by A. L. Sadler
(Hatsubana, Mitsuchiyo, Tamanoi, and Yaeno enter with tubs of plum, peach, and camellia flowers.)
KONOE: I thought I would perhaps give you a little pleasure today by bringing you the flowers of the Four Famous Places. A little reminiscence of your verse: “Even the rape flower of this quarter, it may be the cherry to me.”
HATSUBANA: Now here is the plum blossom from Kitano that comes out first and perfumes the four quarters with its fragrance.
MITSUCHIYO: And then the peach blossom that follows it. For though the glories of the Peach Hill Citadel have long ago fallen to ruin, yet the trees that grew there shall bloom like my name for three thousand ages.
TAMANOI: In the ancient courts of the Camellia Temple never failing are the variegated flowers.
YAENO: The Mirror Flower that reflects your form. From the Bubbling Well Village we have brought it for you.
KAMON: Your own name shall represent the cherry. Therefore from our garden we omit the flower of flowers.
NAIKI: And for flowers like the rape we have no need.
KONOE: Well? Don’t you think it is brighter now?
(Passes her the cup.)
YOSHINO: How you have delighted me with this surprise.
(Accepts it.)
KAMON: Come! You mustn’t be sparing of the liquor tonight.
KONOE: I won’t be sparing of it either. Pledge me then with your own hand from the crab.
SABUROBEI (coming forward): Pray, wait a moment. I think it is my turn with the cup.
(Haiya Saburobei, a young man of twenty-three, in a crested long garment and woven girdle from which hangs a gold-lacquered Inro, bids one of the jesters wheel in a car of cherry blossoms.)
KAMON and NAIKI: Ha! What’s this?
SABUROBEI: Though we have all the flowers, if the Yoshino cherry is not there, how can we call it a flower-garden? But you have a beauty all your own, and so I lay these other cherry blossoms before you that we may see them blush for themselves. Now which of these flowers pleases you best?
YOSHINO: Indeed, that’s hard to say.
SABUROBEI: To bring flowers from all round the capital is no more than an ordinary extravagance, but these are mountain-cherries brought all the way from the very hills of Yoshino.
KAMON: What? From Yoshino in Yamato?
SABUROBEI: Say, then, Taiyu, in which of us two is feeling the most deep?
NAIKI: You can bring cherries from Yoshino with money. What sign is that of deep feeling?
SABUROBEI: Money is nothing where affection is concerned. D’you think flowers will blossom for rank?
KAMON: What’s that?
SABUROBEI: Prince or noble or whoever you like; in this quarter there is no distinction. If you can’t see how feeling is shown by money, here I am quite ready to explain it.
NAIKI (starting up): How dare you speak so rudely.
KONOE (checking him): Let him alone.
SABUROBEI: Well, fair one, to whom will you give the cup?
YOSHINO: Oh, what am I to say?
KONOE: Yes, the cup?
KO-ĒTSU (from right): I think you had better give it to me. (Hon-ami Ko-ētsu is about sixty years old and is dressed in sober-colored costume. He comes forward, pushing aside the attendant O-Kan who tries to stop him.)
O-KAN: But this is most unreasonable of you!
KO-ĒTSU: Ah, go away!
KONOE and SABUROBEI (together, looking astonished): You! Why—
KO-ĒTSU: Oh, all I came for was just to have a look at this lady, since I have heard so much about her beauty. That is all.
O-KAN: Is not this gentleman strange in his mind?
KO-ĒTSU: Oh, not at all. Moreover, I am quite respectable and no rowdy. And you’ll be pleased to hear that I am no deadhead either. Hearing that money would be required I brought out a purse with me. A thing I seldom do. (Taking it out of his bosom and handing it to O-Kan.) There, I suppose that will be enough for a view.
O-KAN: Oh, well, perhaps—
KO-ĒTSU (walking straight up to Yoshino and looking at her face): Indeed! Yes, she is beautiful, isn’t she?
YOSHINO (handing the cup to him): I pray you do me the honor.
KONOE: That cup!
SABUROBEI: To that old gentleman?
YOSHINO: Yes, certainly.
KONOE: And why?
YOSHINO: Because I think he seems to be without rank or money or love. He looks at me without any bias in his mind and so he has a real discrimination. Is it not so?
KO-ĒTSU: A girl of intelligence too. This is the kind that men go mad about. (Drinks.) And what shall I do with this?
YOSHINO: Please give it back to me. How I should like to become your pupil and learn to make my mind clear and cloudless like yours.
