some qualification, as he gives in the same work a lucid account of the plot of several of them. But even when he has mastered their sense, the translator's difficulties are only beginning. I know of nothing in literature for which it is more impossible to give an adequate English equivalent than the intricate network of word-plays, quotations, and historical, literary, and scriptural allusions of which they consist. Mr. Chamberlain, who has done some of them into English verse, confesses that his rendering is only a paraphrase. Prose or a rough and ready blank verse has been preferred for the partial translation of the Takasago, which is given below. But even when freed from the temptation to introduce extraneous matter which is hardly separable from a poetical version, it is not possible to render the original as faithfully as might be desired. I have tried, however, while omitting a certain untranslatable element, at any rate to bring in nothing of my own.
"Takasago"
This is one of the pieces attributed to Motokiyo, who died in 1455, but, as already suggested, he was probably only the director or manager of the theatre where it was produced. It is the best known, and is considered the finest of all the Nō. Its popularity was testified to no longer ago than last year (1897) by the launching, from the yard of Messrs. Armstrong & Co. at Newcastle, of a cruiser for the Japanese navy bearing the name of Takasago.
