Such is the story upon which the play is founded. The poem is one by Bishop Henjō (816-890):
O lady-flowers
That preen yourselves upon the autumn hill,
Even you that make so brave a show,
Last but “one while.”
Hito toki, “one while,” is the refrain of the play. It was for “one while” that they lived together in the Capital; it is for “one while” that men are young, that flowers blossom, that love lasts. In the first part of the play an aged man hovering round a clump of lady-flowers begs the priest not to pluck them. In the second part this aged man turns into the soul of the lover. The soul of the girl also appears, and both are saved by the priest’s prayers from that limbo (half death, half life) where all must linger who die in the coils of shūshin, “heart-attachment.”
MATSUKAZE
By KWANAMI; REVISED BY SEAMI
Lord Yukihira, brother of Narihira, was banished to the lonely shore of Suma. While he lived there he amused himself by helping two fisher-girls to carry salt water from the sea to the salt-kilns on the shore. Their names were Matsukaze and Murasame.
At this time he wrote two famous poems; the first, while he was crossing the mountains on his way to Suma:
“Through the traveller’s dress
The autumn wind blows with sudden chill.
It is the shore-wind of Suma
Blowing through the pass.”
When he had lived a little while at Suma, he sent to the Capital a poem which said: