauty; and even here comes the heavenly, wonderful
+wind. O blow, shut the accustomed path of the clouds. O, you in the form
+of a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine-waste of Miwo
+puts on the colour of spring. The bay of Kiyomi lies clear before the
+snow upon Fuji. Are not all these presages of the spring? There are but
+few ripples beneath the piny wind. It is quiet along the shore. There is
+naught but a fence of jewels between the earth and the sky, and the gods
+within and without, [5] beyond and beneath the stars, and the moon
+unclouded by her lord, and we who are born of the sun. This alone
+intervenes, here where the moon is unshadowed, here in Nippon, the sun's
+field.
+
+[Footnote 5: 'Within and without,' gei, gu, two parts of the temple]
+
+TENNIN
+The plumage of heaven drops neither feather nor flame to its own
+diminution.
+
+CHORUS
+Nor 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 a magic song from the east, the voices of many and many: and
+flute and shae, filling the space beyond the cloud's edge,
+seven-stringed; dance filling 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 storm that comes over this green moor, which is afloat,
+as it would seem, in these waves. Wonderful is the sleeve of the white
+cloud, whirling such snow here.
+
+TENNIN
+Plain of life, field of the sun, true foundation, great power!
+
+CHORUS
+Hence 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 a
+green garment.
+
+SEMI-CHORUS
+And now the robe of mist, presaging spring, a colour-smell as this
+wonderful maiden's skirt--left, right, left! The rustling of flowers, the
+putting-on of the feathery sleeve; they bend in air with the dancing.
+
+SEMI-CHORUS
+Many are the joys in the east. She who is the colour-person of the moon
+takes her middle-night in the sky. She marks her three fives with this
+dancing, 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 from
+us. After a little time, only a little time, can the mantle be upon the
+wind that was spread over Matsubara or over Ashilaka the mountain,
+though the clouds lie in its heaven like a plain awash with sea. Fuji is
+gone; the great peak of Fuji is blotted out little by little. It melts
+into the upper mist. In this way she (the Tennin) is lost to sight.
+
+
+
+
+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 chief
+characters are thinking, sometimes it describes
+or interprets the meaning of their movements.
+Plot: the ghost of Kumasaka makes reparation for
+his brigandage by protecting the country. He
+comes back to praise the bravery of the young man
+who killed him in single combat.
+
+
+
+KUMASAKA
+
+
+First Part
+
+PRIEST
+Where shall I rest, wandering, weary of the world? I am a city-bred
+priest, 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 another
+at Shinohara, and at the dawn I came to the green field, Awono in Miwo. I
+now pass Akasaka at sunset.
+
+SHITE (In the form of an old priest)
+I could tell that priest a thing or two.
+
+PRIEST
+Do you mean me, what is it?
+
+SHITE
+A certain man died on this day. I ask you to pray for him.
+
+PRIEST
+All right, but for whom shall I pray?
+
+SHITE
+I will not tell you his name, but his grave lies in the green field
+beyond that tall pine tree. He cannot enter to the gates of Paradise, and
+so I ask you to pray.
+
+PRIEST
+But I do not think it is proper to pray unless you tell me his name.
+
+SHITE
+No, 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 of
+agony 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 need
+not be aware of his name. They say that prayer can be heard for even the
+grass and the plants, for even the sand and the soil here; and they will
+surely hear it, if you pray for an unknown man.
+
+SHITE
+Will you enter? This is my cottage.
+
+PRIEST
+This is your house? Very well, I will hold the service in your house; but
+I see no picture of Buddha nor any wooden image in this cottage, nothing
+but a long spear on one wall and an iron stick in place of a priest's
+wand, and many arrows. What are these for?
+
+SHITE (thinking)
+Yes, this priest is still in the first stage of faith. (aloud) As you
+see, there are many villages here: Zorii, Awohaka, and Akasaka. But the
+tall grass of Awo-no-ga-kara grows round the roads between them, and the
+forest is thick at Koyasu and Awohaka, and many robbers come out under
+the rains. They attack the baggage on horseback, and take the clothing of
+maids and servants who pass here. So I go out with this spear.
+
+PRIEST
+That's very fine, isn't it?
+
+CHORUS
+You will think it very strange for a priest to do this; but even Buddha
+has the sharp sword of Mida, and Aijen Miowo has arrows, and Tamon,
+taking his long spear, throws down the evil spirits.
+
+SHITE
+The deep love.
+
+CHORUS
+--is excellent. Good feeling and keeping order are much more excellent
+than the love of Bosatsu. 'I think of these matters and know little of
+anything else. It is from my own heart that I am lost, wandering. But if
+I begin talking I shall keep on talking until dawn. Go to bed, good
+father; I will sleep too.' He seemed to be going to his bedroom, but
+suddenly his figure disappeared, and the cottage became a field of grass.
+The priest passes the night under the pine trees.
+
+PRIEST
+I cannot sleep out the night. Perhaps if I held my service during the
+night under this pine tree....
+
+(He begins his service for the dead man.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Second Part
+
+SECOND SHITE
+There are winds in the east and south; the clouds are not calm in the
+west; and in the north the wind of the dark evening blusters; and under
+the shade of the mountain--
+
+CHORUS
+There is a rustling of boughs and leaves.
+
+SECOND SHITE
+Perhaps 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 men
+before and behind, my bowmen and horsemen. I plundered men of their
+treasure, that was my work in the world, and now I must go on; it is
+sorry work for a spirit.
+
+PRIEST
+Are 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; they
+collected treasure each year; they sent rich goods up to Oku. It was then
+I assailed their trains. Would you know what men were with me?
+
+PRIEST
+Tell me the chief men, were they from many a province?
+
+KUMASAKA
+There was Kakusho of Kawachi, there were the two brothers Suriharitaro;
+they have no rivals in fencing. (omotenchi, face to face attack)
+
+PRIEST
+What chiefs came to you from the city?
+
+KUMASAKA
+Emoi of Sanjo, Kozari of Mibu.
+
+PRIEST
+In the fighting with torches and in mêlée--
+
+KUMASAKA
+They had no equals.
+
+PRIEST
+In northern Hakoku?
+
+KUMASAKA
+Were Aso no Matsuwaka and Mikune no Kure.
+
+PRIEST
+In Kaga?
+
+KUMASAKA
+No, Chohan was the head there. There were seventy comrades who were very
+strong and skilful.
+
+CHORUS
+While Yoshitsugu was going along in the fields and on the mountains we
+set many spies to take him.
+
+KUMASAKA
+Let us say that he is come to the village of Ubasike. This is the best
+place 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.
+
+PRIEST
+When the night was advanced the brothers Yoshitsugu and Nobutaka fell
+asleep.
+
+KUMASAKA
+But there was a small boy with keen eyes, about sixteen or seventeen
+years old, and he was looking through a little hole in the partition,
+alert to the slightest noise.
+
+PRIEST
+He did not sleep even a wink.
+
+KUMASAKA
+We did not know it was Ushiwaka.
+
+PRIEST
+It was fate.
+
+KUMASAKA
+The hour had come.
+
+PRIEST
+Be quick!
+
+KUMASAKA
+Have 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; he
+seized a small sword and fought like a lion in earnest, like a tiger
+rushing, like a bird swooping. He fought so cleverly that he felled the
+thirteen who opposed him; many were wounded besides. They fled without
+swords or arrows. Then Kumasaka said, 'Are you the devil? Is it a god who
+has 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 of
+Yoshitsugu's than my corpse.' So he took his long spear and was about to
+make off.
+
+KUMASAKA
+--But Kumasaka thought--
+
+CHORUS (taking it up)
+What can he do, that young chap, if I ply my secret arts freely? Be he
+god or devil, I will grasp him and grind him. I will offer his body as
+sacrifice to those whom he has slain. So he drew back, and holding
+his long spear against his side he hid himself behind the door and stared
+at the young lad. Ushiwaka beheld him, and holding his sword at his side
+he crouched at a little distance. Kumasaka waited likewise. They both
+waited, alertly; then Kumasaka stepped forth swiftly with his left foot,
+and struck out with the long spear. It would have run through an iron
+wall. Ushiwaka parried it lightly, swept it away, left volted. Kumasaka
+followed and again lunged out with the spear, and Ushiwaka parried
+the spear-blade quite lightly. Then Kumasaka turned the edge of his
+spear-blade towards Ushiwaka and slashed at him, and Ushiwaka leaped to
+the right. Kumasaka lifted his spear and the two weapons were twisted
+together. 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 of
+his armour; this seemed the end of his course, and he was wroth to be
+slain by such a young boy.
+
+KUMASAKA
+Slowly the wound--
+
+CHORUS
+--seemed to pierce; his heart failed; weakness o'ercame him.
+
+KUMASAKA
+At the foot of this pine tree--
+
+CHORUS
+He vanished like a dew.
+
+And so saying, he disappeared among the shades of the pine tree at
+Akasaka, and night fell.
+
+
+
+
+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 and
+the 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?
+
+TOMO
+As 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. I
+cannot see the clear light, I know not how the time passes. I sit here in
+this dark hovel, with one coat for the warm and the cold, and my body is
+but a frame-work of bones.
+
+CHORUS
+May as well be a priest with black sleeves. Now having left the world in
+sorrow, I look upon my withered shape. There is no one to pity me now.
+
+HIME
+Surely no one can live in that ruin, and yet a voice sounds from it. A
+beggar perhaps, let us take a few steps and see.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+My eyes will not show it me, yet the autumn wind is upon us.
+
+HIME
+The wind blows from an unknown past, and spreads our doubts through the
+world. The wind blows, and I have no rest, nor any place to find quiet.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Neither in the world of passion, nor in the world of colour, nor in the
+world of non-colour, is there any such place of rest; beneath the one sky
+are they all. Whom shall I ask, and how answer?
+
+TOMO
+Shall I ask the old man by the thatch?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Who are you?
+
+TOMO
+Where does the exile live?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+What exile?
+
+TOMO
+One who is called Akushichi-bioye Kagekiyo, a noble who fought under
+Heike.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Indeed? I have heard of him, but I am blind, I have not looked in his
+face. I have heard of his wretched condition and pity him. You had better
+ask for him at the next place.
+
+TOMO (to Hime)
+It seems that he is not here, shall we ask further?
+(they pass on)
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Strange, I feel that woman who has just passed is the child of that blind
+man. Long ago I loved a courtezan in Atsuta, one time when I was in that
+place. But I thought our girl-child would be no use to us, and I left her
+with the head man in the valley of Kamega-engayatsu; and now she has gone
+by 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?
+
+VILLAGER
+What do you want with me?
+
+TOMO
+Do you know where the exile lives?
+
+VILLAGER
+What exile is it you want?
+
+TOMO
+Akushichi-bioye  Kagekiyo, a noble  of Heike's party.
+
+VILLAGER
+Did you not pass an old man under the edge of the mountain, as you were
+coming that way?
+
+TOMO
+A blind beggar in a thatched cottage.
+
+VILLAGER
+That fellow was Kagekiyo. What ails the lady? she shivers.
+
+TOMO
+A question you might well ask. She is the exile's daughter. She wanted to
+see her father once more, and so came hither to seek him. Will you take
+us to Kagekiyo?
+
+VILLAGER
+Bless 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 shaved
+his crown and called himself 'The Blind man of Hinga.' He begs a bit from
+the passers, and the likes of us keep him; he'd be ashamed to tell you
+his 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, Oh
+there, Kagekiyo!
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Noise, noise! Someone came from my home to call me, but I sent them on. I
+couldn't be seen like this. Tears like the thousand lines in a rain
+storm, bitter tears soften my sleeve. Ten thousand things rise in a
+dream, and I wake in this hovel, wretched, just a nothing in the wide
+world. How can I answer when they call me by my right name?
+
+CHORUS
+Do not call out the name he had in his glory. You will move the bad blood
+in his heart, (then taking up Kagekiyo's thought) I am angry.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Living here....
+
+CHORUS (going on with Kagekiyo's thought)
+I go on living here, hated by the people in power. A blind man without
+his staff, I am deformed, and therefore speak evil; excuse me.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+My eyes are darkened.
+
+CHORUS
+Though my eyes are dark I understand the thoughts of another. I
+understand at a word. The wind comes down from the pine trees on the
+mountain, and snow comes down after the wind. The dream tells of my
+glory, I am loth to wake from the dream. I hear the waves running in the
+evening 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.
+
+VILLAGER
+You're always like that, never mind it. Has anyone been here to see you?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+No one but you.
+
+VILLAGER
+Go on, that is not true. Your daughter was here. Why couldn't you tell
+her the truth, she being so sad and so eager. I have brought her back
+now. Come now, speak with your father. Come along.
+
+HIME
+O, 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's
+love goes when the child is not worth it.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+I meant to keep it concealed, but now they have found it all out. I shall
+drench you with the dew of my shame, you who are young as a flower. I
+tell you my name, and that we are father and child; yet I thought this
+would put dishonour upon you, and therefore I let you pass. Do not hold
+it against me.
