In the play a priest passing through Rokujō-kawara meets an old man carrying salt-water pails. It is the ghost of Tōru. In the second part he rehearses the luxury and splendour of his life at the great palace Rokujō-kawara no In.
MAI-GURUMA[213]
(THE DANCE WAGGONS)
By MIYAMASU (DATE UNKNOWN)
A man of Kamakura went for a year to the Capital and fell in love with a girl there. When it was time for him to return to Kamakura he took her with him. But his parents did not like her, and one day when he was not at home, they turned her out of the house.
Thinking that she would have gone towards the Capital, the man set out in pursuit of her. At dusk he came to a village. He was told that if he lodged there he must take part next day in the waggon-dancing, which was held in the sixth month of each year in honour of the god Gion. He told them that he was heart-sore and foot-sore, and could not dance.
Next day the villagers formed into two parties. The first party mounted the waggon and danced the Bijinzoroye, a ballad about the twelve ladies whom Narihira loved. The second party danced the ballad called Tsumado, the story of which is:
Hosshō, Abbot of the Hiyeizan, was sitting late one summer night by the Window of the Nine Perceptions, near the Couch of the Ten Vehicles, in a room sprinkled with the holy water of Yoga, washed by the moonlight of the Three Mysteries. Suddenly there was a sound of hammering on the double-doors. And when he opened the doors and looked—why, there stood the Chancellor Kwan, who had died on the twenty-fifth day of the second month.
“Why have you come so late in the night, Chancellor Kwan?”
“When I lived in the world foul tongues slandered me. I am come to destroy my enemies with thunder. Only the Home of Meditation[214] shall be spared. But if you will make me one promise, I will not harm you. Swear that you will go no more to Court!”