PRIEST.
It is indeed a wonderful message that the God has sent you. And why should I go back at once to Kurodani? I had best take you straight to the forest of Ikuta. Let us be going.
PRIEST (describing the journey).
From the shrine of Kamo,
From under the shadow of the hills,
We set out swiftly;
Past Yamazaki to the fog-bound
Shores of Minasé;
And onward where the gale
Tears travellers’ coats and winds about their bones.
“Autumn has come to woods where yesterday
We might have plucked the green.”[23]
To Settsu, to those woods of Ikuta
Lo! We are come.
We have gone so fast that here we are already at the woods of Ikuta in the country of Settsu. I have heard tell in the Capital of the beauty of these woods and the river that runs through them. But what I see now surpasses all that I have heard.
Look! Those meadows must be the Downs of Ikuta. Let us go nearer and admire them.
But while we have been going about looking at one view and another, the day has dusked.
I think I see a light over there. There must be a house. Let us go to it and ask for lodging.
ATSUMORI (speaking from inside a hut).
Beauty, perception, knowledge, motion, consciousness,—
The Five Attributes of Being,—
All are vain mockery.
How comes it that men prize
So weak a thing as body?
For the soul that guards it from corruption
Suddenly to the night-moon flies,
And the poor naked ghost wails desolate
In the autumn wind.