+
+CHORUS
+At first I was angry that my friends would no longer come near me. But
+now I have come to a time when I could not believe that even a child of
+my 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....
+
+KAGEKIYO
+What is it?
+
+VILLAGER
+She has heard of your old fame in Uashima. Would you tell her the ballad?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Towards the end of the third month it was, in the third year of Juei. We
+men 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-Kami
+Noritsune said: 'Last year in the hills of Harima, & in Midzushima, and
+in Hiyodorigoye of Bitchiu, we were defeated time and again, for
+Yoshitsine is tactful and cunning.' 'Is there any way we can beat them?'
+(Kagekiyo thought in his mind) 'This Hangan Yoshitsine is neither god nor
+a devil, at the risk of my life I might do it.' So he took leave of
+Noritsune and led a party against the shore, and all the men of Genji
+rushed on them.
+
+CHORUS
+Kagekiyo cried, 'You are haughty.' His armour caught every turn of the
+sun. He drove them four ways before them.
+
+KAGEKIYO (excited and crying out)
+Samoshiya! Run, cowards!
+
+CHORUS
+He thought, how easy this killing. He rushed with his spear-haft gripped
+under his arm. He cried out, 'I am Kagekiyo of the Heike.' He rushed on
+to take them. He pierced through the helmet vizards of Miyonoya. Miyonoya
+fled twice, and again; and Kagekiyo cried, 'You shall not escape me!' He
+leaped and wrenched off his helmet. 'Eya!' The vizard broke and remained
+in his hand and Miyonoya still fled afar, and afar, and he looked back
+crying in terror, 'How terrible, how heavy your arm!' And Kagekiyo called
+at him, 'How tough the shaft of your neck is!' And they both laughed out
+over the battle, and went off each his own way.
+
+CHORUS
+These were the deeds of old, but oh, to tell them! To be telling them
+over now in his wretched condition. His life in the world is weary, he is
+near 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 upon
+you as we count on a lamp in the darkness ... we who are blind.' 'I will
+stay,' 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 last
+play: I asked Mr. Hirata how it could be considered natural or dutiful
+for the daughter to leave her father in such a condition. He said,
+'that the Japanese would not be in sympathy with such sternness now, but
+that it was the old Bushido spirit. The personality of the old man is
+worn out, no more good in this life. It would be sentimentality for
+her to remain with him. No good could be done. He could well restrain his
+love for her, better that she should pray for him and go on with the work
+of her normal life.'
+
+Of the plays in this book, 'Nishikigi' has appeared in 'Poetry,'
+'Hagoromo' in 'The Quarterly Review,' and 'Kumasaka,' in 'The Drama;' to
+the editors of which periodicals I wish to express my acknowledgment.
+
+Ezra Pound.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Certain Noble Plays of Japan, by Ezra Pound
+
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diff --git a/8094-8.zip b/8094-8.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Certain Noble Plays of Japan:, by Ezra Pound
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Certain Noble Plays of Japan, by Ezra Pound
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Certain Noble Plays of Japan
+       From The Manuscripts Of Ernest Fenollosa
+
+Author: Ezra Pound
+
+Commentator: William Butler Yeats
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2005  [EBook #8094]
+This file was first posted on June 14, 2003
+Last updated: May 1, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Text file produced by David Starner, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN:
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      From The Manuscripts Of Ernest Fenollosa, <br /> <br /> Chosen And Finished
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Ezra Pound
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      With An Introduction By William Butler Yeats
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> NISHIKIGI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> HAGOROMO </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> KUMASAKA </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> KAGEKIYO </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_NOTE"> NOTES </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the series of books I edit for my sister I confine myself to those that
+      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 they will help
+      me to explain a certain possibility of the Irish dramatic movement. I am
+      writing these words with my imagination stirred by a visit to the studio
+      of Mr. Dulac, the distinguished illustrator of the Arabian Nights. I saw
+      there the mask and head-dress to be worn in a play of mine by the player
+      who will speak the part of Cuchulain, and who wearing this noble
+      half-Greek half-Asiatic face will appear perhaps like an image seen in
+      revery by some Orphic worshipper. I hope to have attained the distance
+      from life which can make credible strange events, elaborate words. I have
+      written a little play that can be played in a room for so little money
+      that forty or fifty readers of poetry can pay the price. There will be no
+      scenery, for three musicians, whose seeming sun-burned faces will I hope
+      suggest that they have wandered from village to village in some country of
+      our dreams, can describe place and weather, and at moments action, and
+      accompany it all by drum and gong or flute and dulcimer. Instead of the
+      players working themselves into a violence of passion indecorous in our
+      sitting-room, the music, the beauty of form and voice all come to climax
+      in pantomimic dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact with the help of these plays 'translated by Ernest Fenollosa and
+      finished by Ezra Pound' I have invented a form of drama, distinguished,
+      indirect and symbolic, and having no need of mob or press to pay its way&mdash;an
+      aristocratic form. When this play and its performance run as smoothly as
+      my skill can make them, I shall hope to write another of the same sort and
+      so complete a dramatic celebration of the life of Cuchulain planned long
+      ago. Then having given enough performances for I hope the pleasure of
+      personal friends and a few score people of good taste, I shall record all
+      discoveries of method and turn to something else. It is an advantage of
+      this noble form that it need absorb no one's life, that its few properties
+      can be packed up in a box, or hung upon the walls where they will be fine
+      ornaments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      II
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet this simplification is not mere economy. For nearly three
+      centuries invention has been making the human voice and the movements of
+      the body seem always less expressive. I have long been puzzled why
+      passages, that are moving when read out or spoken during rehearsal, seem
+      muffled or dulled during performance. I have simplified scenery, having
+      'The Hour Glass' for instance played now before green curtains, now among
+      those admirable ivory-coloured screens invented by Gordon Craig. With
+      every simplification the voice has recovered something of its importance
+      and 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 have still
+      felt as if the sound came to me from behind a veil. The stage-opening, the
+      powerful light and shade, the number of feet between myself and the
+      players have destroyed intimacy. I have found myself thinking of players
+      who needed perhaps but to unroll a mat in some Eastern garden. Nor have I
+      felt this only when I listened to speech, but even more when I have
+      watched the movement of a player or heard singing in a play. I love all
+      the arts that can still remind me of their origin among the common people,
+      and my ears are only comfortable when the singer sings as if mere speech
+      had taken fire, when he appears to have passed into song almost
+      imperceptibly. I am bored and wretched, a limitation I greatly regret,
+      when he seems no longer a human being but an invention of science. To
+      explain him to myself I say that he has become a wind instrument and sings
+      no longer like active men, sailor or camel driver, because he has had to
+      compete with an orchestra, where the loudest instrument has always
+      survived. The human voice can only become louder by becoming less
+      articulate, by discovering some new musical sort of roar or scream. As
+      poetry can do neither, the voice must be freed from this competition and
+      find itself among little instruments, only heard at their best perhaps
+      when we are close about them. It should be again possible for a few poets
+      to write as all did once, not for the printed page but to be sung. But
+      movement also has grown less expressive, more declamatory, less intimate.
+      When I called the other day upon a friend I found myself among some dozen
+      people who were watching a group of Spanish boys and girls, professional
+      dancers, dancing some national dance in the midst of a drawing-room.
+      Doubtless their training had been long, laborious and wearisome; but now
+      one could not be deceived, their movement was full of joy. They were among
+      friends, and it all seemed but the play of children; how powerful it
+      seemed, how passionate, while an even more miraculous art, separated from
+      us by the footlights, appeared in the comparison laborious and
+      professional. It is well to be close enough to an artist to feel for him a
+      personal liking, close enough perhaps to feel that our liking is returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My play is made possible by a Japanese dancer whom I have seen dance in a
+      studio and in a drawing-room and on a very small stage lit by an excellent
+      stage-light. In the studio and in the drawing-room alone where the
+      lighting was the light we are most accustomed to, did I see him as the
+      tragic image that has stirred my imagination. There where no studied
+      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 as he
+      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' greatness can be but
+      in their intimacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      III
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All imaginative art keeps at a distance and this distance once chosen must
+      be firmly held against a pushing world. Verse, ritual, music and dance in
+      association with action require that gesture, costume, facial expression,
+      stage arrangement must help in keeping the door. Our unimaginative arts
+      are content to set a piece of the world as we know it in a place by
+      itself, to put their photographs as it were in a plush or a plain frame,
+      but the arts which interest me, while seeming to separate from the world
+      and us a group of figures, images, symbols, enable us to pass for a few
+      moments into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been too subtle for our
+      habitation. As a deep of the mind can only be approached through what is
+      most human, most delicate, we should distrust bodily distance, mechanism
+      and loud noise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be well if we go to school in Asia, for the distance from life in
+      European art has come from little but difficulty with material. In
+      half-Asiatic Greece, Kallimachos could still return to a stylistic
+      management of the falling folds of drapery, after the naturalistic drapery
+      of Phidias, and in Egypt the same age that saw the village Head-man carved
+      in wood for burial in some tomb with so complete a naturalism saw, set up
+      in public places, statues full of an august formality that implies
+      traditional measurements, a philosophic defence. The spiritual painting of
+      the 14th century passed on into Tintoretto and that of Velasquez into
+      modern painting with no sense of loss to weigh against the gain, while the
+      painting of Japan, not having our European Moon to churn the wits, has
+      understood that no styles that ever delighted noble imaginations have lost
+      their importance, and chooses the style according to the subject. In
+      literature also we have had the illusion of change and progress, the art
+      of Shakespeare passing into that of Dryden, and so into the prose drama,
+      by what has seemed when studied in its details unbroken progress. Had we
+      been Greeks, and so but half-European, an honourable mob would have
+      martyred though in vain the first man who set up a painted scene, or who
+      complained that soliloquies were unnatural, instead of repeating with a
+      sigh, 'we cannot return to the arts of childhood however beautiful.' Only
+      our lyric poetry has kept its Asiatic habit and renewed itself at its own
+      youth, putting off perpetually what has been called its progress in a
+      series of violent revolutions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore it is natural that I go to Asia for a stage-convention, for more
+      formal faces, for a chorus that has no part in the action and perhaps for
+      those movements of the body copied from the marionette shows of the 14th
+      century. A mask will enable me to substitute for the face of some
+      common-place player, or for that face repainted to suit his own vulgar
+      fancy, the fine invention of a sculptor, and to bring the audience close
+      enough to the play to hear every inflection of the voice. A mask never
+      seems but a dirty face, and no matter how close you go is still a work 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. In poetical painting
+      &amp; in sculpture the face seems the nobler for lacking curiosity, alert
+      attention, all that we sum up under the famous word of the realists
+      'vitality.' It is even possible that being is only possessed completely by
+      the dead, and that it is some knowledge of this that makes 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 at the end of its thousand
+      wise years, awaiting in condescension the burning nest and what did it not
+      gain from that immobility in dignity and in power?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IV
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Realism is created for the common people and was always their peculiar
+      delight, and it is the delight to-day of all those whose minds educated
+      alone by school-masters and newspapers are without the memory of beauty
+      and emotional subtlety. The occasional humorous realism that so much
+      heightened the emotional effect of Elizabethan Tragedy, Cleopatra's old
+      man with an asp let us say, carrying the tragic crisis by its contrast
+      above the tide-mark of Corneille's courtly theatre, was made at the outset
+      to please the common citizen standing on the rushes of the floor; but the
+      great speeches were written by poets who remembered their patrons in the
+      covered galleries. The fanatic Savonarola was but dead a century, and his
+      lamentation in the frenzy of his rhetoric, that every prince of the Church
+      or State throughout Europe was wholly occupied with the fine arts, had
+      still its moiety of truth. A poetical passage cannot be understood without
+      a rich memory, and like the older school of painting appeals to a
+      tradition, and that not merely when it speaks of 'Lethe's Wharf' or 'Dido
+      on the wild sea-banks' but in rhythm, in vocabulary; for the ear must
+      notice slight variations upon old cadences and customary words, all that
+      high breeding of poetical style where there is nothing ostentatious,
+      nothing crude, no breath of parvenu or journalist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us press the popular arts on to a more complete realism, for that
+      would be their honesty; and the commercial arts demoralise by their
+      compromise, their incompleteness, their idealism without sincerity or
+      elegance, their pretence that ignorance can understand beauty. In the
+      studio 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 only
+      through what is least declamatory, least popular in the art of
+      Shakespeare, and in such a theatre they will find their habitual audience
+      and keep their freedom. Europe is very old and has seen many arts run
+      through the circle and has learned the fruit of every flower and known
+      what this fruit sends up, and it is now time to copy the East and live
+      deliberately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      V
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Noh theatre of Japan became popular at the close of the 14th century,
+      gathering into itself dances performed at Shinto shrines in honour of
+      spirits and gods or by young nobles at the court, and much old lyric
+      poetry, and receiving its philosophy and its final shape perhaps from
+      priests of a contemplative school of Buddhism. A small daimio or feudal
+      lord of the ancient capital Nara, a contemporary of Chaucer's, was the
+      author, or perhaps only the stage-manager, of many plays. He brought them
+      to the court of the Shogun at Kioto. From that on the Shogun and his court
+      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 a
+      necessary part of official ceremonies at Kioto, and young nobles and
