Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/312

308 :(He takes Tarō’s sleeve, and they struggle.)

Let me go!

I won’t let you go!

I tell you, let me go!

I tell you, I won’t let you go!


 * (Tarō frees himself and approaches the cask. He uses his fan to scoop out the contents.)

(singing): Shaking off with sorrow the sleeves of parting,
 * I come up to the side of the busu.

Alas! Now he will meet his death.

Oh, I am dying. I am dying. (He falls over.)

I knew it would happen. Tarō kaja! What is it? (He rushes to him.)

It’s so delicious, I’m dying. (He gets up.)

What can it be?

It’s sugar!

Let me have a taste.

Go ahead.

Thank you. It really is sugar!


 * (The two of them eat, using their fans to scoop out the busu. Tarō, seeing that Jirō is too busy eating to notice, carries off the cask to the Waki’s Pillar. While he is eating, Jirō comes up and takes the cask to the Facing Pillar.)

You mustn’t eat it all by yourself. Let me have it!

No, you were eating before I did. Give me some more.

Let’s both eat it.

A good idea.


 * (They put the cask between them.)

Delicious, isn’t it?

Really delicious.

The master told us that it was busu, thinking we wouldn’t eat it then. That was really most disagreeable of him. Eat up! Eat up!

It was disagreeable of him to have told us that we would die instantly if we got so much as a whiff of it. Eat up! Eat up!

I can’t stop eating.