(The living phantasm of ROKUJŌ appears at the back of the stage.)
ROKUJŌ.
In the Three Coaches
That travel on the Road of Law
I drove out of the Burning House ...[128]
Is there no way to banish the broken coach
That stands at Yūgao’s door?[129]
This world
Is like the wheels of the little ox-cart;
Round and round they go ... till vengeance comes.
The Wheel of Life turns like the wheel of a coach;
There is no escape from the Six Paths and Four Births.
We are brittle as the leaves of the bashō;
As fleeting as foam upon the sea.
Yesterday’s flower, to-day’s dream.
From such a dream were it not wiser to wake?
And when to this is added another’s scorn
How can the heart have rest?
So when I heard the twanging of your bow
For a little while, I thought, I will take my pleasure;
And as an angry ghost appeared.
Oh! I am ashamed!
(She veils her face.)
This time too I have come secretly[130]
In a closed coach.
Though I sat till dawn and watched the moon,
Till dawn and watched,
How could I show myself,
That am no more than the mists that tremble over the fields?
I am come, I am come to the notch of your bow
To tell my sorrow.
Whence came the noise of the bow-string?
WITCH.
Though she should stand at the wife-door of the mother-house of the square court ...[131]
ROKUJŌ.
Yet would none come to me, that am not in the flesh.[132]