+      princes, forbidden to attend the popular theatre in Japan as elsewhere a
+      place of mimicry and naturalism were encouraged to witness and to perform
+      in spectacles where speech, music, song and dance created an image of
+      nobility and strange beauty. When the modern revolution came, Noh after a
+      brief unpopularity was played for the first time in certain ceremonious
+      public theatres, and 1897 a battleship was named Takasago, after one of
+      its most famous plays. Some of the old noble families are to-day very
+      poor, their men it may be but servants and labourers, but they still
+      frequent these theatres. 'Accomplishment' the word Noh means, and it is
+      their accomplishment and that of a few cultured people who understand the
+      literary and mythological allusions and the ancient lyrics quoted in
+      speech or chorus, their discipline, a part of their breeding. The players
+      themselves, unlike the despised players of the popular theatre, have
+      passed on proudly from father to son an elaborate art, and even now a
+      player will publish his family tree to prove his skill. One player wrote
+      in 1906 in a business circular&mdash;I am quoting from Mr. Pound's
+      redaction of the Notes of Fenollosa&mdash;that after thirty generations of
+      nobles a woman of his house dreamed that a mask was carried to her from
+      heaven, and soon after she bore a son who became a player and the father
+      of players. His family he declared still possessed a letter from a 15th
+      century Mikado conferring upon them a theatre-curtain, white below and
+      purple above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were five families of these players and, forbidden before the
+      Revolution to perform in public, they had received grants of land or
+      salaries from the state. The white and purple curtain was no doubt to hang
+      upon a wall behind the players or over their entrance door for the Noh
+      stage is a platform surrounded upon three sides by the audience. No
+      'naturalistic' effect is sought. The players wear masks and found their
+      movements upon those of puppets: the most famous of all Japanese
+      dramatists composed entirely for puppets. A swift or a slow movement and a
+      long or a short stillness, and then another movement. They sing as much as
+      they speak, and there is a chorus which describes the scene and interprets
+      their thought and never becomes as in the Greek theatre a part of the
+      action. At the climax instead of the disordered passion of nature there is
+      a dance, a series of positions &amp; movements which may represent a
+      battle, or a marriage, or the pain of a ghost in the Buddhist purgatory. I
+      have lately studied certain of these dances, with Japanese players, and I
+      notice that their ideal of beauty, unlike that of Greece and like that of
+      pictures from Japan and China, makes them pause at moments of muscular
+      tension. The interest is not in the human form but in the rhythm to which
+      it moves, and the triumph of their art is to express the rhythm in its
+      intensity. There are few swaying movements of arms or body such as make
+      the beauty of our dancing. They move from the hip, keeping constantly the
+      upper part of their body still, and seem to associate with every gesture
+      or pose some definite thought. They cross the stage with a sliding
+      movement, and one gets the impression not of undulation but of continuous
+      straight lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Print Room of the British Museum is now closed as a war-economy, so I
+      can only write from memory of theatrical colour-prints, where a ship is
+      represented by a mere skeleton of willows or osiers painted green, or a
+      fruit tree by a bush in a pot, and where actors have tied on their masks
+      with ribbons that are gathered into a bunch behind the head. It is a
+      child's game become the most noble poetry, and there is no observation of
+      life, because the poet would set before us all those things which we feel
+      and imagine in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Ezra Pound has found among the Fenollosa manuscripts a story
+      traditional among Japanese players. A young man was following a stately
+      old woman through the streets of a Japanese town, and presently she turned
+      to him and spoke: 'Why do you follow me?' 'Because you are so
+      interesting.' 'That is not so, I am too old to be interesting.' But he
+      wished he told her to become a player of old women on the Noh stage. 'If
+      he would become famous as a Noh player she said, he must not observe life,
+      nor put on an old voice and stint the music of his voice. He must know how
+      to suggest an old woman and yet find it all in the heart.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VI
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the plays themselves I discover a beauty or a subtlety that I can trace
+      perhaps to their threefold origin. The love-sorrows, the love of father
+      and daughter, of mother and son, of boy and girl, may owe their nobility
+      to a courtly life, but he to whom the adventures happen, a traveller
+      commonly from some distant place, is most often a Buddhist priest; and the
+      occasional intellectual subtlety is perhaps Buddhist. The adventure itself
+      is often the meeting with ghost, god or goddess at some holy place or
+      much-legended tomb; and god, goddess or ghost reminds me at times of our
+      own Irish legends and beliefs, which once it may be differed little from
+      those of the Shinto worshipper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The feather-mantle, for whose lack the moon goddess, (or should we call
+      her fairy?) cannot return to the sky, is the red cap whose theft can keep
+      our 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 to the
+      priest after death to be married. These Japanese poets too feel for tomb
+      and wood the emotion, the sense of awe that our Gaelic speaking country
+      people will some times show when you speak to them of Castle Hackett or of
+      some Holy Well; and that is why perhaps it pleases them to begin so many
+      plays by a Traveller asking his way with many questions, a convention
+      agreeable to me; for when I first began to write poetical plays for an
+      Irish theatre I had to put away an ambition of helping to bring again to
+      certain places, their old sanctity or their romance. I could lay the scene
+      of a play on Baile's Strand, but I found no pause in the hurried action
+      for descriptions of strand or sea or the great yew tree 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 river and 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 that forgotten tomb where 'the
+      hiding fox' lives among 'the orchids and the chrysanthemum flowers.' The
+      men who created this convention were more like ourselves than were the
+      Greeks and Romans, more like us even than are Shakespeare and Corneille.
+      Their emotion was self-conscious and reminiscent, always associating
+      itself with pictures and poems. They measured all that time had taken or
+      would take away and found their delight in remembering celebrated lovers
+      in the scenery pale passion loves. They travelled seeking for the strange
+      and for the picturesque: 'I go about with my heart set upon no particular
+      place, no more than a cloud. I wonder now would the sea be that way, or
+      the little place Kefu that they say is stuck down against it.' When a
+      traveller asks his way of girls upon the roadside he is directed to find
+      it by certain pine trees, which he will recognise because many people have
+      drawn them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder am I fanciful in discovering in the plays themselves (few
+      examples have as yet been translated and I may be misled by accident or
+      the idiosyncrasy of some poet) a playing upon a single metaphor, as
+      deliberate as the echoing rhythm of line in Chinese and Japanese painting.
+      In the 'Nishikigi' the ghost of the girl-lover carries the cloth she went
+      on weaving out of grass when she should have opened the chamber door to
+      her lover, and woven grass returns again and again in metaphor and
+      incident. The lovers, now that in an aery body they must sorrow for
+      unconsummated love, are 'tangled up as the grass patterns are tangled.'
+      Again they are like an unfinished cloth: 'these bodies, having no weft,
+      even now are not come together, truly a shameful story, a tale to bring
+      shame on the gods.' Before they can bring the priest to the tomb they
+      spend the day 'pushing aside the grass from the overgrown ways in Kefu,'
+      and the countryman who directs them is 'cutting grass on the hill;' &amp;
+      when at last the prayer of the priest unites them in marriage the bride
+      says that he has made 'a dream-bridge over wild grass, over the grass I
+      dwell in;' and in the end bride and bridegroom show themselves for a
+      moment 'from under the shadow of the love-grass.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 'Hagoromo' the feather-mantle of the fairy woman creates also its
+      rhythm of metaphor. In the beautiful day of opening spring 'the plumage of
+      Heaven drops neither feather nor flame,' 'nor is the rock of earth
+      over-much worn by the brushing of the feathery skirt of the stars.' One
+      half remembers a thousand Japanese paintings, or whichever comes first
+      into the memory. That screen painted by Korin, let us say, shown lately at
+      the British Museum, where the same form is echoing in wave and in cloud
+      and in rock. In European poetry I remember Shelley's continually repeated
+      fountain and cave, his broad stream and solitary star. In neglecting
+      character which seems to us essential in drama, as do their artists in
+      neglecting relief and depth, when they arrange flowers in a vase in a thin
+      row, they have made possible a hundred lovely intricacies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VII
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These plays arose in an age of continual war and became a part of the
+      education of soldiers. These soldiers, whose natures had as much of Walter
+      Pater as of Achilles combined with Buddhist priests and women to elaborate
+      life in a ceremony, the playing of football, the drinking of tea, and all
+      great events of state, becoming a ritual. In the painting that decorated
+      their walls and in the poetry they recited one discovers the only sign of
+      a great age that cannot deceive us, the most vivid and subtle
+      discrimination of sense and the invention of images more powerful than
+      sense; the continual presence of reality. It is still true that the Deity
+      gives us, according to His promise, not His thoughts or His convictions
+      but His flesh and blood, and I believe that the elaborate technique of the
+      arts, seeming to create out of itself a superhuman life has taught more
+      men to die than oratory or the Prayer Book. We only believe in those
+      thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.
+      The Minoan soldier who bore upon his arm the shield ornamented with the
+      dove in the Museum at Crete, or had upon his head the helmet with the
+      winged horse, knew his rôle in life. When Nobuzane painted the child Saint
+      Kobo, Daishi kneeling full of sweet austerity upon the flower of the
+      lotus, he set up before our eyes exquisite life and the acceptance of
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot imagine those young soldiers and the women they loved pleased
+      with the ill-breeding and theatricality of Carlyle, nor I think with the
+      magniloquence of Hugo. These things belong to an industrial age, a
+      mechanical sequence of ideas; but when I remember that curious game which
+      the Japanese called, with a confusion of the senses that had seemed
+      typical of our own age, 'listening to incense,' I know that some among
+      them would have understood the prose of Walter Pater, the painting or
+      Puvis de Chavannes, the poetry of Mallarmé and Verlaine. When heroism
+      returned to our age it bore with it as its first gift technical sincerity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VIII
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some weeks now I have been elaborating my play in London where alone I
+      can find the help I need, Mr. Dulac's mastery of design and Mr. Ito's
+      genius of movement; yet it pleases me to think that I am working for my
+      own country. Perhaps some day a play in the form I am adapting for
+      European purposes shall awake once more, whether in Gaelic or in English,
+      under the slope of Slieve-na-mon or Croagh Patrick ancient memories; for
+      this form has no need of scenery that runs away with money nor of a
+      theatre-building. Yet I know that I only amuse myself with a fancy; for
+      though my writings if they be sea-worthy must put to sea, I cannot tell
+      where they may be carried by the wind. Are not the fairy-stories of Oscar
+      Wilde, which were written for Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon and for a few
+      ladies, very popular in Arabia?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. B. Yeats, April 1916.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      NISHIKIGI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A PLAY IN TWO ACTS BY MOTOKIYO.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PERSONS OF THE PLAY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE WAKI A priest
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE SHITE, OR HERO Ghost of the lover
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TSURE Ghost of the woman; they have both been long dead, and have not yet
+      been united.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The 'Nishikigi' are wands used as a love charm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hosonuno' is the name of a local cloth which the woman weaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      NISHIKIGI
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First Part
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 sea-weed. We do
+      not know where are to-day 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Narrow is the cloth of Kefu, but wild is that river, that torrent
+      of the hills, between the beloved and the bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cloth she had woven is faded, the thousand one hundred nights were
+      night-trysts watched out in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WAKI (not recognizing the nature of the speakers)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  This is a narrow cloth called 'Hosonuno,'
+  It is just the breadth of the loom.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  And this is merely wood painted,
+  And yet the place is famous because of these things.
+  Would you care to buy them from us?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WAKI That is a fine answer. And you would tell me then that Nishikigi and
+      Hosonuno are names bound over with love?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE 'Tis a sad name to look back on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  A thousand wands were in vain.
+  A sad name, set in a story.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  A seed-pod void of the seed,
+  We had no meeting together.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TSURE Let him read out the story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+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.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      WAKI Go on, tell out all the story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WAKI
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE So be it, I will teach you the path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TSURE Tell him to come over this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BOTH
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Here are the pair of them
+  Going along before the traveller.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  There's a cold feel in the autumn.
+  Night comes....
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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)
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Second Part
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (The Waki has taken the posture of sleep. His respectful visit to the cave
+      is beginning to have its effect.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WAKI (restless)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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)
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE (supposedly invisible)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      (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.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  The three years are over and past:
+  All that is but an old story.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  There is at the root of hell
+  No distinction between princes and commons;
+  Wretched for me! 'tis the saying.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      WAKI
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Indeed in old times Narihira said,
+  &mdash;and he has vanished with the years&mdash;
+  'Let a man who is in the world tell the fact.'
