Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/288

284 my eyes—crimson as the fabled Bridge of Maple Leaves, formed of magpie wings across the sky and at the dawn stained red by the tears of two parting lover-stars.


 * (Throws the hat violently aside and takes out fan. The Chorus now turns from a description of past events to a recital of the tortures which the Hunter is undergoing in Hell. The dance becomes quieter now, the Hunter using the fan to indicate the actions described. The fan is a large white one on which is painted a bird in flight.)

In the earthly world I thought it only an easy prey, this bird, only an easy prey. But now here in Hell it has become a gruesome phantom-bird, pursuing the sinner, honking from its beak of iron, beating its mighty wings, sharpening its claws of copper. It tears at my eyeballs, it rends my flesh. I would cry out, but choking amid the shrieking flames and smoke, can make no sound.


 * (The Hunter runs wildly about the stage, in agony.)

Is it not for the sin of killing the voiceless birds that I myself now have no voice? Is it not for slaughtering the moulting, earth-bound birds that I cannot now flee?


 * (The Hunter has started moving rapidly toward the Facing Pillar when suddenly he seems unable to move and sinks to his knees, cowering in the center of the stage.)

The gentle bird has become a falcon, a hawk!

And I!—I have become a pheasant, vainly seeking shelter, as though in a snowstorm on the hunting fields of Gatano, fleeing in vain over the earth, fearing also the sky, harassed by falcons above and tormented by dogs below.


 * (The Hunter rises and, looking up toward the sky and down to the earth, moves slowly, defeatedly, toward the Shite’s Pillar.)

Ah! the killing of those birds! this heavy heart which never knows a moment’s peace! this body endlessly in pain!