Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/215

Rh accurate, Murray very properly translates tadaima (immediately) by "any time between now and Christmas." First one lantern entered the courtyard; after half-an-hour, another; one by one the young men and maidens assembled; forty minutes more elapsed before the musicians could be induced to appear: at last a flute-player and a drummer squatted on a mat in the centre, while the dancers circled slowly about them. Youths and girls wore a blue kerchief tied round the temples: they revolved, as in a game of "Follow my leader," without ever touching hands; two steps forward, a half-turn, two steps back, and at irregular intervals a clapping of hands. Such was the simple measure. But the waving of arms and the graceful free gestures of these rustic coryphées were only less effective than the strange chanting, which rose or sank in volume as the number of participants increased or fell away. And what do you suppose they sang? Something in the following vein, one might imagine:

Lines like these might emanate from an Arcadian singer of Fleet Street, but the daughters of Akakura must have lost all sense of the solemn festival they were affecting to celebrate. What they sang was this: