e ancient worship of Hachiman, and relates how his mother, the
Empress Jingo, sacrificed to the gods before invading Corea, and how
the present prosperity of the country is to be attributed to the
acceptance of those sacrifices. After having revealed himself as the
god Hachiman in disguise, the old man disappears. The worshipper,
awe-struck, declares that he must return to Kioto and tell the Emperor
what he has seen. The chorus announces that sweet music and fragrant
perfumes issue from the mountain, and the piece ends with
felicitations upon the visible favour of the gods, and especially of
Hachiman.

The second piece was _Tsunemasa_. Tsunemasa was a hero of the twelfth
century, who died in the civil wars; he was famous for his skill in
playing on the _biwa_, a sort of four-stringed lute.

A priest enters, and announces that his name is Giyokei, and that
before he retired from the world he held high rank at Court. He
relates how Tsunemasa, in his childhood the favourite of the Emperor,
died in the wars by the western seas. During his lifetime the Emperor
gave him a lute, called Sei-zan, "the Azure Mountain"; this lute at
his death was placed in a shrine erected to his honour, and at his
funeral music and plays were performed during seven days within the
palace, by the special grace of the Emperor. The scene is laid at the
shrine. The lonely and awesome appearance of the spot is described.
Although the sky is clear, the wind rustles through the trees like the
sound of falling rain; and although it is now summer-time, the
moonlight on the sand looks like hoar-frost. All nature is sad and
downcast. The ghost appears, and sings that it is the spirit of
Tsunemasa, and has come to thank those who have piously celebrated his
obsequies. No one answers him, and the spirit vanishes, its voice
becoming fainter and fainter, an unreal and illusory vision haunting
the scenes amid which its life was spent. The priest muses on the
portent. Is it a dream or a reality? Marvellous! The ghost, returning,
speaks of former days, when it lived as a child in the palace, and
received the Azure Mountain lute from the Emperor--that lute with the
four strings of which its hand was once so familiar, and the
attraction of which now draws it from the grave. The chorus recites
the virtues of Tsunemasa--his benevolence, justice, humanity,
talents, and truth; his love of poetry and music; the trees, the
flowers, the birds, the breezes, the moon--all