BROTHER (begins his second dance, while the CHORUS sings the ballad used by the “hōka” players).
Oh, a pleasant place is the City of Flowers;
CHORUS.
No pen could write its wonders.[167]
In the east, Gion and the Temple of Clear Waters
Where torrents tumble with a noise of many wings;
In the storm-wind flutter, flutter
The blossoms of the Earth-lord’s tree.[168]
In the west, the Temple of the Wheel of Law,
The Shrine of Saga (Turn, if thou wilt,
Wheel of the Water Mill!),
Where river-waves dance on the weir
And river-willows by the waves are chafed;
Oxen of the City by the wheels are chafed;
And the tea-mortar by the pestle is chafed.
Why, and I’d forgot! In the hōka’s hands
The kokiriko[169] is chafed.
Now long may our Lord rule
Age notched on age, like the notches
Of these gnarled sticks!
MAKINO and BROTHER.
Enough! Why longer hide our plot?
(They draw their swords and rush upon NOBUTOSHI, who places his hat upon the ground and slips out at the side-door. The hat henceforward symbolically represents NOBUTOSHI, an actual representation of slaughter being thus avoided.)
CHORUS.
Then the brothers drew their swords and rushed upon him,
The foe of their desire.
(MAKINO gets behind the hat, to signify that NOBUTOSHI is surrounded.)