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