HIME AND TOMO (describing the journey as they walk across the bridge and
the stage)
Sleeping with the grass for our pillow,
The dew has covered our sleeves.
(singing)
Of whom shall I ask my way
As I go out from Tagami province?
Of whom in Totomi?
I crossed the bay in a small hired boat
And came to Yatsuhashi in Mikawa:
Ah when shall I see the City-on-the-cloud?
TOMO As we have come so fast, we are now in Miyazaki of Hinga.
It is here you should ask for your father.
KAGEKIYO (in another corner of the stage) Sitting at the gate of the pine wood, I wear out the end of my years. I cannot see the clear light, I know not how the time passes. I sit here in this dark hovel, with one coat for the warm and the cold, and my body is but a frame-work of bones.
CHORUS May as well be a priest with black sleeves. Now having left the world in sorrow, I look upon my withered shape. There is no one to pity me now.
HIME Surely no one can live in that ruin, and yet a voice sounds from it. A beggar perhaps, let us take a few steps and see.
KAGEKIYO My eyes will not show it me, yet the autumn wind is upon us.
HIME The wind blows from an unknown past, and spreads our doubts through the world. The wind blows, and I have no rest, nor any place to find quiet.
KAGEKIYO Neither in the world of passion, nor in the world of colour, nor in the world of non-colour, is there any such place of rest; beneath the one sky are they all. Whom shall I ask, and how answer?
TOMO Shall I ask the old man by the thatch?