And in the nightmare darkness gropes for Tokubei.
At last they catch each other’s hands
And softly creep out to the entranceway.
The latch is open, but the hinges creek,
And frightened by the noise they hesitate.
Just then the maid begins to strike the flints;
They time their actions to the rasping sound,
And with each rasp the door is opened more,
Until, sleeves twisted round them through they push,
And one after the other pass outside,
As though they tread upon a tiger’s tail.
Exchanging glances then, they cry for joy,
Rejoicing that they are to go to death.
The life left to them now is just as brief
As sparks that fly from blocks of flint.
Scene III: The Journey
Narrator: Farewell to the world, and to the night farewell.
We who walk the road to death, to what should we be likened?
To the frost by the road that leads to the graveyard,
Vanishing with each step ahead:
This dream of a dream is sorrowful.
Ah, did you count the bell? Of the seven strokes
That mark the dawn six have sounded.
The remaining one will be the last echo
We shall hear in this life. It will echo
The bliss of annihilation.
Farewell, and not to the bell alone,
We look a last time on the grass, the trees, the sky,
The clouds go by unmindful of us,
The bright Dipper is reflected in the water,
The Wife and Husband Stars inside the Milky Way.[1]
- ↑ A Chinese legend, widespread also in Japan, tells how these two stars (also called the Herd Boy and the Weaver Girl) meet once a year on a bridge built by magpies in the sky.
