 | Adzuma : or The Japanese Wife |  |
PROLOGUE.
Lest aught offend you, in our foreign Play,Let me—for him that writ it—briefly say,
'Tis a true story of the old Japan,
Where they who will the changeless strife may scan
Of fateful mortal passions; and, beside,
See in our Adzuma, high-typified,
The gentle, patient, faithful Nippon wife
Done to the fashion of the faultless life
Which those did learn to lead, by ancient rules
And manners shut away from Western schools.
Here shall be seen, too, how the doctrine grew
That past, forgotten, years constrain the new,
And souls are born, with life-scores incomplete
Which start anew when seeming strangers meet.
But, most and best of all, here shall you see
How “dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity,”
And Death himself but friend and minister
To Adzuma, and noble hearts like her.
| Adzuma : or The Japanese Wife | |