Rain beating carelessly on trees and grasses. What season’s music[29] ought we to play?
TSUNEMASA.
No. It is not rain. Look! At the cloud’s fringe
CHORUS.
The moon undimmed
Hangs over the pine-woods of Narabi[30] Hills.
It was the wind you heard;
The wind blowing through the pine-leaves
Pattered, like the falling of winter rain.
O wonderful hour!
“The big strings crashed and sobbed
Like the falling of winter rain.
And the little strings whispered secretly together.
The first and second string
Were like a wind sweeping through pine-woods,
Murmuring disjointedly.
The third and fourth string
Were like the voice of a caged stork
Crying for its little ones at night
In low, dejected notes.”[31]
The night must not cease.
The cock shall not crow
And put an end to his wandering.[32]
TSUNEMASA.
“One note of the phœnix-flute[33]
CHORUS.
Shakes the autumn clouds from the mountain-side.”[34]
The phœnix and his mate swoop down
Charmed by its music, beat their wings
And dance in rapture, perched upon the swaying boughs
Of kiri and bamboo.