KO-ĒTSU: If I return it to you, it will do you no good. That won’t do at all, so I think I had better keep it.
O-KAN: This fellow is a pretty grabber. Why, this cup is one of the treasures of the quarter. Do you think we are going to let anyone go off with it?
KO-ĒTSU: The cup is not the only treasure I covet. I should like to go off with this precious Taiyu as well.
O-KAN: What?
SABUROBEI (impatiently): It is with me that the Taiyu, is going. (To O-Kan): Here are a thousand ryo. (Puts his hand into the flower-basket and takes out a money chest.) Give this to your master. There! Now I have bought her out. From this moment Yoshino I belongs to me. No one else has any right to interfere.
KONOE: What’s that?
SABUROBEI: Well, lady, get ready! I won’t let you stay here a moment longer. We will be off at once.
KO-ĒTSU: And where will you go?
SABUROBEI: To the country house first of all.
KO-ĒTSU: And is the country house your property then?
SABUROBEI: What do you mean?
(Ko-ētsu draws a document from his bosom and gives it to him.)
SABUROBEI (opens and reads it): What! Disinherited!
(Stares in amazement.)
KO-ĒTSU: Well? Will you buy her out even now?
SABUROBEI: What is it all about? And you—How—?
KO-ĒTSU: Oh, as for me, I happened to call on your honored father and found him extremely agitated. On asking the reason he presently told me that his son did nothing but visit the pleasure-quarter at Rokujo: and not only that but dared there to rival the great Lord Konoe with whose house his family had been on terms of respectful intimacy for many generations, thus forgetting himself in an inexcusable manner, wherefore he had determined to disinherit him at once. Then I implored him to wait until I myself went to see exactly how matters stood, and got him to give me this letter of disinheritance to keep it or to hand it to you according as my judgment should agree with his or not. And so I come to find things stand thus. What an infatuation indeed! But perhaps an excusable one. And so I hand you the letter. Do you still persist in buying her out?
SABUROBEI: How can I cease to love her?
KO-ĒTSU: Then there is nothing to be done. You must be disinherited.
SABUROBEI: Well, as to that—
KAMON: You’d better give it up and go home and stop there–and do watchdog in front of the family moneybags.
SABUROBEI: About money I have no feeling left. But thus penniless how will this lady fare with me in the future?
YOSHINO: What is that you say? Was this not your dearest wish?
SABUROBEI: Well, and what then?
YOSHINO: Thus far the affection of both yourself and his lordship has had a metallic taste, but now there is nothing but your hearts alone, and I have become just a simple girl, no more. Love needs no ornament if deep and true, so now I will choose the life I prefer.
SINGING-GIRLS: And that is?
YOSHINO: Go straight away from here, though after that, who knows? O-Kan! That money: take it!
O-KAN: Yes, I understand.
(Takes money in.)
YOSHINO (taking off her long outer robe): Let the house keep this as a memento of me. All the rest you can divide among yo
u.
SINGING-GIRLS: Oh, thank you! How kind!
SEGAWA: And this crab cup?
YOSHINO (to Ko-ētsu): I present it to you as a thank-offering for today.
KO-ĒTSU: It is rather late to take it perhaps, but if I leave it there will be more covetousness.
KONOE: And, lady, let me give you this as a parting gift.
(Draws from his bosom a fine piece of paper with a poem written on it.)
YOSHINO (reads):
Ah, this wretched life,
Brooding o’er its trackless maze, Lost in thought I stand.
From amid the mountains, too,
Sounds the deer’s yearning cry.
KONOE: I should have written “From the mountain fastnesses” instead of “From amid the mountains,” but that slip will make it the more of a masterpiece in future, no doubt: that and the far-famed paper on which it is written.
YOSHINO: Yes, indeed from henceforth I shall have much food for meditation, disturbed by nought but the cry of the deer borne to my couch in our solitary mountain hut. How can I thank you? Whatever may happen in this short life of mine I will never part with it.
KONOE: No need for thanks. If but one small corner of your heart is left for me I am content.
YOSHINO (standing up): Then, all my friends, well!
KONOE: Do you go so soon?
KO-ĒTSU: Ah, mountain-cherry briefly blossoming—
KONOE: Like valley-brook that falls and flows away—
YOSHINO: And whither then to go I wonder?
SABUROBEI: And brief indeed was my prosperity!
(Stage revolves.)
