Narrator:
To this world, farewell.
To the night, too, farewell.
He who goes to his death
Is as the frost on the path
To the burial ground,
With every step melting away.
This dream of a dream is sad.
Ah! count the chimes -
Seven to mark the dawn
And six have tolled;
The one that remains,
The last fading echo in this life,
The bell that echoes
Coming joy beyond extinction.
Not to the bell alone,
To grass, to trees,
To the sky, too, farewell.
They look up for the last time -
The clouds, too are heedless;
On the water's surface
The Plough star reflected bright,
The Wife and Husband stars
In the River of Heaven.
Tokubei:
The Bridge of Umeda -
Let us vow it be
The Bridge of Magpies
And for ever let us be,
You and I, Wife and Husband stars.
Narrator:
`It shall be so,' she says,
And clings close to him.
Tears fall, shed by both -
The river water must have risen!
Beyond the river, upstairs
In one of the tea-houses,
At the height of their love-making,
Before they go to sleep,
In the lamplight, voices raised,
The leaves and grass of talk
Flourish rank on the good and ill
Of the suicides this year.
Tokubei:
The heart sorrows to hear it.
But man's fortune is mysterious;
Until yesterday, until today,
We spoke as if of others' grief.
But from the dawn we too
Shall enter the list of gossip
Our song sung by the world -
Let them sing then, if they must.
Narrator:
And now they hear the song:
`Why will you not
Take me as your wife?
You may think of me as
One you can do without.'
We may love, we may grieve,
But fortune and the world
Are not as we would have them.
Every day it is so; until today
Never was there a day, a night,
When my heart was at rest,
Tortured by a love I should not feel.
`Why, oh why, is it so?
Not for an instant can I forget.
Should you want to discard me
And go your way, I'll not allow it.
Lay your hands on me, kill me,
Then be off - only thus
Shall I leave you free.'
Thus she sobbed through her tears.
Tokubei:
Alas! that they should sing
This of all songs,
This night of all nights.
The singer - who it is, I know not;
The listeners - we; like those of the song,
Who passed long ago, our loves the same.
Narrator:
They cling to one another, and,
Not sparingly of their sobs, they weep;
And, like all lovers before them,
Pray for just a while together.
But such is the way of summer's night,
Short as always, short as love.
Then the crow of the cock,
Hounding their life span.
Tokubei:
Oh, sorrow! Before the light
Let us die in Tenjin Grove.
Narrator:
He leads her by the hand.
The midnight rooks of Umeda Dyke
Tokubei:
Tomorrow will prey on our flesh.
Ohatsu:
Sad indeed that this year
Is thus for both ill-starred -
Twenty-five for you, for me nineteen;
A token of our close-linked fates,
That loves and stars should be as one.
My vows to Spirits and the Buddha,
Said for this life to come -
That in the world beyond
We may share a single lotus.
Narrator:
Nine twelves the beads
Of her rosary, rubbed and told;
And at their side a greater score
Of her jewel tear-drops.
Nine twelves the worldly lusts,
Passions, sorrows never spent,
But this world's journey done.
From their hearts, a black shade
In the sky; the wind dies out.
They come to their goal
In Sonezaki Grove.
There or here? They clear the grass,
Damp with the dew already fallen,
Dew that dies sooner than they.
Translated by Anthony Thwaite
and Geoffrey Bownas
