The n plays of Japan - 1922 Author:Arthur Waley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IKUTA By ZEMBO MOTOYASU (1453-1532) PERSONS PRIEST (a follower of Honen Shonin).1 ATSVMORI'S CHILD. ATSUMORI. CHORUS. PRIEST. I am one .that serves... more » Honen Shdnin of Kurodani; and as for this child here,—once when Honen was on a visit to the Temple of Kamo he saw a box lying under a trailing fir-tree; and when he raised the lid, what should he find inside but a lovely man-child one year old! It did not seem to be more than a common foundling, but my master in his compassion took the infant home with him. Ever since then he has had it in his care, doing all that was needful for it; and now the boy is over ten years old. But it is a hard thing to have no father or mother, so one day after his preaching the Shonin told the child's story. And sure enough a young woman stepped out from among the hearers and said it was her child. And when he took her aside and questioned her, he found that the child's father was Taira no Atsumori, who had fallen in battle at Ichi-no-Tani years ago. When the boy was told of this, he longed earnestly to see his father's face, were it but in a dream, and the Shonin bade him go and pray at the shrine of Kamo. He was to go every day for a week, and this is the last day. That is why I have brought him out with me. But here we are at the Kamo shrine. Pray well, boy, pray well! How fills my heart with awe When I behold the crimson palisade Of this abode of gods! Oh may my heart be clean 1 A great preacher; died 1212 A. ;. As the River of Ablution; 1 And the God's kindness deep As its unfathomed waters. Show to me, Though it were but in dream, My father's face and form. . Is not my heart so ground away with prayer, So smooth that it will slip Unfelt into the favour of the gods? But thou too, Censor of our pray...« less