SCENE III
Outside the Quarter
On the left a gate. Beside it the Willow of Parting and the Fence of Farewell. A standing lamp. Outside a tea-house with a sedge-hat hanging up. Rice-fields behind. Within the gate appear the houses with their lighted lanterns. The gate-keeper Yoēmon walking tipsily comes out of the gate, supporting himself on a staff.
YOĒMON: Ah! I’m drunk! I’m drunk! (Sits down on the seat in front of the tea-house.) A drink of water, please!
TEA-HOUSE GIRL TO TOSE (from within): Ha-i-i. (Comes out with tea-cup)
Ah, Master Yoēmon! You’re merry tonight, aren’t you?
YOĒMON: Ah, the gate-keeper of this place is no common janitor. It would never do for him to be sober. So I have just had a drop or two.
TOSE: Yes, so it seems. But d’you think you’re quite fit for duty?
YOĒMON: Fit? I should think so! You see me take up my stand here and examine everyone who comes by.
TOSE: Oh, but that will be very annoying for them.
YOĒMON: I don’t care in the least whether it annoys them or not, so there! Ah, here come all sorts of fellows!
(The blindman Tokuichi comes out through the gate.)
YOĒMON: Halt!
TOKUICHI: Yes? Who is it?
YOĒMON: Who is it indeed? Don’t you know who I am?
TOKUICHI: Ah, Master Yoēmon. And is there anything I can do for you?
YOĒMON: There is. I want you to sing “Mount Yoshino.”’
TOKUICHI: “Mount Yoshino”? Why I sang it for you just a while ago.
YOĒMON: Perhaps you did. But I won’t let you pass till you sing it.
TOKUICHI: What’s that you are saying. Oh, excuse me, excuse me.
(Hurries back again.)
YOĒMON: Ya! Stop! Stop! Funny! Blind men are always swift of foot!
(The servant Densuke comes out tipsy.)
YOĒMON: Stop there!
DENSUKE: What’s that? Who says, “Stop”? Who dares to tell me to stop?
YOĒMON (mimicking a Noh-player): Ha, ha! Descended in the ninth generation from the original Yoēmon, Yoēmon the gate-keeper am I!
(Stands on guard, striking an attitude with his staff.)
DENSUKE: Ah, this fellow is trying to be funny, is he? All right. Then I’ll take the part of Benkei for you. (Parodying the speech in “Benkei in the Ship.”) “Here will sword-work naught avail! Grasping his slippers he rattles them between his palms.* On the east Takao Taiyu. On the west Yugiri Taiyu. In the middle Yoshino Taiyu he invokes. Casting their mantle around him, one conjuring and the other conjured, the evil spirit of the gate-keeper draws ever farther from him.”
(The two of them thus caricaturing “Benkei in the Ship,” the young samurai Harunojo comes out of the gate accompanied by the singing-girl Hatsubana who is seeing him off).
YOĒMON: Ah, here are Yoshitsune and Shizuka! Ha!
Yoshitsune! Thus strangely met! Upon the waves—
HARUNOJO: Heh! Rude fellow! (Gives him a push.)
(Yoēmon and Densuke go in with quaint gestures.)
HARUNOJO: H’m, all drunk right up to the gatekeeper. Yes, that’s just about the style of this quarter.
TOSE (bringing out a pair of swords): These are right, aren’t they?
HARUNOJO: Yes.
(He puts them in his girdle.)
HATSUBANA: And I shall expect you again tomorrow, eh?
HARUNOJO: I shan’t need much pressing.
HATSUBANA: Then, Harunojo San, if it must be—
HARUNOJO: If it must be—
HATSUBANA: Farewell.
(The two part and Tose goes in again. Kanetsugu comes out of the gate with folded arms.)
KANETSUGU: Ah, so I have come to the Fence of Farewell. To find a place in one corner of her heart; to be received and pledged in the wine-cup, and then to have to go away and forget, was her kindness merciful or merciless, I wonder? Yes, even though it may be a unique favor, and though I now leave this place, how can I forget? Better perhaps before the ending of this happy day I make this body of mine inanimate as this Willow of Farewell.
TOSE (coming out with hot water): Please sit down and rest yourself.
KANETSUGU: No, no! It would not be right to spoil the fragrance of the glorious liquor she so graciously granted me.
(Puts down tea-cup.)
TOSE: Spoil it? Why a little hot water brings back the taste again, doesn’t it?
KANETSUGU: That cup shall be my last drink on earth.
TOSE: Don’t say such an ill-omened thing!
KANETSUGU: Ill-omened? No! Most auspicious. This is the luckiest day of my life. But if I don’t write a word of thanks, she won’t even dream of thinking of me again.
