rb of Forgetfulness" answers in the poetical
diction of the Japanese to the classical waters Lethe.]

[Footnote 156: It is the young poet Ki-no-Tomonori who is mourned in
this stanza.]

[Footnote 157: The Milky Way.]

[Footnote 158: This stanza is remarkable for being (so far as the
present writer is aware) the only instance in Japanese literature of
that direct impersonation of an abstract idea which is so very
strongly marked a characteristic of Western thoughts and modes of
expression.]

[Footnote 159: Composed on the occasion of a feast at the palace.]

[Footnote 160: One of a number of stanzas composed by a party of
courtiers who visited the cascade of Nunobiki, near the site of the
modern treaty-port of Kobe.]

[Footnote 161: This stanza was composed and sent to the owner of the
neighboring house on the last day of winter, when the wind had blown
some snow across from it into the poet's dwelling.]

* * * * *

THE DRAMA OF JAPAN

[_Selected Plays, translated by Basil Hall Chamberlain_]

NAKAMITSU

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

MITSUNAKA, Lord of the Horse to the Emperor Murakami.

BIJIYAU, Son of Mitsunaka, and still a boy.

NAKAMITSU, retainer of Mitsunaka.

KAUZHIYU, son of Nakamitsu, and foster-brother of Bijiyau.

WESHIN, Abbot of the great monastery on Mount Hiyei, near Kiyauto
(Miaco).

The Chorus.

Scene.--The Temple of Chiynuzanzhi, and my Lord Mitsunaka's palace in
Kiyauto.

Time.--Early in the Tenth Century.

NAKAMITSU

PART I

Scene I.--Near the Monastery of Chiynuzanzhi

_Enter Nakamitsu._

NAKAMITSU.--I am Nakamitsu, a man of the Fujihara clan, and retainer
of Mitsunaka, Lord of Tada in the land of Setsushiu. Now you must know
that my lord hath an only son, and him hath he sent to a certain
monastery amid the mountains named Chiynuzanzhi, while I, too, have a
son called Kauzhiyu, who is gone as page to young my lord. But young
my lord doth not condescend to apply his mind unto study, loving
rather nothing so well as to spend from morn to night in quarrelling
and disturbance. Wherefore, thinking doubtless to disinherit young my
lord, my lord already this many a time, hath sent his messengers to
the temple with summons to return home to Kiyauto. Nevertheless, as he
cometh not, me hath he now sent on the same errand.

[_The above words are supposed to be spoken during the journey, and
Nakamitsu now arrives at the monastery[162