 | "Noh", or, Accomplishment : |  |
PART FIRST
WakiThere never was anybody heard of Mt.
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?
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 and 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
(to Tsure)
Tangled, we are entangled. Whose fault
was it, dear? tangled up as the grass patterns
are tangled in this coarse cloth, or as the little
Mushi that lives on and chirrups in dried seaweed.
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 some one who has no
thought of you, is it more than a dream? and
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)
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
It is just the breadth of the loom.
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
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
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
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.
A sad name, set in a story.
Shite
We had no meeting together.
Tsure
Let him read out the story.
Chorus
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.
Now for a little spell,
For a faint charm only,
For a charm as slight as the binding together
Of pine-flakes in Iwashiro,
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 mediation 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
It will be a tale to take back to my village.
Will you show me my way there?
So be it, I will teach you the path.
Tsure
Tell him to come over this way.
Both
Going along before the traveller.
Chorus
Pushing aside the grass
From the overgrown way at Kefu,
And we are not yet come to the cave.
O you there, cutting grass on the hill,
Please set your mind on this matter.
"You'd be asking where the dew is
"While the frost's lying here on the road.
"Who'd tell you that now?"
Very well, then, don't tell us,
But be sure we will come to the cave.
Shite
Night comes. . . .
Chorus
Spotted with sudden showers.
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.
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