TOSE: Ah, and who is she then?
KANETSUGU: That’s all right. Please lend me an ink-stone.
TOSE: Certainly, sir. And here is some paper.
KANETSUGU: Then I’ll write it in here, I think.
(Enters the tea-shop.)
SONG:
Think you it is snowing on the Mount of Yoshino?
It is not the snow you see, it is the cherry petals.
(Enter Haiya Shōyu, father of Saburobei. His appearance is that of a citizen of some distinction.)
SHŌYU (standing and listening to the song): H’m! Snow! Flowers! Cherry petals! All things that have got to fall. Yoshino! Wherever I go I hear this name sung. I’m sick of it.
SONG:
For your sweet sake upon the snow-clad moor I’d lie,
And nothing reck to take my death of cold.
(Shōyu comes up to the front of the tea-house. Kanetsugu comes out of it, dropping a letter as he does so. He passes Shōyu and exit. Shōyu looks suspiciously and stumbles over the letter.)
SHŌYU (picking it up): What’s this? “To Yoshino.” What? Yoshino again? (Opens it hastily — reads): “In regard to your very deep and most unexpected consideration in receiving me, and even deigning to pledge me in the wine-cup, I am overwhelmed by feelings of gladness and also of sorrow. The clouds of vain longing, alas! Will not clear away from my heart, and so now, while your image still lives before my eyes, I go to cast myself into the River Katsura. Do not, I pray you be angry with me at all, but only pity me, and so shall I go to my end with a joyful heart.” Why, bless my soul, this man’s going to die! What next? (Throws the letter down.) How awful! A woman who can le
ad people astray like that! Why they can’t forget her! And if it comes to not being able to forget her, I wonder whether my son too may not perhaps be in danger of some tragedy like this?
SONG:
Ah, to forget her, but is there one who can?
Forever and forever the way of love goes on.
(Yōnosuke swaggers out of the gate.)
SHŌYU: I say, can you tell me where it is that the Taiyu Yoshino lives?
YŌNOSUKE: What’s that? Yoshino? Oh! Oh, yes, I’ll show you. You come along with me.
(Takes the arm of Shōyu.)
SHŌYU: Here, what are you doing?
YŌNOSUKE: Look here, I’m just going to buy her out.
(Pulls him along.)
SHŌYU: What are you talking about?
YŌNOSUKE: Talking about? Why Yoshino, of course. Of what else should I talk?
SHŌYU: Yah! This fellow’s crazy.
YŌNOSUKE: Yes, I’m crazy! I’m going to die too! But I’ll kill that fellow first, you see!
SHŌYU: What?
YŌNOSUKE: I’ll kill him I tell you. I’ll wait for him to come out and cut him down with one blow!
SHŌYU: What madness! Why don’t you go back home instead of talking like this. Your parents will be anxious about you.
YŌNOSUKE: I haven’t got any parents.
SHŌYU: Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that.
YŌNOSUKE: As I have no parents I can’t be disinherited!
SHŌYU: What’s that?
YŌNOSUKE: Yoshino is more to me than parents or children or anything. Ah, how I should like to see her face just once again.
(Goes back again within the gate.)
SHŌYU: Well! This one’s mad. That one has gone to drown himself. And what of my son, I wonder?
SONG:
When the thong of my tattered straw hat is broken I can’t wear it again, but still I won’t throw it away.
(Saburobei, his face hidden by a wattle hat, comes out of the gate with Yoshino. Shōyu passes by them.)
SABUROBEI: I wonder–That looks like—
YOSHINO: What?
YŌNOSUKE (coming straight up to them from within): Ah, Yoshino!
(Presses up to them. Shōyu stops him. Konoe comes out behind and gazes regretfully after them. Curtain.)
ACT II
The solitary retreat at Sakura-machi
In front, a tokonoma six feet wide in which hangs the poem written by Konoe. Beneath it is a flower arrangement of hazel and winter-chrysanthemum. The walls have a dado of plain white paper, and are stained in places with rain that has leaked in. In the center of the room is a hearth cut in the floor with a tea-kettle over it. On the right, a window. A small garden in front with a water-basin and a few trees bounded by a rough bamboo fence with a rustic gate. Outside, a road runs lengthwise with some houses on the other side of it. A withered willow tree and the Otowa River completes the scene. Saburobei is making pottery. O Toku is folding the paper for fans. The puppet-man Kosaku appears and shows his puppets before the window.