+  It is for you, traveller,
+  To say how much is illusion.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      WAKI
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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&mdash;
+  Now, soon, while the night lasts.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  The woman has gone into the cave.
+  She sets up her loom there
+  For the weaving of Hosonuno,
+  Thin as the heart of Autumn.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  The suitor for his part, holding his charm-sticks,
+  Knocks on a gate which was barred.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  In old time he got back no answer,
+  No secret sound at all
+  Save....
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE The sound of the loom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets,
+  A thin sound like the Autumn.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE It was what you would hear any night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Kiri.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    Hatari.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TSURE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Cho.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        Cho.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS (mimicking the sound of crickets)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS (antistrophe)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Let be, they make grass-cloth in Kefu,
+  Kefu, the land's end, matchless in the world.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  That is an old custom, truly,
+  But this priest would look on the past.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Even to-day the difficulty of our meeting is remembered,
+  And is remembered in song.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Tell me, could I have foreseen
+  Or known what a heap of my writings
+  Should lie at the end of her shaft-bench?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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....
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Were set up a thousand times;
+  Then, now, and for always.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Shall I ever at last see into that room of hers, which no other
+      sight has traversed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Happy at last and well-starred,
+  Now comes the eve of betrothal:
+  We meet for the wine-cup.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  How glorious the sleeves of the dance,
+  That are like snow-whirls!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SHITE Tread out the dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Tread out the dance and bring music.
+  This dance is for Nishikigi.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+SHITE
+ This dance is for the evening plays,
+ And for the weaving.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  For the tokens between lover and lover:
+  It is a reflecting in the wine-cup.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      HAGOROMO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      HAGOROMO, A PLAY IN ONE ACT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PERSONS OF THE PLAY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE PRIEST Hakuryo
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A FISHERMAN
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A TENNIN
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HAGOROMO
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plot of the play 'Hagoromo, the Feather-mantle' is as follows. The
+      priest finds the Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a Tennin, an
+      aerial spirit or celestial dancer, hanging upon a bough. She demands its
+      return. He argues with her, and finally promises to return it, if she will
+      teach him her dance or part of it. She accepts the offer. The Chorus
+      explains the dance as symbolical of the daily changes of the moon. The
+      words about 'three, five and fifteen' refer to the number of nights in the
+      moon's changes. In the finale, the Tennin is supposed to disappear like a
+      mountain slowly hidden in mist. The play shows the relation of the early
+      Noh to the God-dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A FISHERMAN Upon a thousand heights had gathered the inexplicable cloud,
+      swept by the rain. The moon is just come to light the low house. A clean
+      and pleasant time surely. There comes the breath-colour of spring; the
+      waves rise in a line below the early mist; the moon is still delaying
+      above, though we've no skill to grasp it. Here is a beauty to set the mind
+      above itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Let us go according to custom. Take hands against the wind here, for it
+      presses the clouds and the sea. Those men who were going to fish are about
+      to return without launching. Wait a little, is it not spring? will not 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 with even the
+      smallest boats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Now I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark in Subara; I see all
+      that they 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 is this cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree. As I approach to inhale
+      its colour I am aware of mystery. Its colour-smell is mysterious. I see
+      that it is surely no common dress. I will take it now and return and make
+      it a treasure in my house, to show to the aged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN That cloak belongs to someone on this side. What are you proposing
+      to do with it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST This? this is a cloak picked up. I am taking it home, I tell you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST How, is the owner of this cloak a Tennin? so be it. In this
+      downcast age I should keep it, a rare thing, and make it a treasure in the
+      country, a thing respected. Then I should not return it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN Pitiful, there is no flying without the cloak of feathers, no
+      return through the ether. I pray you return me the mantle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Just from hearing these high words, I, Hakuryo have gathered more
+      and yet more force. You think, because I was too stupid to recognise it,
+      that I shall be unable to take and keep hid the feather-robe, that I shall
+      give it back for merely being told to stand and withdraw?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  A Tennin without her robe,
+  A bird without wings,
+  How shall she climb the air?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST And this world would be a sorry place for her to dwell in?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN I am caught, I struggle, how shall I?...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST No, Hakuryo is not one to give back the robe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN Power does not attain....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST To get back the robe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Her coronet <a href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1"
+      id="linknoteref-1"><small>1</small></a> jewelled as with the dew of tears,
+      even the flowers that decorated her hair drooping, and fading, the whole
+      chain of weaknesses <a href="#linknote-2" name="linknoteref-2"
+      id="linknoteref-2"><small>2</small></a> of the dying Tennin can be seen
+      actually before the eyes. Sorrow!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN I look into the flat of heaven, peering; the cloud-road is all
+      hidden and uncertain; we are lost in the rising mist; I have lost the
+      knowledge of the road. Strange, a strange sorrow!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Enviable colour of breath, wonder of clouds that fade along the sky
+      that was our accustomed dwelling; hearing the sky-bird, accustomed and
+      well accustomed, hearing the voices grow fewer, the wild geese fewer and
+      fewer along the highways of air, how deep her longing to return. Plover
+      and seagull 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST (to the Tennin) What do you say? now that I can see you in your
+      sorrow, gracious, of heaven, I bend and would return you your mantle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN It grows clearer. No, give it this side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST First tell me your nature, who are you, Tennin? give payment with
+      the dance of the Tennin, and I will return you your mantle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN Readily and gladly, and then I return into heaven. You shall have
+      what pleasure you will, and I will leave a dance here, a joy to be new
+      among men and to be memorial dancing. Learn then this dance that can turn
+      the palace of the moon. No, come here to learn it. For the sorrows of the
+      world I will leave this new dancing with you for sorrowful people. But
+      give me my mantle, I cannot do the dance rightly without it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Not yet, for if you should get it, how do I know you'll not be off
+      to your palace without even beginning your dance, not even a measure?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN Doubt is fitting for mortals; with us there is no deceit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST I am again ashamed. I give you your mantle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS The young maid now is arrayed; she assumes the curious mantle;
+      watch how she moves in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST The heavenly feather-robe moves in accord with the wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN The sleeves of flowers are being wet with the rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST The wind and the sleeve move together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN The 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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+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, <a href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3"
+      id="linknoteref-3">3</a>
+  One for each night of the month,
+  And each with her deed assigned.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN I also am heaven-born and a maid, Amaotome. Of them there are many.
+      This is the dividing of my body, that is fruit of the moon's tree,
+      Katsuma. <a href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="linknoteref-4"><small>4</small></a>
+      This is one part of our dance that I leave to you here in your world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS The spring mist is widespread abroad; so perhaps the wild olive's
+      flower will blossom in the infinitely unreachable moon. Her flowery
+      head-ornament is putting on colour; this truly is sign of the spring. Not
+      sky is here, but the beauty; and even here comes the heavenly, wonderful
+      wind. O blow, shut the accustomed path of the clouds. O, you in the form
+      of a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine-waste of Miwo
+      puts on the colour of spring. The bay of Kiyomi lies clear before the snow
+      upon Fuji. Are not all these presages of the spring? There are but few
+      ripples beneath the piny wind. It is quiet along the shore. There is
+      naught but a fence of jewels between the earth and the sky, and the gods
+      within and without, <a href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5"
+      id="linknoteref-5"><small>5</small></a> beyond and beneath the stars, and
+      the moon unclouded by her lord, and we who are born of the sun. This alone
+      intervenes, here where the moon is unshadowed, here in Nippon, the sun's
+      field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN The plumage of heaven drops neither feather nor flame to its own
+      diminution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Nor 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 a magic song from the east, the voices of many and many: and flute and
+      shae, filling the space beyond the cloud's edge, seven-stringed; dance
+      filling 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
+      storm that comes over this green moor, which is afloat, as it would seem,
+      in these waves. Wonderful is the sleeve of the white cloud, whirling such
+      snow here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TENNIN Plain of life, field of the sun, true foundation, great power!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Hence 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 a green garment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SEMI-CHORUS And now the robe of mist, presaging spring, a colour-smell as
+      this wonderful maiden's skirt&mdash;left, right, left! The rustling of
+      flowers, the putting-on of the feathery sleeve; they bend in air with the
+      dancing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SEMI-CHORUS Many are the joys in the east. She who is the colour-person of
+      the moon takes her middle-night in the sky. She marks her three fives with
+      this dancing, 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
+      from us. After a little time, only a little time, can the mantle be upon
+      the wind that was spread over Matsubara or over Ashilaka the mountain,
+      though the clouds lie in its heaven like a plain awash with sea. Fuji is
+      gone; the great peak of Fuji is blotted out little by little. It melts
+      into the upper mist. In this way she (the Tennin) is lost to sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>FOOTNOTES</b>:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br /> [ Vide examples of state
+      head-dress of kingfisher feathers, in the South Kensington Museum.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-2" id="linknote-2"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      2 (<a href="#linknoteref-2">return</a>)<br /> [ The chain of weaknesses, or
+      the five ills, diseases of the Tennin: namely, the hanakadzusa withers;
+      the Hagoromo is stained; sweat comes from the body; both eyes wink
+      frequently; she feels very weary of her palace in heaven.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-3" id="linknote-3"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      3 (<a href="#linknoteref-3">return</a>)<br /> [ Cf. 'Paradiso,' xxiii, 25.
+      'Quale nei plenilunii sereni Trivia ride tra le ninfe eterne.']
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-4" id="linknote-4"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      4 (<a href="#linknoteref-4">return</a>)<br /> [ A tree something like the
+      laurel.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-5" id="linknote-5"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      5 (<a href="#linknoteref-5">return</a>)<br /> [ 'Within and without,' gei,
+      gu, two parts of the temple]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      KUMASAKA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A PLAY IN TWO ACTS BY UJINOBU, ADOPTED SON OF MOTOKIJO.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PERSONS OF THE PLAY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A PRIEST
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+FIRST SHITE, OR HERO    The apparition of Kumasaka in the form of an old
+                        priest
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SECOND SHITE The apparition of Kumasaka in his true form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS This chorus sometimes speaks what the chief characters are
+      thinking, sometimes it describes or interprets the meaning of their
+      movements. Plot: the ghost of Kumasaka makes reparation for his brigandage
+      by protecting the country. He comes back to praise the bravery of the
+      young man who killed him in single combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First Part
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Where shall I rest, wandering, weary of the world? I am a city-bred
+      priest, 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 another
+      at Shinohara, and at the dawn I came to the green field, Awono in Miwo. I
+      now pass Akasaka at sunset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE (In the form of an old priest) I could tell that priest a thing or
+      two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Do you mean me, what is it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE A certain man died on this day. I ask you to pray for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST All right, but for whom shall I pray?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE I will not tell you his name, but his grave lies in the green field
+      beyond that tall pine tree. He cannot enter to the gates of Paradise, and
+      so I ask you to pray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST But I do not think it is proper to pray unless you tell me his
+      name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE No, no; you can pray the prayer, Ho kai shijo biodo riaku; that
+      would do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST (praying) Unto all mortals let there be equal grace, to pass from
+      this life of agony by the gates of death into law, into the peaceful
+      kingdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE (saying first a word or two) If you pray for him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS (continuing the sentence) If you pray with the prayer of 'Exeat' he
+      will be thankful, and you need not be aware of his name. They say that
+      prayer can be heard for even the grass and the plants, for even the sand
+      and the soil here; and they will surely hear it, if you pray for an
+      unknown man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE Will you enter? This is my cottage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST This is your house? Very well, I will hold the service in your
+      house; but I see no picture of Buddha nor any wooden image in this
+      cottage, nothing but a long spear on one wall and an iron stick in place
+      of a priest's wand, and many arrows. What are these for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE (thinking) Yes, this priest is still in the first stage of faith.
