IZUTSU
Kakitsubata is based on the eighth episode. Narihira and his companions come to a place called Yatsuhashi, where, across an iris-covered swamp, zigzags a low footpath of planks.
Narihira bids them compose an anagram on the word Kakitsubata, “iris,” and some one sings:
“Kara-goromo
Ki-tsutsu nare-ni-shi
Tsuma shi areba
Baru-baru ki-nuru
Tabi wo shi zo omou.”
The first syllables of each line make, when read consecutively, the word Kakitsubata, and the poem, which is a riddle with many meanings, may be translated:
“My lady’s love
Sat close upon me like a coat well worn;
And surely now
Her thoughts go after me down this long road!”
“When he had done singing, they all wept over their dried-rice till it grew soppy.”
In the play, a priest comes to this place and learns its story from a village-girl, who turns out to be the “soul of the iris-flower.” At the end she disappears into the Western Paradise. “Even the souls of flowers can attain to Buddhahood.”