Page:Four Japanese Tales.pdf/44

 the buildings that I sometimes find it difficult to see what you must see?« He stopped almost embarrassed.

»Sit down on these bulging roots,« he added after a moment. »I will relate to you somewhat more coherently the story, of the temple dancer. All that happens, happens well. After all there could be no more appropriate place for this story.« And he sat down as if really tired.

»Like a bamboo shoot in spring such was O-Take-San even at a tender age, and as the old song runs, already the fact that she was named »Bamboo« was a sign of divine favor. And the third verse describes how already as a child, dressed in the white robe of a priestess, she raised aloft the more graciously than ever any »darling of the gods« before her. The seemed to grow from out of her white hand, my companion emphasised, repeating the fifth verse of the ballad. »I suppose you know what the is.«

I had to confess that I did not. “The is a special bronze instrument hung with little bells, which the  uses in dancing,” the engineer explained patiently, fixing his eyes on the bamboo thicket. “To this very day it preserved the shape of a bamboo shoot in remembrance of the mythical episode which this dance represents. As you know, Ama-terasu, the Goddess of the Sun, having been offended by her brother Susa-no-o, in her anger hid herself in a cave, leaving the earth plunged in grievous darkness. The rest of the gods in vain endeavored to persuade her to come out; Ama-terasu, however, remained obdurate. Then the gods and goddesess gathered about the cavern, and began to sing and dance; one of them Ame-no-uzume-no-mikoto, tied little bells to the bamboo shoot she held and by means of it finally enticed the angered goddess to the door. Hardly had she opened it when one of the gods put a mirror before her eyes, and she, bewitched by her own beauty, followed, the mirror out in front of the cave. The earth was again immersed in sunlight « He silenced himself, as if half his soul were somewhere else than at the ruins of this temple, and then he added hurriedly: »The suzu, having the form of a bamboo shoot, seemed to grow from out of the white hand of her who was as slender and beautiful even as a bamboo shoot that is the simile understood by every Japanese. Perhaps you have noticed that young bamboo shoots grow from out of a protecting white sheath, surrounding the joints of the culm at that point; keeping this in your mind, you can better appreciate the appropriateness of the com-