+      (aloud) As you see, there are many villages here: Zorii, Awohaka, and
+      Akasaka. But the tall grass of Awo-no-ga-kara grows round the roads
+      between them, and the forest is thick at Koyasu and Awohaka, and many
+      robbers come out under the rains. They attack the baggage on horseback,
+      and take the clothing of maids and servants who pass here. So I go out
+      with this spear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST That's very fine, isn't it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS You will think it very strange for a priest to do this; but even
+      Buddha has the sharp sword of Mida, and Aijen Miowo has arrows, and Tamon,
+      taking his long spear, throws down the evil spirits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE The deep love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS &mdash;is excellent. Good feeling and keeping order are much more
+      excellent than the love of Bosatsu. 'I think of these matters and know
+      little of anything else. It is from my own heart that I am lost,
+      wandering. But if I begin talking I shall keep on talking until dawn. Go
+      to bed, good father; I will sleep too.' He seemed to be going to his
+      bedroom, but suddenly his figure disappeared, and the cottage became a
+      field of grass. The priest passes the night under the pine trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST I cannot sleep out the night. Perhaps if I held my service during
+      the night under this pine tree....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (He begins his service for the dead man.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Second Part
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND SHITE There are winds in the east and south; the clouds are not
+      calm in the west; and in the north the wind of the dark evening blusters;
+      and under the shade of the mountain&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS There is a rustling of boughs and leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND SHITE Perhaps 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
+      men before and behind, my bowmen and horsemen. I plundered men of their
+      treasure, that was my work in the world, and now I must go on; it is sorry
+      work for a spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Are you Kumasaka Chohan? Tell me the tale of your years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SECOND SHITE (now known as Kumasaka) There were great merchants in Sanjo,
+      Yoshitsugu, and Nobutaka; they collected treasure each year; they sent
+      rich goods up to Oku. It was then I assailed their trains. Would you know
+      what men were with me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Tell me the chief men, were they from many a province?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA There was Kakusho of Kawachi, there were the two brothers
+      Suriharitaro; they have no rivals in fencing. (omotenchi, face to face
+      attack)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST What chiefs came to you from the city?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA Emoi of Sanjo, Kozari of Mibu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST In the fighting with torches and in mêlée&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA They had no equals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST In northern Hakoku?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA Were Aso no Matsuwaka and Mikune no Kure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST In Kaga?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA No, Chohan was the head there. There were seventy comrades who
+      were very strong and skilful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS While Yoshitsugu was going along in the fields and on the mountains
+      we set many spies to take him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA Let us say that he is come to the village of Ubasike. This is the
+      best place 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST When the night was advanced the brothers Yoshitsugu and Nobutaka
+      fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA But there was a small boy with keen eyes, about sixteen or
+      seventeen years old, and he was looking through a little hole in the
+      partition, alert to the slightest noise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST He did not sleep even a wink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA We did not know it was Ushiwaka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST It was fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA The hour had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PRIEST Be quick!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA Have at them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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; he seized
+      a small sword and fought like a lion in earnest, like a tiger rushing,
+      like a bird swooping. He fought so cleverly that he felled the thirteen
+      who opposed him; many were wounded besides. They fled without swords or
+      arrows. Then Kumasaka said, 'Are you the devil? Is it a god who has 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 of Yoshitsugu's than
+      my corpse.' So he took his long spear and was about to make off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA &mdash;But Kumasaka thought&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS (taking it up) What can he do, that young chap, if I ply my secret
+      arts freely? Be he god or devil, I will grasp him and grind him. I will
+      offer his body as sacrifice to those whom he has slain. So he drew back,
+      and holding his long spear against his side he hid himself behind the door
+      and stared at the young lad. Ushiwaka beheld him, and holding his sword at
+      his side he crouched at a little distance. Kumasaka waited likewise. They
+      both waited, alertly; then Kumasaka stepped forth swiftly with his left
+      foot, and struck out with the long spear. It would have run through an
+      iron wall. Ushiwaka parried it lightly, swept it away, left volted.
+      Kumasaka followed and again lunged out with the spear, and Ushiwaka
+      parried the spear-blade quite lightly. Then Kumasaka turned the edge of
+      his spear-blade towards Ushiwaka and slashed at him, and Ushiwaka leaped
+      to the right. Kumasaka lifted his spear and the two weapons were twisted
+      together. Ushiwaka drew back his blade. Kumasaka swung with his spear.
+      Ushiwaka led up and stepped into shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kumasaka tried to find him, and Ushiwaka slit through the back-chink of
+      his armour; this seemed the end of his course, and he was wroth to be
+      slain by such a young boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA Slowly the wound&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS &mdash;seemed to pierce; his heart failed; weakness o'ercame him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KUMASAKA At the foot of this pine tree&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS He vanished like a dew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so saying, he disappeared among the shades of the pine tree at
+      Akasaka, and night fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      KAGEKIYO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A PLAY IN ONE ACT, BY MOTOKIYO
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PERSONS OF THE PLAY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SHITE Kagekiyo old and blind
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TSURE Hime his daughter, called also Hitomaru
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO Her attendant
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WAKI A villager
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene is in Hinga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HIME AND TOMO (chanting) What should it be; the body of dew, wholly at the
+      mercy of wind?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HIME
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+HIME AND TOMO (describing the journey as they walk across the bridge and
+the 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?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TOMO As we have come so fast, we are now in Miyazaki of Hinga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is here you should ask for your father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO (in another corner of the stage) Sitting at the gate of the pine
+      wood, I wear out the end of my years. I cannot see the clear light, I know
+      not how the time passes. I sit here in this dark hovel, with one coat for
+      the warm and the cold, and my body is but a frame-work of bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS May as well be a priest with black sleeves. Now having left the
+      world in sorrow, I look upon my withered shape. There is no one to pity me
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HIME Surely no one can live in that ruin, and yet a voice sounds from it.
+      A beggar perhaps, let us take a few steps and see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO My eyes will not show it me, yet the autumn wind is upon us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HIME The wind blows from an unknown past, and spreads our doubts through
+      the world. The wind blows, and I have no rest, nor any place to find
+      quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO Neither in the world of passion, nor in the world of colour, nor
+      in the world of non-colour, is there any such place of rest; beneath the
+      one sky are they all. Whom shall I ask, and how answer?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO Shall I ask the old man by the thatch?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO Who are you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO Where does the exile live?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO What exile?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO One who is called Akushichi-bioye Kagekiyo, a noble who fought under
+      Heike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO Indeed? I have heard of him, but I am blind, I have not looked in
+      his face. I have heard of his wretched condition and pity him. You had
+      better ask for him at the next place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO (to Hime) It seems that he is not here, shall we ask further? (they
+      pass on)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO Strange, I feel that woman who has just passed is the child of
+      that blind man. Long ago I loved a courtezan in Atsuta, one time when I
+      was in that place. But I thought our girl-child would be no use to us, and
+      I left her with the head man in the valley of Kamega-engayatsu; and now
+      she has gone by me and spoken, although she does not know who I am.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TOMO (at further side of the stage) Is there any native about?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER What do you want with me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO Do you know where the exile lives?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER What exile is it you want?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO Akushichi-bioye Kagekiyo, a noble of Heike's party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER Did you not pass an old man under the edge of the mountain, as
+      you were coming that way?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO A blind beggar in a thatched cottage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER That fellow was Kagekiyo. What ails the lady? she shivers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TOMO A question you might well ask. She is the exile's daughter. She
+      wanted to see her father once more, and so came hither to seek him. Will
+      you take us to Kagekiyo?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER Bless 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
+      shaved his crown and called himself 'The Blind man of Hinga.' He begs a
+      bit from the passers, and the likes of us keep him; he'd be ashamed to
+      tell you his 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, Oh there, Kagekiyo!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO Noise, noise! Someone came from my home to call me, but I sent
+      them on. I couldn't be seen like this. Tears like the thousand lines in a
+      rain storm, bitter tears soften my sleeve. Ten thousand things rise in a
+      dream, and I wake in this hovel, wretched, just a nothing in the wide
+      world. How can I answer when they call me by my right name?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Do not call out the name he had in his glory. You will move the bad
+      blood in his heart, (then taking up Kagekiyo's thought) I am angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO Living here....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS (going on with Kagekiyo's thought) I go on living here, hated by
+      the people in power. A blind man without his staff, I am deformed, and
+      therefore speak evil; excuse me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO My eyes are darkened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Though my eyes are dark I understand the thoughts of another. I
+      understand at a word. The wind comes down from the pine trees on the
+      mountain, and snow comes down after the wind. The dream tells of my glory,
+      I am loth to wake from the dream. I hear the waves running in the evening
+      tide, as when I was with Heike. Shall I act out the old ballad?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO (to the villager) I had a weight on my mind, I spoke to you very
+      harshly, excuse me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER You're always like that, never mind it. Has anyone been here to
+      see you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO No one but you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER Go on, that is not true. Your daughter was here. Why couldn't you
+      tell her the truth, she being so sad and so eager. I have brought her back
+      now. Come now, speak with your father. Come along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HIME O, 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's love goes when the child is not worth it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO I meant to keep it concealed, but now they have found it all out.
+      I shall drench you with the dew of my shame, you who are young as a
+      flower. I tell you my name, and that we are father and child; yet I
+      thought this would put dishonour upon you, and therefore I let you pass.
+      Do not hold it against me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS At first I was angry that my friends would no longer come near me.
+      But now I have come to a time when I could not believe that even a child
+      of my own would seek me out.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ (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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER (to Kagekiyo) Many a fine thing is gone, sir; your daughter would
+      like to ask you....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO What is it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGER She has heard of your old fame in Uashima. Would you tell her the
+      ballad?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO Towards the end of the third month it was, in the third year of
+      Juei. We men 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-Kami
+      Noritsune said: 'Last year in the hills of Harima, &amp; in Midzushima,
+      and in Hiyodorigoye of Bitchiu, we were defeated time and again, for
+      Yoshitsine is tactful and cunning.' 'Is there any way we can beat them?'
+      (Kagekiyo thought in his mind) 'This Hangan Yoshitsine is neither god nor
+      a devil, at the risk of my life I might do it.' So he took leave of
+      Noritsune and led a party against the shore, and all the men of Genji
+      rushed on them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS Kagekiyo cried, 'You are haughty.' His armour caught every turn of
+      the sun. He drove them four ways before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KAGEKIYO (excited and crying out) Samoshiya! Run, cowards!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS He thought, how easy this killing. He rushed with his spear-haft
+      gripped under his arm. He cried out, 'I am Kagekiyo of the Heike.' He
+      rushed on to take them. He pierced through the helmet vizards of Miyonoya.
+      Miyonoya fled twice, and again; and Kagekiyo cried, 'You shall not escape
+      me!' He leaped and wrenched off his helmet. 'Eya!' The vizard broke and
+      remained in his hand and Miyonoya still fled afar, and afar, and he looked
+      back crying in terror, 'How terrible, how heavy your arm!' And Kagekiyo
+      called at him, 'How tough the shaft of your neck is!' And they both
+      laughed out over the battle, and went off each his own way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHORUS These were the deeds of old, but oh, to tell them! To be telling
+      them over now in his wretched condition. His life in the world is weary,
+      he is near 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 upon
+      you as we count on a lamp in the darkness ... we who are blind.' 'I will
+      stay,' she said. Then she obeyed him, and only one voice is left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We tell this for the remembrance. Thus were the parent and child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      END
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_NOTE" id="link2H_NOTE"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      NOTES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ernest Fenollosa has left this memorandum on the stoicism of the last
+      play: I asked Mr. Hirata how it could be considered natural or dutiful for
+      the daughter to leave her father in such a condition. He said, 'that the
+      Japanese would not be in sympathy with such sternness now, but that it was
+      the old Bushido spirit. The personality of the old man is worn out, no
+      more good in this life. It would be sentimentality for her to remain with
+      him. No good could be done. He could well restrain his love for her,
+      better that she should pray for him and go on with the work of her normal
+      life.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the plays in this book, 'Nishikigi' has appeared in 'Poetry,'
+      'Hagoromo' in 'The Quarterly Review,' and 'Kumasaka,' in 'The Drama;' to
+      the editors of which periodicals I wish to express my acknowledgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezra Pound.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Certain Noble Plays of Japan, by Ezra Pound
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Certain Noble Plays of Japan
+       From The Manuscripts Of Ernest Fenollosa
+
+Author: Ezra Pound
+
+Commentator: William Butler Yeats
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2005  [EBook #8094]
+This file was first posted on June 14, 2003
+Last updated: May 1, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Starner, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 those
+that 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 they
+will help me to explain a certain possibility of the Irish dramatic
+movement. I am writing these words with my imagination stirred by a visit
+to the studio of Mr. Dulac, the distinguished illustrator of the Arabian
+Nights. I saw there the mask and head-dress to be worn in a play of mine
+by the player who will speak the part of Cuchulain, and who wearing
+this noble half-Greek half-Asiatic face will appear perhaps like an image
+seen in revery by some Orphic worshipper. I hope to have attained the
+distance from life which can make credible strange events, elaborate
+words. I have written a little play that can be played in a room for so
+little money that forty or fifty readers of poetry can pay the price.
+There will be no scenery, for three musicians, whose seeming sun-burned
+faces will I hope suggest that they have wandered from village to village
+in some country of our dreams, can describe place and weather, and at
+moments action, and accompany it all by drum and gong or flute and
+dulcimer. Instead of the players working themselves into a violence of
+passion indecorous in our sitting-room, the music, the beauty of form and
+voice all come to climax in pantomimic dance.
+
+In fact with the help of these plays 'translated by Ernest Fenollosa and
+finished by Ezra Pound' I have invented a form of drama, distinguished,
+indirect and symbolic, and having no need of mob or press to pay its
+way--an aristocratic form. When this play and its performance run as
+smoothly as my skill can make them, I shall hope to write another of the
+same sort and so complete a dramatic celebration of the life of Cuchulain
+planned long ago. Then having given enough performances for I hope the
+pleasure of personal friends and a few score people of good taste, I
+shall record all discoveries of method and turn to something else. It is
+an advantage of this noble form that it need absorb no one's life, that
+its few properties can be packed up in a box, or hung upon the walls
+where they will be fine ornaments.
