I am sorry for it, but I cannot give you lodging.
PRIEST (turning away).
Much good I got by waiting for such a fellow! I will go my way. (He goes.)
WIFE.
Alas, it is because in a former life we neglected the ordinances[79] that we are now come to ruin. And surely it will bring us ill-fortune in our next life, if we give no welcome to such a one as this! If it is by any means possible for him to shelter here, please let him stay.
TSUNEYO.
If you are of that mind, why did you not speak before? (Looking after the PRIEST.) No, he cannot have gone far in this great snowstorm. I will go after him and stop him. Hie, traveller, hie! We will give you lodging. Hie! The snow is falling so thick that he cannot hear me. What a sad plight he is in. Old-fallen snow covers the way he came and snow new-fallen hides the path where he should go. Look, look! He is standing still. He is shaking the snow from his clothes; shaking, shaking. It is like that old song:
“At Sano Ferry
No shelter found we
To rest our horses,
Shake our jackets,
In the snowy twilight.”
That song was made at Sano Ferry,
At the headland of Miwa on the Yamato Way.