[185] The play is given in a list of Seami’s works composed on the authority of his great-grandson, Kwanze Nagatoshi, in 1524. Ōwada gives it as anonymous.
[186] “Wakare no tori,” the bird which warns lovers of the approach of day.
[187] Turn it into a Buddha.
[188] The fact that Haku is a foreigner is conventionally emphasized by his pronunciation of this word. The fishermen, when using the same word later on, called it “Nihon.”
[189] The Chinese call him Fan Li. He lived in China in the fifth century B.C. Having rendered important services to the country of Yüeh (Etsu), he went off with his mistress in a skiff, knowing that if he remained in public life his popularity was bound to decline. The Fishermen are vaguely groping towards the idea of “a Chinaman” and a “boat.” They are not yet consciously aware of the arrival of Rakuten.
[190] Haku throughout omits the honorific turns of speech which civility demands. The Fishermen speak in elaborately deferential and honorific language. The writer wishes to portray Haku as an ill-bred foreigner.
[191] “Uta,” i. e. the thirty-one syllable Japanese stanza.
[192] Quotation from the Preface to the Kokinshū (“Collection of Songs Ancient and Modern”). The fact that Haku continues the quotation shows that he is under a sort of spell and makes it clear for the first time that his interlocutor is not an ordinary mortal. From this point onwards, in fact, the Fisherman gradually becomes a God.
[193] The priest’s acolyte had died. The nightingale was the boy’s soul.
[194] They do not appear on the stage.