+
+
+II
+
+And yet this simplification is not mere economy. For nearly three
+centuries invention has been making the human voice and the movements of
+the body seem always less expressive. I have long been puzzled why
+passages, that are moving when read out or spoken during rehearsal, seem
+muffled or dulled during performance. I have simplified scenery, having
+'The Hour Glass' for instance played now before green curtains, now among
+those admirable ivory-coloured screens invented by Gordon Craig. With
+every simplification the voice has recovered something of its importance
+and 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 have
+still felt as if the sound came to me from behind a veil. The
+stage-opening, the powerful light and shade, the number of feet between
+myself and the players have destroyed intimacy. I have found myself
+thinking of players who needed perhaps but to unroll a mat in some
+Eastern garden. Nor have I felt this only when I listened to
+speech, but even more when I have watched the movement of a player or
+heard singing in a play. I love all the arts that can still remind me of
+their origin among the common people, and my ears are only comfortable
+when the singer sings as if mere speech had taken fire, when he appears
+to have passed into song almost imperceptibly. I am bored and wretched,
+a limitation I greatly regret, when he seems no longer a human being but
+an invention of science. To explain him to myself I say that he has
+become a wind instrument and sings no longer like active men, sailor or
+camel driver, because he has had to compete with an orchestra, where the
+loudest instrument has always survived. The human voice can only become
+louder by becoming less articulate, by discovering some new musical sort
+of roar or scream. As poetry can do neither, the voice must be freed
+from this competition and find itself among little instruments, only
+heard at their best perhaps when we are close about them. It should be
+again possible for a few poets to write as all did once, not for the
+printed page but to be sung. But movement also has grown less expressive,
+more declamatory, less intimate. When I called the other day upon a
+friend I found myself among some dozen people who were watching a group
+of Spanish boys and girls, professional dancers, dancing some national
+dance in the midst of a drawing-room. Doubtless their training had been
+long, laborious and wearisome; but now one could not be deceived, their
+movement was full of joy. They were among friends, and it all seemed
+but the play of children; how powerful it seemed, how passionate, while
+an even more miraculous art, separated from us by the footlights,
+appeared in the comparison laborious and professional. It is well to
+be close enough to an artist to feel for him a personal liking, close
+enough perhaps to feel that our liking is returned.
+
+My play is made possible by a Japanese dancer whom I have seen dance in a
+studio and in a drawing-room and on a very small stage lit by an
+excellent stage-light. In the studio and in the drawing-room alone where
+the lighting was the light we are most accustomed to, did I see him as
+the tragic image that has stirred my imagination. There where no
+studied 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 as
+he 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' greatness
+can be but in their intimacy.
+
+
+III
+
+All imaginative art keeps at a distance and this distance once chosen
+must be firmly held against a pushing world. Verse, ritual, music and
+dance in association with action require that gesture, costume, facial
+expression, stage arrangement must help in keeping the door. Our
+unimaginative arts are content to set a piece of the world as we know it
+in a place by itself, to put their photographs as it were in a plush or a
+plain frame, but the arts which interest me, while seeming to separate
+from the world and us a group of figures, images, symbols, enable us to
+pass for a few moments into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been too
+subtle for our habitation. As a deep of the mind can only be approached
+through what is most human, most delicate, we should distrust bodily
+distance, mechanism and loud noise.
+
+It may be well if we go to school in Asia, for the distance from life in
+European art has come from little but difficulty with material. In
+half-Asiatic Greece, Kallimachos could still return to a stylistic management
+of the falling folds of drapery, after the naturalistic drapery of
+Phidias, and in Egypt the same age that saw the village Head-man carved
+in wood for burial in some tomb with so complete a naturalism saw, set up
+in public places, statues full of an august formality that implies
+traditional measurements, a philosophic defence. The spiritual painting
+of the 14th century passed on into Tintoretto and that of Velasquez into
+modern painting with no sense of loss to weigh against the gain, while
+the painting of Japan, not having our European Moon to churn the wits,
+has understood that no styles that ever delighted noble imaginations have
+lost their importance, and chooses the style according to the subject.
+In literature also we have had the illusion of change and progress, the
+art of Shakespeare passing into that of Dryden, and so into the prose
+drama, by what has seemed when studied in its details unbroken progress.
+Had we been Greeks, and so but half-European, an honourable mob would
+have martyred though in vain the first man who set up a painted scene, or
+who complained that soliloquies were unnatural, instead of repeating with
+a sigh, 'we cannot return to the arts of childhood however beautiful.'
+Only our lyric poetry has kept its Asiatic habit and renewed itself at
+its own youth, putting off perpetually what has been called its progress
+in a series of violent revolutions.
+
+Therefore it is natural that I go to Asia for a stage-convention, for
+more formal faces, for a chorus that has no part in the action and
+perhaps for those movements of the body copied from the marionette shows
+of the 14th century. A mask will enable me to substitute for the face of
+some common-place player, or for that face repainted to suit his own
+vulgar fancy, the fine invention of a sculptor, and to bring the audience
+close enough to the play to hear every inflection of the voice. A mask
+never seems but a dirty face, and no matter how close you go is still a
+work 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. In
+poetical painting & in sculpture the face seems the nobler for lacking
+curiosity, alert attention, all that we sum up under the famous word of
+the realists 'vitality.' It is even possible that being is only possessed
+completely by the dead, and that it is some knowledge of this that
+makes 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 at
+the end of its thousand wise years, awaiting in condescension the burning
+nest and what did it not gain from that immobility in dignity and in
+power?
+
+
+IV
+
+Realism is created for the common people and was always their peculiar
+delight, and it is the delight to-day of all those whose minds educated
+alone by school-masters and newspapers are without the memory of beauty
+and emotional subtlety. The occasional humorous realism that so much
+heightened the emotional effect of Elizabethan Tragedy, Cleopatra's old
+man with an asp let us say, carrying the tragic crisis by its contrast
+above the tide-mark of Corneille's courtly theatre, was made at the
+outset to please the common citizen standing on the rushes of the floor;
+but the great speeches were written by poets who remembered their patrons
+in the covered galleries. The fanatic Savonarola was but dead a century,
+and his lamentation in the frenzy of his rhetoric, that every prince of
+the Church or State throughout Europe was wholly occupied with the fine
+arts, had still its moiety of truth. A poetical passage cannot be
+understood without a rich memory, and like the older school of painting
+appeals to a tradition, and that not merely when it speaks of 'Lethe's
+Wharf' or 'Dido on the wild sea-banks' but in rhythm, in vocabulary; for
+the ear must notice slight variations upon old cadences and customary
+words, all that high breeding of poetical style where there is nothing
+ostentatious, nothing crude, no breath of parvenu or journalist.
+
+Let us press the popular arts on to a more complete realism, for that
+would be their honesty; and the commercial arts demoralise by their
+compromise, their incompleteness, their idealism without sincerity
+or elegance, their pretence that ignorance can understand beauty. In the
+studio 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 only
+through what is least declamatory, least popular in the art of
+Shakespeare, and in such a theatre they will find their habitual
+audience and keep their freedom. Europe is very old and has seen many
+arts run through the circle and has learned the fruit of every flower and
+known what this fruit sends up, and it is now time to copy the East and
+live 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 of
+spirits and gods or by young nobles at the court, and much old lyric
+poetry, and receiving its philosophy and its final shape perhaps from
+priests of a contemplative school of Buddhism. A small daimio or feudal
+lord of the ancient capital Nara, a contemporary of Chaucer's, was the
+author, or perhaps only the stage-manager, of many plays. He brought them
+to the court of the Shogun at Kioto. From that on the Shogun and his
+court 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 a
+necessary part of official ceremonies at Kioto, and young nobles and
+princes, forbidden to attend the popular theatre in Japan as elsewhere
+a place of mimicry and naturalism were encouraged to witness and to
+perform in spectacles where speech, music, song and dance created an
+image of nobility and strange beauty. When the modern revolution came,
+Noh after a brief unpopularity was played for the first time in certain
+ceremonious public theatres, and 1897 a battleship was named Takasago,
+after one of its most famous plays. Some of the old noble families are
+to-day very poor, their men it may be but servants and labourers, but
+they still frequent these theatres. 'Accomplishment' the word Noh means,
+and it is their accomplishment and that of a few cultured people who
+understand the literary and mythological allusions and the ancient lyrics
+quoted in speech or chorus, their discipline, a part of their breeding.
+The players themselves, unlike the despised players of the popular
+theatre, have passed on proudly from father to son an elaborate art, and
+even now a player will publish his family tree to prove his skill. One
+player wrote in 1906 in a business circular--I am quoting from Mr.
+Pound's redaction of the Notes of Fenollosa--that after thirty
+generations of nobles a woman of his house dreamed that a mask was
+carried to her from heaven, and soon after she bore a son who became a
+player and the father of players. His family he declared still possessed
+a 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 the
+Revolution to perform in public, they had received grants of land or
+salaries from the state. The white and purple curtain was no doubt to
+hang upon a wall behind the players or over their entrance door for the
+Noh stage is a platform surrounded upon three sides by the audience. No
+'naturalistic' effect is sought. The players wear masks and found their
+movements upon those of puppets: the most famous of all Japanese
+dramatists composed entirely for puppets. A swift or a slow movement and
+a long or a short stillness, and then another movement. They sing as much
+as they speak, and there is a chorus which describes the scene and
+interprets their thought and never becomes as in the Greek theatre a
+part of the action. At the climax instead of the disordered passion of
+nature there is a dance, a series of positions & movements which may
+represent a battle, or a marriage, or the pain of a ghost in the Buddhist
+purgatory. I have lately studied certain of these dances, with Japanese
+players, and I notice that their ideal of beauty, unlike that of Greece
+and like that of pictures from Japan and China, makes them pause at
+moments of muscular tension. The interest is not in the human form but in
+the rhythm to which it moves, and the triumph of their art is to express
+the rhythm in its intensity. There are few swaying movements of arms or
+body such as make the beauty of our dancing. They move from the hip,
+keeping constantly the upper part of their body still, and seem to
+associate with every gesture or pose some definite thought. They cross
+the stage with a sliding movement, and one gets the impression not of
+undulation but of continuous straight lines.
+
+The Print Room of the British Museum is now closed as a war-economy, so I
+can only write from memory of theatrical colour-prints, where a ship is
+represented by a mere skeleton of willows or osiers painted green, or a
+fruit tree by a bush in a pot, and where actors have tied on their masks
+with ribbons that are gathered into a bunch behind the head. It is a
+child's game become the most noble poetry, and there is no observation of
+life, because the poet would set before us all those things which we feel
+and imagine in silence.
+
+Mr. Ezra Pound has found among the Fenollosa manuscripts a story
+traditional among Japanese players. A young man was following a stately
+old woman through the streets of a Japanese town, and presently she
+turned to him and spoke: 'Why do you follow me?' 'Because you are so
+interesting.' 'That is not so, I am too old to be interesting.' But he
+wished he told her to become a player of old women on the Noh stage. 'If
+he would become famous as a Noh player she said, he must not observe
+life, nor put on an old voice and stint the music of his voice. He
+must 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 can
+trace perhaps to their threefold origin. The love-sorrows, the love of
+father and daughter, of mother and son, of boy and girl, may owe their
+nobility to a courtly life, but he to whom the adventures happen, a
+traveller commonly from some distant place, is most often a Buddhist
+priest; and the occasional intellectual subtlety is perhaps Buddhist. The
+adventure itself is often the meeting with ghost, god or goddess at some
+holy place or much-legended tomb; and god, goddess or ghost reminds
+me at times of our own Irish legends and beliefs, which once it may be
+differed little from those of the Shinto worshipper.
