Read The Noh Plays of Japan for Free Online Page B

with a concord of many instruments.
    (Music. )
    TSUNEMASA
    And while they played the dead man stole up behind them. Though he could not be seen by the light of the candle, they felt him pluck the lute-strings...
    GY Ō KEI
    It is midnight. He is playing Yabanraku, the dance of midnight-revel. And now that we have shaken sleep from our eyes...
    TSUNEMASA
    The sky is clear, yet there is a sound as of sudden rain...
    GY Ō KEI
    Rain beating carelessly on trees and grasses. What season's music * ought we to play?
    TSUNEMASA
    No. It is not rain. Look! At the cloud's fringe
    CHORUS
    The moon undimmed
Hangs over the pine-woods of Narabi † Hills.
It was the wind you heard;
The wind blowing through the pine-leaves
Pattered, like the falling of winter rain.
O wonderful hour!
"The big strings crashed and sobbed
Like the falling of winter rain.
And the little strings whispered secretly together.
The first and second string
Were like a wind sweeping through pine-woods,
Murmuring disjointedly.
The third and fourth string
Were like the voice of a caged stork
Crying for its little ones at night
In low, dejected notes." ‡
The night must not cease.
The cock shall not crow
And put an end to his wandering. §
    TSUNEMASA
    "One note of the phoenix-flute' †
    CHORUS
    Shakes the autumn clouds from the mountain-side." **
The phoenix and his mate swoop down
Charmed by its music, beat their wings
And dance in rapture, perched upon the swaying boughs
Of kiri and bamboo.
    (Dance. )
    TSUNEMASA
    Oh terrible anguish!
    For a little while I was back in the World and my heart set on its music, on revels of midnight. But now the hate is rising in me... *
    GY Ō KEI
    The shadow that we saw before is still visible.
Can it be Tsunemasa?
    TSUNEMASA
    Oh! I am ashamed; I must not let them see me.
Put out your candle.
    CHORUS
    "Let us turn away from the candle and watch together
    The midnight moon."
    Lo, he who holds the moon,
    The god Indra, in battle appeareth
    Warring upon demons.
    Fire leaps from their swords,
    The sparks of their own anger fall upon them, like rain.
    To wound another he draws his sword,
    But it is from his own flesh
    That the red waves flow;
    Like flames they cover him.
    "Oh, I am ashamed of the woes that consume me.
    No man must see me. I will put out the candle!" he said;
    For a foolish man is like a summer moth that flies into the flame. †
    The wind that blew out the candle
    Carried him away. In the darkness his ghost has vanished.
    The shadow of his ghost has vanished.
    Footnotes
    * See p. 204.
    â€  Like Yukihira; see p. 205.
    * Atsumori must have done Kumagai some kindness in a former incarnation. This would account for Kumagai’s remorse.
    â€  Buddha.
    * I have omitted a line the force of which depends upon a play on words. t The Taira evacuated the Capital in the second year of Juyei, 1188.
    â€  The taira evacuated the Captial in the second year of Juyei,1188.
    â€¡ Ichi no-Tani means "First Valley."
    * The name of so humble a thing was unfamiliar to the Taira lords.
    * Atsumori. This passage is mimed throughout.
    * A great preacher; died 1212 A.D.
    * The name given to streams which flow through temples. In this case the River Kamo.
    â€  Tadasu means to "straighten," "correct." The shrine of Kamo lay in the forest of Tadasu.
    * Adapted from a poem in the Shin Kokinsh Å« .
    * Ikuta means "Field of life."
    * The relation between Tsunemasa and the Emperor is meant.
    * I.e. the wind sounds like rain; the sands appear to be covered with frost. A couplet from a poem by Po Ch Å« -i.
    * Part of the poem which Tsunemasa gave to the Emperor before he went to battle.
    * Goddess of Music, who vowed that she would lead all souls to salvation by the music of her lute.
    * Different tunes were appropriate to different seasons.
    â€  A range of hills to the south of the Ninnaji. The name means the “Row of Hills.”
    â€¡ Quotation from Po Ch Å« -i’s “Lute Girl’s Song”; for