]._]

Prithee! is any within?

KAUZHIYU.--Who is it that deigneth to ask admittance?

NAKAMITSU.--What! Is that Kauzhiyu? Tell young my lord that I have
come to fetch him home.

KAUZHIYU.--Your commands shall be obeyed. [_He goes to his master's
apartment._] How shall I dare address my lord? Nakamitsu is come to
fetch my lord.

BIJIYAU.--Call him hither.

KAUZHIYU.--Your commands shall be obeyed. [_He returns to the outer
hall and addresses his father._] Condescend to come this way.
[_They go to Bijiyau's apartment._

NAKAMITSU.--It is long since I was last here.

BIJIYAU.--And what is it that hath now brought thee?

NAKAMITSU.--'Tis that my lord, your father, hath sent me to bid your
lordship follow me home without delay.

BIJIYAU.--Shall I, then, go without saying anything to the priests, my
preceptors?

NAKAMITSU.--Yes; if the priests be told, they will surely wish to see
your lordship on the way, whereas, my lord, your father's commands
were, that I alone was to escort you.

BIJIYAU.--Then we will away.

NAKAMITSU.--Kauzhiyu! thou, too, shalt accompany thy master.

KAUZHIYU.--Your commands shall be obeyed.

[_They depart from the temple, and arrive at Mitsunaka's palace._

NAKAMITSU.--How shall I dare address my lord? I have brought hither
his lordship Bijiyau.

MITSUNAKA.--Well, Bijiyau! my only reason for sending thee up to the
monastery was to help thy learning; and I would fain begin, by hearing
thee read aloud from the Scriptures.
And with these words, and bidding him read on,
He lays on ebon desk before his son
The sacred text, in golden letters writ.

BIJIYAU.--But how may he who never bent his wit
To make the pencil trace Asaka's[163] line
Spell out one letter of the book divine?
In vain, in vain his sire's behest he hears:--
Nought may he do but choke with idle tears.

MITSUNAKA.--Ah! surely 'tis that, being my child, he respecteth the
Scriptures too deeply, and chooseth not to read them except for
purposes of devotion. What of verse-making, then?

BIJIYAU.--I cannot make any.

MITSUNAKA.--And music? [_Bijiyau makes no answer._

MITSUNAKA.--What! no reply? Hast lost thy tongue, young fool?

CHORUS.--Whom, then, to profit wentest thou to school?
And can it be that e'en a father's word,
Like snow that falling melts, is scarcely heard,
But 'tis unheeded? Ah! 'twill drive me wild
To point thee out to strangers as m