+
+The feather-mantle, for whose lack the moon goddess, (or should we call
+her fairy?) cannot return to the sky, is the red cap whose theft can keep
+our 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 to
+the priest after death to be married. These Japanese poets too feel for
+tomb and wood the emotion, the sense of awe that our Gaelic speaking
+country people will some times show when you speak to them of Castle
+Hackett or of some Holy Well; and that is why perhaps it pleases them to
+begin so many plays by a Traveller asking his way with many questions, a
+convention agreeable to me; for when I first began to write poetical
+plays for an Irish theatre I had to put away an ambition of helping to
+bring again to certain places, their old sanctity or their romance. I
+could lay the scene of a play on Baile's Strand, but I found no pause in
+the hurried action for descriptions of strand or sea or the great yew
+tree 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 river
+and 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 that
+forgotten tomb where 'the hiding fox' lives among 'the orchids and the
+chrysanthemum flowers.' The men who created this convention were more
+like ourselves than were the Greeks and Romans, more like us even than
+are Shakespeare and Corneille. Their emotion was self-conscious and
+reminiscent, always associating itself with pictures and poems. They
+measured all that time had taken or would take away and found their
+delight in remembering celebrated lovers in the scenery pale passion
+loves. They travelled seeking for the strange and for the picturesque: 'I
+go about with my heart set upon no particular place, no more than a
+cloud. I wonder now would the sea be that way, or the little place Kefu
+that they say is stuck down against it.' When a traveller asks his way of
+girls 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 (few
+examples have as yet been translated and I may be misled by accident or
+the idiosyncrasy of some poet) a playing upon a single metaphor, as
+deliberate as the echoing rhythm of line in Chinese and Japanese
+painting. In the 'Nishikigi' the ghost of the girl-lover carries the
+cloth she went on weaving out of grass when she should have opened the
+chamber door to her lover, and woven grass returns again and again in
+metaphor and incident. The lovers, now that in an aery body they must
+sorrow for unconsummated love, are 'tangled up as the grass patterns are
+tangled.' Again they are like an unfinished cloth: 'these bodies, having
+no weft, even now are not come together, truly a shameful story, a tale
+to bring shame on the gods.' Before they can bring the priest to the tomb
+they spend the day 'pushing aside the grass from the overgrown ways in
+Kefu,' and the countryman who directs them is 'cutting grass on the
+hill;' & when at last the prayer of the priest unites them in marriage
+the bride says that he has made 'a dream-bridge over wild grass, over the
+grass I dwell in;' and in the end bride and bridegroom show themselves
+for a moment 'from under the shadow of the love-grass.'
+
+In 'Hagoromo' the feather-mantle of the fairy woman creates also its
+rhythm of metaphor. In the beautiful day of opening spring 'the plumage
+of Heaven drops neither feather nor flame,' 'nor is the rock of earth
+over-much worn by the brushing of the feathery skirt of the stars.' One
+half remembers a thousand Japanese paintings, or whichever comes first
+into the memory. That screen painted by Korin, let us say, shown lately
+at the British Museum, where the same form is echoing in wave and in
+cloud and in rock. In European poetry I remember Shelley's continually
+repeated fountain and cave, his broad stream and solitary star. In
+neglecting character which seems to us essential in drama, as do their
+artists in neglecting relief and depth, when they arrange flowers in a
+vase 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 the
+education of soldiers. These soldiers, whose natures had as much of
+Walter Pater as of Achilles combined with Buddhist priests and women
+to elaborate life in a ceremony, the playing of football, the drinking of
+tea, and all great events of state, becoming a ritual. In the painting
+that decorated their walls and in the poetry they recited one discovers
+the only sign of a great age that cannot deceive us, the most vivid and
+subtle discrimination of sense and the invention of images more powerful
+than sense; the continual presence of reality. It is still true that the
+Deity gives us, according to His promise, not His thoughts or His
+convictions but His flesh and blood, and I believe that the elaborate
+technique of the arts, seeming to create out of itself a superhuman life
+has taught more men to die than oratory or the Prayer Book. We only
+believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but
+in the whole body. The Minoan soldier who bore upon his arm the shield
+ornamented with the dove in the Museum at Crete, or had upon his head the
+helmet with the winged horse, knew his role in life. When Nobuzane
+painted the child Saint Kobo, Daishi kneeling full of sweet austerity
+upon the flower of the lotus, he set up before our eyes exquisite life
+and the acceptance of death.
+
+I cannot imagine those young soldiers and the women they loved pleased
+with the ill-breeding and theatricality of Carlyle, nor I think with the
+magniloquence of Hugo. These things belong to an industrial age, a
+mechanical sequence of ideas; but when I remember that curious game which
+the Japanese called, with a confusion of the senses that had seemed
+typical of our own age, 'listening to incense,' I know that some among
+them would have understood the prose of Walter Pater, the painting or
+Puvis de Chavannes, the poetry of Mallarme and Verlaine. When heroism
+returned to our age it bore with it as its first gift technical
+sincerity.
+
+
+VIII
+
+For some weeks now I have been elaborating my play in London where alone
+I can find the help I need, Mr. Dulac's mastery of design and Mr. Ito's
+genius of movement; yet it pleases me to think that I am working for my
+own country. Perhaps some day a play in the form I am adapting for
+European purposes shall awake once more, whether in Gaelic or in English,
+under the slope of Slieve-na-mon or Croagh Patrick ancient memories; for
+this form has no need of scenery that runs away with money nor of a
+theatre-building. Yet I know that I only amuse myself with a fancy; for
+though my writings if they be sea-worthy must put to sea, I cannot tell
+where they may be carried by the wind. Are not the fairy-stories of Oscar
+Wilde, which were written for Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon and for a few
+ladies, very popular in Arabia?
+
+W. B. Yeats, April 1916.
+
+
+
+
+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 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.
+
+
+
+NISHIKIGI
+
+
+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 sea-weed. We do not know where
+are to-day 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, 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 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.
+
+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 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)
+
+
+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 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 mostly
+symbolical. Thus here the Shite, or Sh'te, announces his change of
+costume, 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....
+
+SHITE
+The sound of the loom.
+
+TSURE
+
+  It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets,
+  A thin sound like the Autumn.
+
+SHITE
+It 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.
+
+CHORUS
+Shall I ever at last see into that room of hers, which no other sight has
+traversed?
+
+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!
+
+SHITE
+Tread 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. The
+priest finds the Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a Tennin, an
+aerial spirit or celestial dancer, hanging upon a bough. She demands
+its return. He argues with her, and finally promises to return it, if she
+will teach him her dance or part of it. She accepts the offer. The Chorus
+explains the dance as symbolical of the daily changes of the moon. The
+words about 'three, five and fifteen' refer to the number of nights in
+the moon's changes. In the finale, the Tennin is supposed to disappear
+like a mountain slowly hidden in mist. The play shows the relation of the
+early 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 FISHERMAN
+Upon a thousand heights had gathered the inexplicable cloud, swept by the
+rain. The moon is just come to light the low house. A clean and pleasant
+time surely. There comes the breath-colour of spring; the waves rise in a
+line below the early mist; the moon is still delaying above, though we've
+no 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 it
+presses the clouds and the sea. Those men who were going to fish are
+about to return without launching. Wait a little, is it not spring? will
+not 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 with
+even the smallest boats.
+
+PRIEST
+Now I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark in Subara; I see all that
+they 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 is
+this cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree. As I approach to inhale its
+colour I am aware of mystery. Its colour-smell is mysterious. I see that
+it is surely no common dress. I will take it now and return and make it a
+treasure in my house, to show to the aged.
+
+TENNIN
+That cloak belongs to someone on this side. What are you proposing to do
+with it?
+
+PRIEST
+This? 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.
+
+PRIEST
+How, is the owner of this cloak a Tennin? so be it. In this downcast age
+I should keep it, a rare thing, and make it a treasure in the country, a
+thing respected. Then I should not return it.
+
+TENNIN
+Pitiful, there is no flying without the cloak of feathers, no return
+through the ether. I pray you return me the mantle.
+
+PRIEST
+Just from hearing these high words, I, Hakuryo have gathered more and yet
+more force. You think, because I was too stupid to recognise it, that I
+shall be unable to take and keep hid the feather-robe, that I shall give
+it 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?
+
+PRIEST
+And this world would be a sorry place for her to dwell in?
+
+TENNIN
+I am caught, I struggle, how shall I?...
+
+PRIEST
+No, Hakuryo is not one to give back the robe.
+
+TENNIN
+Power does not attain....
+
+PRIEST
+To get back the robe.
+
+CHORUS
+Her coronet [1] jewelled as with the dew of tears, even the flowers that
+decorated 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, in
+the South Kensington Museum.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The chain of weaknesses, or the five ills, diseases of the
+Tennin: namely, the hanakadzusa withers; the Hagoromo is stained; sweat
+comes from the body; both eyes wink frequently; she feels very weary of
+her palace in heaven.]
+
+TENNIN
+I look into the flat of heaven, peering; the cloud-road is all hidden and
+uncertain; we are lost in the rising mist; I have lost the knowledge of
+the road. Strange, a strange sorrow!
+
+CHORUS
+Enviable colour of breath, wonder of clouds that fade along the sky that
+was our accustomed dwelling; hearing the sky-bird, accustomed and well
+accustomed, hearing the voices grow fewer, the wild geese fewer and fewer
+along the highways of air, how deep her longing to return. Plover and
+seagull 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, of
+heaven, I bend and would return you your mantle.
+
+TENNIN
+It grows clearer. No, give it this side.
+
+PRIEST
+First tell me your nature, who are you, Tennin? give payment with the
+dance of the Tennin, and I will return you your mantle.
+
+TENNIN
+Readily and gladly, and then I return into heaven. You shall have what
+pleasure you will, and I will leave a dance here, a joy to be new among
+men and to be memorial dancing. Learn then this dance that can turn the
+palace of the moon. No, come here to learn it. For the sorrows of the
+world I will leave this new dancing with you for sorrowful people. But
+give me my mantle, I cannot do the dance rightly without it.
+
+PRIEST
+Not yet, for if you should get it, how do I know you'll not be off to
+your palace without even beginning your dance, not even a measure?
+
+TENNIN
+Doubt is fitting for mortals; with us there is no deceit.
+
+PRIEST
+I am again ashamed. I give you your mantle.
+
+CHORUS
+The young maid now is arrayed; she assumes the curious mantle; watch how
+she moves in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment.
+
+PRIEST
+The heavenly feather-robe moves in accord with the wind.
+
+TENNIN
+The sleeves of flowers are being wet with the rain.
+
+PRIEST
+The 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.'
+
+TENNIN
+The 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 sereni
+Trivia ride tra le ninfe eterne.']
+
+TENNIN
+I also am heaven-born and a maid, Amaotome. Of them there are many. This
+is 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.]
+
+CHORUS
+The spring mist is widespread abroad; so perhaps the wild olive's flower
+will blossom in the infinitely unreachable moon. Her flowery
+head-ornament is putting on colour; this truly is sign of the spring. Not
+sky is here, but the beauty; and even here comes the heavenly, wonderful
+wind. O blow, shut the accustomed path of the clouds. O, you in the form
+of a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine-waste of Miwo
+puts on the colour of spring. The bay of Kiyomi lies clear before the
+snow upon Fuji. Are not all these presages of the spring? There are but
+few ripples beneath the piny wind. It is quiet along the shore. There is
+naught but a fence of jewels between the earth and the sky, and the gods
+within and without, [5] beyond and beneath the stars, and the moon
+unclouded by her lord, and we who are born of the sun. This alone
+intervenes, here where the moon is unshadowed, here in Nippon, the sun's
+field.
+
+[Footnote 5: 'Within and without,' gei, gu, two parts of the temple]
+
+TENNIN
+The plumage of heaven drops neither feather nor flame to its own
+diminution.
+
+CHORUS
+Nor 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 a magic song from the east, the voices of many and many: and
+flute and shae, filling the space beyond the cloud's edge,
+seven-stringed; dance filling 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 storm that comes over this green moor, which is afloat,
+as it would seem, in these waves. Wonderful is the sleeve of the white
+cloud, whirling such snow here.
+
+TENNIN
+Plain of life, field of the sun, true foundation, great power!
+
+CHORUS
+Hence 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 a
+green garment.
+
+SEMI-CHORUS
+And now the robe of mist, presaging spring, a colour-smell as this
+wonderful maiden's skirt--left, right, left! The rustling of flowers, the
+putting-on of the feathery sleeve; they bend in air with the dancing.
+
+SEMI-CHORUS
+Many are the joys in the east. She who is the colour-person of the moon
+takes her middle-night in the sky. She marks her three fives with this
+dancing, 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 from
+us. After a little time, only a little time, can the mantle be upon the
+wind that was spread over Matsubara or over Ashilaka the mountain,
+though the clouds lie in its heaven like a plain awash with sea. Fuji is
+gone; the great peak of Fuji is blotted out little by little. It melts
+into the upper mist. In this way she (the Tennin) is lost to sight.
+
+
+
+
+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 chief
+characters are thinking, sometimes it describes
+or interprets the meaning of their movements.
+Plot: the ghost of Kumasaka makes reparation for
+his brigandage by protecting the country. He
+comes back to praise the bravery of the young man
+who killed him in single combat.
+
+
+
+KUMASAKA
+
+
+First Part
+
+PRIEST
+Where shall I rest, wandering, weary of the world? I am a city-bred
+priest, 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 another
+at Shinohara, and at the dawn I came to the green field, Awono in Miwo. I
+now pass Akasaka at sunset.
+
+SHITE (In the form of an old priest)
+I could tell that priest a thing or two.
+
+PRIEST
+Do you mean me, what is it?
+
+SHITE
+A certain man died on this day. I ask you to pray for him.
+
+PRIEST
+All right, but for whom shall I pray?
+
+SHITE
+I will not tell you his name, but his grave lies in the green field
+beyond that tall pine tree. He cannot enter to the gates of Paradise, and
+so I ask you to pray.
+
+PRIEST
+But I do not think it is proper to pray unless you tell me his name.
+
+SHITE
+No, 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 of
+agony 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 need
+not be aware of his name. They say that prayer can be heard for even the
+grass and the plants, for even the sand and the soil here; and they will
+surely hear it, if you pray for an unknown man.
+
+SHITE
+Will you enter? This is my cottage.
+
+PRIEST
+This is your house? Very well, I will hold the service in your house; but
+I see no picture of Buddha nor any wooden image in this cottage, nothing
+but a long spear on one wall and an iron stick in place of a priest's
+wand, and many arrows. What are these for?
+
+SHITE (thinking)
+Yes, this priest is still in the first stage of faith. (aloud) As you
+see, there are many villages here: Zorii, Awohaka, and Akasaka. But the
+tall grass of Awo-no-ga-kara grows round the roads between them, and the
+forest is thick at Koyasu and Awohaka, and many robbers come out under
+the rains. They attack the baggage on horseback, and take the clothing of
+maids and servants who pass here. So I go out with this spear.
+
+PRIEST
+That's very fine, isn't it?
+
+CHORUS
+You will think it very strange for a priest to do this; but even Buddha
+has the sharp sword of Mida, and Aijen Miowo has arrows, and Tamon,
+taking his long spear, throws down the evil spirits.
+
+SHITE
+The deep love.
+
+CHORUS
+--is excellent. Good feeling and keeping order are much more excellent
+than the love of Bosatsu. 'I think of these matters and know little of
+anything else. It is from my own heart that I am lost, wandering. But if
+I begin talking I shall keep on talking until dawn. Go to bed, good
+father; I will sleep too.' He seemed to be going to his bedroom, but
+suddenly his figure disappeared, and the cottage became a field of grass.
+The priest passes the night under the pine trees.
+
+PRIEST
+I cannot sleep out the night. Perhaps if I held my service during the
+night under this pine tree....
+
+(He begins his service for the dead man.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Second Part
+
+SECOND SHITE
+There are winds in the east and south; the clouds are not calm in the
+west; and in the north the wind of the dark evening blusters; and under
+the shade of the mountain--
+
+CHORUS
+There is a rustling of boughs and leaves.
+
+SECOND SHITE
+Perhaps 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 men
+before and behind, my bowmen and horsemen. I plundered men of their
+treasure, that was my work in the world, and now I must go on; it is
+sorry work for a spirit.
+
+PRIEST
+Are 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; they
+collected treasure each year; they sent rich goods up to Oku. It was then
+I assailed their trains. Would you know what men were with me?
+
+PRIEST
+Tell me the chief men, were they from many a province?
+
+KUMASAKA
+There was Kakusho of Kawachi, there were the two brothers Suriharitaro;
+they have no rivals in fencing. (omotenchi, face to face attack)
+
+PRIEST
+What chiefs came to you from the city?
+
+KUMASAKA
+Emoi of Sanjo, Kozari of Mibu.
+
+PRIEST
+In the fighting with torches and in melee--
+
+KUMASAKA
+They had no equals.
+
+PRIEST
+In northern Hakoku?
+
+KUMASAKA
+Were Aso no Matsuwaka and Mikune no Kure.
+
+PRIEST
+In Kaga?
+
+KUMASAKA
+No, Chohan was the head there. There were seventy comrades who were very
+strong and skilful.
+
+CHORUS
+While Yoshitsugu was going along in the fields and on the mountains we
+set many spies to take him.
+
+KUMASAKA
+Let us say that he is come to the village of Ubasike. This is the best
+place 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.
+
+PRIEST
+When the night was advanced the brothers Yoshitsugu and Nobutaka fell
+asleep.
+
+KUMASAKA
+But there was a small boy with keen eyes, about sixteen or seventeen
+years old, and he was looking through a little hole in the partition,
+alert to the slightest noise.
+
+PRIEST
+He did not sleep even a wink.
+
+KUMASAKA
+We did not know it was Ushiwaka.
+
+PRIEST
+It was fate.
+
+KUMASAKA
+The hour had come.
+
+PRIEST
+Be quick!
+
+KUMASAKA
+Have 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; he
+seized a small sword and fought like a lion in earnest, like a tiger
+rushing, like a bird swooping. He fought so cleverly that he felled the
+thirteen who opposed him; many were wounded besides. They fled without
+swords or arrows. Then Kumasaka said, 'Are you the devil? Is it a god who
+has 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 of
+Yoshitsugu's than my corpse.' So he took his long spear and was about to
+make off.
+
+KUMASAKA
+--But Kumasaka thought--
+
+CHORUS (taking it up)
+What can he do, that young chap, if I ply my secret arts freely? Be he
+god or devil, I will grasp him and grind him. I will offer his body as
+sacrifice to those whom he has slain. So he drew back, and holding
+his long spear against his side he hid himself behind the door and stared
+at the young lad. Ushiwaka beheld him, and holding his sword at his side
+he crouched at a little distance. Kumasaka waited likewise. They both
+waited, alertly; then Kumasaka stepped forth swiftly with his left foot,
+and struck out with the long spear. It would have run through an iron
+wall. Ushiwaka parried it lightly, swept it away, left volted. Kumasaka
+followed and again lunged out with the spear, and Ushiwaka parried
+the spear-blade quite lightly. Then Kumasaka turned the edge of his
+spear-blade towards Ushiwaka and slashed at him, and Ushiwaka leaped to
+the right. Kumasaka lifted his spear and the two weapons were twisted
+together. 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 of
+his armour; this seemed the end of his course, and he was wroth to be
+slain by such a young boy.
+
+KUMASAKA
+Slowly the wound--
+
+CHORUS
+--seemed to pierce; his heart failed; weakness o'ercame him.
+
+KUMASAKA
+At the foot of this pine tree--
+
+CHORUS
+He vanished like a dew.
+
+And so saying, he disappeared among the shades of the pine tree at
+Akasaka, and night fell.
+
+
+
+
+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 and
+the 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?
+
+TOMO
+As 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. I
+cannot see the clear light, I know not how the time passes. I sit here in
+this dark hovel, with one coat for the warm and the cold, and my body is
+but a frame-work of bones.
+
+CHORUS
+May as well be a priest with black sleeves. Now having left the world in
+sorrow, I look upon my withered shape. There is no one to pity me now.
+
+HIME
+Surely no one can live in that ruin, and yet a voice sounds from it. A
+beggar perhaps, let us take a few steps and see.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+My eyes will not show it me, yet the autumn wind is upon us.
+
+HIME
+The wind blows from an unknown past, and spreads our doubts through the
+world. The wind blows, and I have no rest, nor any place to find quiet.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Neither in the world of passion, nor in the world of colour, nor in the
+world of non-colour, is there any such place of rest; beneath the one sky
+are they all. Whom shall I ask, and how answer?
+
+TOMO
+Shall I ask the old man by the thatch?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Who are you?
+
+TOMO
+Where does the exile live?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+What exile?
+
+TOMO
+One who is called Akushichi-bioye Kagekiyo, a noble who fought under
+Heike.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Indeed? I have heard of him, but I am blind, I have not looked in his
+face. I have heard of his wretched condition and pity him. You had better
+ask for him at the next place.
+
+TOMO (to Hime)
+It seems that he is not here, shall we ask further?
+(they pass on)
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Strange, I feel that woman who has just passed is the child of that blind
+man. Long ago I loved a courtezan in Atsuta, one time when I was in that
+place. But I thought our girl-child would be no use to us, and I left her
+with the head man in the valley of Kamega-engayatsu; and now she has gone
+by 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?
+
+VILLAGER
+What do you want with me?
+
+TOMO
+Do you know where the exile lives?
+
+VILLAGER
+What exile is it you want?
+
+TOMO
+Akushichi-bioye  Kagekiyo, a noble  of Heike's party.
+
+VILLAGER
+Did you not pass an old man under the edge of the mountain, as you were
+coming that way?
+
+TOMO
+A blind beggar in a thatched cottage.
+
+VILLAGER
+That fellow was Kagekiyo. What ails the lady? she shivers.
+
+TOMO
+A question you might well ask. She is the exile's daughter. She wanted to
+see her father once more, and so came hither to seek him. Will you take
+us to Kagekiyo?
+
+VILLAGER
+Bless 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 shaved
+his crown and called himself 'The Blind man of Hinga.' He begs a bit from
+the passers, and the likes of us keep him; he'd be ashamed to tell you
+his 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, Oh
+there, Kagekiyo!
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Noise, noise! Someone came from my home to call me, but I sent them on. I
+couldn't be seen like this. Tears like the thousand lines in a rain
+storm, bitter tears soften my sleeve. Ten thousand things rise in a
+dream, and I wake in this hovel, wretched, just a nothing in the wide
+world. How can I answer when they call me by my right name?
+
+CHORUS
+Do not call out the name he had in his glory. You will move the bad blood
+in his heart, (then taking up Kagekiyo's thought) I am angry.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Living here....
+
+CHORUS (going on with Kagekiyo's thought)
+I go on living here, hated by the people in power. A blind man without
+his staff, I am deformed, and therefore speak evil; excuse me.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+My eyes are darkened.
+
+CHORUS
+Though my eyes are dark I understand the thoughts of another. I
+understand at a word. The wind comes down from the pine trees on the
+mountain, and snow comes down after the wind. The dream tells of my
+glory, I am loth to wake from the dream. I hear the waves running in the
+evening 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.
+
+VILLAGER
+You're always like that, never mind it. Has anyone been here to see you?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+No one but you.
+
+VILLAGER
+Go on, that is not true. Your daughter was here. Why couldn't you tell
+her the truth, she being so sad and so eager. I have brought her back
+now. Come now, speak with your father. Come along.
+
+HIME
+O, 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's
+love goes when the child is not worth it.
+
+KAGEKIYO
+I meant to keep it concealed, but now they have found it all out. I shall
+drench you with the dew of my shame, you who are young as a flower. I
+tell you my name, and that we are father and child; yet I thought this
+would put dishonour upon you, and therefore I let you pass. Do not hold
+it against me.
+
+CHORUS
+At first I was angry that my friends would no longer come near me. But
+now I have come to a time when I could not believe that even a child of
+my 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....
+
+KAGEKIYO
+What is it?
+
+VILLAGER
+She has heard of your old fame in Uashima. Would you tell her the ballad?
+
+KAGEKIYO
+Towards the end of the third month it was, in the third year of Juei. We
+men 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-Kami
+Noritsune said: 'Last year in the hills of Harima, & in Midzushima, and
+in Hiyodorigoye of Bitchiu, we were defeated time and again, for
+Yoshitsine is tactful and cunning.' 'Is there any way we can beat them?'
+(Kagekiyo thought in his mind) 'This Hangan Yoshitsine is neither god nor
+a devil, at the risk of my life I might do it.' So he took leave of
+Noritsune and led a party against the shore, and all the men of Genji
+rushed on them.
+
+CHORUS
+Kagekiyo cried, 'You are haughty.' His armour caught every turn of the
+sun. He drove them four ways before them.
+
+KAGEKIYO (excited and crying out)
+Samoshiya! Run, cowards!
+
+CHORUS
+He thought, how easy this killing. He rushed with his spear-haft gripped
+under his arm. He cried out, 'I am Kagekiyo of the Heike.' He rushed on
+to take them. He pierced through the helmet vizards of Miyonoya. Miyonoya
+fled twice, and again; and Kagekiyo cried, 'You shall not escape me!' He
+leaped and wrenched off his helmet. 'Eya!' The vizard broke and remained
+in his hand and Miyonoya still fled afar, and afar, and he looked back
+crying in terror, 'How terrible, how heavy your arm!' And Kagekiyo called
+at him, 'How tough the shaft of your neck is!' And they both laughed out
+over the battle, and went off each his own way.
+
+CHORUS
+These were the deeds of old, but oh, to tell them! To be telling them
+over now in his wretched condition. His life in the world is weary, he is
+near 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 upon
+you as we count on a lamp in the darkness ... we who are blind.' 'I will
+stay,' 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 last
+play: I asked Mr. Hirata how it could be considered natural or dutiful
+for the daughter to leave her father in such a condition. He said,
+'that the Japanese would not be in sympathy with such sternness now, but
+that it was the old Bushido spirit. The personality of the old man is
+worn out, no more good in this life. It would be sentimentality for
+her to remain with him. No good could be done. He could well restrain his
+love for her, better that she should pray for him and go on with the work
+of her normal life.'
+
+Of the plays in this book, 'Nishikigi' has appeared in 'Poetry,'
+'Hagoromo' in 'The Quarterly Review,' and 'Kumasaka,' in 'The Drama;' to
+the editors of which periodicals I wish to express my acknowledgment.
+
+Ezra Pound.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Certain Noble Plays of Japan, by Ezra Pound
+
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